Former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, on Wednesday expressed satisfaction that Osun State is being placed in the vanguard of progressive states in the country with its innovations and declaration of June 12 as a public holiday.
Specifically, the former US envoy listed the recent unveiling of Opon Imo (Tablet of Knowledge) as an innovative strategy to put Osun State’s students on the forefront of digital age.
Carrington spoke in Osogbo, the Osun capital, at the 20th anniversary of the June 12 presidential election, which was won by Bashorun Moshood Abiola.
His speech was read by a member of the Senate, Prof. Sola Adeyeye.
This was just as Governor Rauf Aregbesola said the crisis that was precipitated by the annulment of June 12 election, brought to the fore the fundamental flaws in the Nigerian polity.
Carrington said: “I would also like to thank Ogbeni for remembering what too many states seem too willing to forget. It seems that only four others stand with Osun today in declaring this Twentieth Anniversary of June 12th a public holiday.
“Once again Governor you have placed Osun in the vanguard of Nigeria’s most progressive states. Just recently you showed the country, in a most innovative way, how the dividends of democracy can benefit a new generation through the launching of the Opon-Imo programme which will put your students in the forefront of the digital age.”
Aregbesola, in his address titled: “June 12 and the National Question”, said the crises that emanated from the annulment of the June 12 election brought to the fore the fundamental political cracks of Nigeria’s polity.
Aregbesola pointed out that the annulment revealed in a most brazen manner the problem of unjust political domination and the need to restructure Nigeria’s political system and redefine the basis of the country’s national existence.
According to him: “This is a central concern of what is generally described as the national question. It is also the basis of the widespread call for convening a sovereign national conference to renegotiate the basis of our nationhood.
“The national question remains unaddressed and we are still grappling with the drawbacks. Yet the national ruling power establishment continues to live in denial of this reality, and pretending as though the problems are not there, or nursing the futile hope that the problems will simply disappear, of their accord.”
Aregbesola added that the problems are not meant to disappear but to be addressed, noting that for as long as the country refuses to summon the courage to face the problems, Nigeria will continue to struggle with the consequences.
The governor held that June 12 anniversary is not about Chief Abiola as a person or as a Yoruba man, but about a true Nigerian who loved Nigerians without qualification or discrimination.
He added that on June 12, 1993, Chief Abiola achieved what no other politician had ever achieved in the country, which is the unity of Nigerians.
In his word: “June 12 and Chief Abiola represent a great lesson for Nigeria in nation building. They are a metaphor for the plausibility of unity in the country; that if we work hard at it, we can find worthy causes with which the people can identify and around which they can truly unite. This is the great lesson Chief Abiola has taught us in nationhood.”
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