Talking from the position of June 12, I think we cannot rule out the momentum that it created which led to the emergence of democracy in 1999. We cannot ignore the sacrifices, risks, turning paths that many Nigerians passed through in order for this country to emerge as a democratic nation. For those who are too young at that time, they may not be able to appreciate the ups and downs, the travails, the anguish and the agony.
Aborisade, who was accidentally the publisher of June 12 magazine and had been declared wanted, was picked up and taken to the Ikeja cantonment. From there, he was taken to the State Security Service, SSS, and was detained there for 28 days. From there, he was taken to DMI. While being detained, nobody knew he was the publisher of June 12 because June 12 was an albatross of the military. It was an underground publication that was circulated widely in the South-West.
Eventually, I was later released around 2 am, but before then, Omenka called one Captain Idowu ordering him to follow me to my house for a search. If they had followed me, they would have killed me. I was a bachelor at the time and my flat was filled with materials because it was my centre that was used for anti-military activities. We would move from my centre around 2 am to circulate all the materials across the entire South-West. My house was the centre of gravity.
Ironically, Bunmi’s dream was to have a PhD. He was a very poor man who was actually looking for a job in Vanguard. Even though he was the publisher of June 12, he was running it with his own blood. No money, nothing. He was actually looking for a full-time job. He was more or less part of them, but what happened to him was a kind of class betrayal, although some of us were not surprised because Abiola felt that anything he needed from them would be given to him, but they had proven that they didn’t see him as part of them. All along, he was deceived.On the economic level, Abiola had one of the most successful media chains in the country which has collapsed.
Irrespective of the shortcomings, democracy has transformed Nigeria in terms of access to the internet, job creation and expanding the economic and political space. People can now publish their own stories. How many private radio stations did we have under the military? Only one. How many television stations? Only one. Now, the number of radio stations in Lagos is more than 50 and you can imagine what that means in terms of the ability of Nigerians to express themselves.
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