Women Arise restates position on restructuring

As the nation marks Democracy Day today, a civil society group, Women Arise, has said it has committed June 12, 1993, to memory, stressing that it would never forget or trivialise it.

The president of the group, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, in a statement, yesterday, said, “June 12, 1993, has engaged us in dynamic patterns across generations. When, hopefully, the next election cycle comes in 2023, it would be 30 years of June 12!”

In the statement titled, ‘June 12 is Here Again!’ Okei-Odumakin commended the doggedness of the martyrs, heroes and heroines of the June 12 struggle, including Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, the presumed winner of the election; his wife, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, and others who paid with their lives.

According to her, the current state of the nation shows that a lot still needed to be done, adding that there were troubling questions begging for answers.

Her words: “Are we any closer to real democracy today than we were in June 1993? Has the system of governance positively changed? Are fewer people being killed extra-judicially? Is our ethno-religious climate fairer than that of June 12, 1993, when we had a Muslim-Muslim ticket heavily backed by Christians? Can we have a Christian-Christian ticket today heavily backed by Muslims?

“On June 12, 2020, the 4th statement on our press release was restructuring. We hereby restate that with greater resolve than before. As the country drifts, we strongly urge restructuring in order to save the day but, first, lives must be secured. The current federating units must be quickly empowered to secure their states.

“A nation cannot be failing consistently and still be hoping to prosper. These failures must be arrested because it is a series of failures like this that culminate in state failure. We must emphasise that protests are a key feature of democracy and must not be stifled. Protests are an extension of the right to expression.”