June 14 Nigeria program

[Mira Tanna <mvtanna@artsci.wustl.edu>]

  On June 14, 1997, St. Louisans gathered to recognize the 4th anniversary
  of the annulled elections in Nigeria, won by Chief Moshood Abiola, and
  the anniversary of the death of Kudirat Abiola. To address the crowd of
  125 people was the daughter of Chief Moshood & Kudirat Abiola, Hafsat.
  Hafsat is the director and founder of the Kudirat Institute for Nigerian
  Democracy, or KIND.
  
  The program began with a showing of the film _Delta Force_ and a
  traditional Nigerian dinner. MOSOP vice president Noble Obani-Nwibari
  always reminds us here that good food sustains activism, and we wanted to
  be sure this group of activists, intellectuals, and dissidents was
  prepared for a long fight.
  
  Then Hafsat began to tell the history of her people, asking her elders to
  fill in any gaps they heard in her story. She told of colonization and
  independence, and the great hopes for her country that were dashed with
  the first military takeover. Many of these hopes resurfaced on June 12,
  1993, when her father was elected president of Nigeria. Though ethnic
  lines have always split the country, her father won even in the Hausa
  region, where his opponent was from. This was thanks to the help of
  Hafsat's mother who, though brought up in strict Muslim purdah, began to
  speak at women's rallies in the north, promising the women that her
  husband would be a champion of women's rights (while her father, standing
  beside her mother and not understanding the reasons for the cheering,
  would nod and smile at the crowd). As we all know, Chief Abiola was not
  allowed to take power, and has been sitting in prison since mid-1994.
  "Kudi" was killed in June 1996. Hafsat recalled how she pointedly told CNN
  reporters that if Abacha really wanted to find the killer of her mother,
  that he should begin by looking in the mirror. Now persona non grata in
  Nigeria, Hafsat has been campaigning in the United States for democracy in
  Nigeria, not simply electoral democracy, but for the creation of a
  functioning civil society which is necessary for any real democratic
  process.
  
  Hafsat ended by challenging the audience to take a role in the movement
  for a democratic Nigeria. "The difference is going to be you--each
  person that is sitting in this room--because unless you let your
  government know that the people in Nigeria matter as much as you do, my
  people will just be like the slaves were in the times of slavery,
  something to be exchanged for wealth. In that time, what was being sold
  was people themselves, but now its oil. If you don't speak, all the steps
  that we've taken for democracy, all of the sacrifices that we've made will
  be for nothing, because nothing will be achieved so long as that
  government controls $12 billion a year...If you speak to your
  Congressional representatives, if you speak to your local council, the
  Nigerian military will feel it because there won't be any money anymore
  for them to damn the people of Nigeria, to shame us, and to kill our
  dreams."
  
  Several panelists echoed her call to action. Noble Obani-Nwibari, vice
  president of MOSOP, called on Nigerians to work together across ethnic
  lines. Wahab Dosunmu, former minister of housing and the environment and
  leader of NADECO, told of his last memories of Kudirat Abiola before she
  was killed. Marcel Esubi, president of the Nigerian Cultural Association,
  called on "non-political" Nigerian immigrants to join the struggle for
  democracy. Many Nigerians who have lived in this country for decades have
  been apathetic for too long.
  
  The evening was not without controversy. Several audience members
  challenged Mr. Dosunmu and Ms. Abiola, who had enjoyed privilege in
  Nigeria, to not be satisfied until real democracy was achieved. Hafsat
  answered that, had historical circumstances not placed her in this
  position, she didn't know whether she would have had as much concern for
  the poor. Her family gave out charity, but was not really involved in
  social change. But now, having been activated by circumstance, she was
  committed to a democracy that was for everybody, not only the elite, and
  for a system which could deal with the rising poverty Nigerians found
  themselves in. Challenges were thrown back to the audience, to not be
  content at criticizing others, but to work together until there was real
  democracy in Nigeria.
  
  After the program had formally ended, a group of Nigerians gathered around
  Hafsat Abiola to strategize and to figure out how they could be involved
  in the struggle for freedom in their country.
  
  The program was audio and video taped and sent to Radio Kudirat for
  broadcast. Petitions supporting a city-wide selective purchasing ordinance
  were signed.
  
  The program, Nigeria: Democracy Denied, was organized by the St.
  Louis Support Committee for MOSOP/MOSOP, Missouri, and co-sponsored by the
  American Friends Service Committee, Washington University's African &
  Afro-American Studies Program, the World Affairs Council of Greater St.
  Louis, the Nigerian Cultural Association and the United Nations
  Association. 
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  Mira Tanna
  AFSC, St. Louis
  mvtanna@artsci.wustl.edu