We must not take Nigeria’s democracy for granted, says Tinubu

• Celebration of June 12, a proof of triumph, says Jime
• Ukeje describes Nigeria as a failed nation
The All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has urged Nigerians not to take the democracy presently enjoyed in the country for granted or do anything to threaten its existence as it was not won on a peaceful and comfortable platter of gold.

Tinubu said June 12 should serve as a continual reminder to Nigerians on the imperative of pursuing the cause of justice in all spheres of life as a necessary condition for peace, prosperity and progress.The party leader noted that May 29 does not carry the weight of significance that June 12 carries in the country’s democratic sojourn.

Tinubu said this yesterday in a statement entitled “June 12: The Truth that Sets Democracy Free in Our Land’, released by his Media Adviser, Mr. Tunde Rahman, in Lagos. He said that what was being commemorated on May 29 of every year since 1999 was the handover of power from the military regime to the elected civilian administration.

According to him, June 12 coincides with the day that the seed of today’s democratic sprouting was sown 26 years ago.In a similar vein, the APC governorship candidate in Benue State in the concluded 2019 election, Emmanuel Jime, has stated that the revisit and celebration of the aborted June 12 election by the present Federal Government is a proof that democracy will always triumph in Nigeria.

Jime, in a statement made available to The Guardian, maintained that the day marks a rebirth and also a proof that the collective will of a people, no matter how long it is delayed, cannot be truncated.

Meanwhile, a former University of Benin (UNIBEN) and National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) leader during the June 12, 1993 struggle, Festus Ukeje, has described Nigeria as a failed nation, insisting that the full mandate of over 50 million Nigerian students must be sustained.

Ukeje, better known in Delta State political circle as June 12, yesterday in Warri embarked on a one-man protest against what he described as “grave injustice meted out to late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, his wife, the late Kudirat and the entire believers of truth and justice who died during the struggle for the validation of his mandate freely given by Nigerians irrespective of tribe and religion.”

The immediate past Special Assistant to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa on Political Matters maintained: “The stolen mandate by the enemies of the nation was a heinous crime as the annulment of June 12, which was the will of the Nigerian people to chose their leader, remains a spiritual mandate that no one can stop, erase or kill and this is the reason for most unfortunate situation the country is passing through today.

“Chief Abiola is not even the issue, but the sacred mandate of the people is the matter of the moment; regrettably, Nigeria has since become a failed nation because our leaders have failed the people in all its ramifications.”He contended that one of the ways out of our nation’s quagmire is the constitution of a Sovereign National Conference where all the ethnic nationalities should come together and chart the way forward for the country to be strongly united.