Lagos declares June 12 public holiday

The Lagos State government has Monday, June 12 as public holiday to commemorate the annulment of the 1993 presidential election presumably won by late Moshood Kashimowo Abiola.

 

The state government in a statement signed by Tunji Bello, the secretary to the state government on behalf of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, said the June 12, 1993 presidential election represents a day that the country experienced an election that was adjudged as the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history.

According to the government, 24 years after, the ideals of June 12 are still worth celebrating, describing the day as one of the most defining moments of the country’s political history which has positively shaped its democratic rule.

Ambode said the time has come for Nigerians to go beyond the commemoration and entrench a viable democracy as a way to immortalise the late Moshood Abiola through the practice of true federalism and conduct of credible and fair elections.

 

He said: “June 12, 1993 is a day we must not forget in the annals of our democratic history. Our present democratic experience may still be far from the ideal but we must all make concerted efforts to entrench fiscal federalism which is the only way to achieve true nationhood.”

 

JOSHUA BASSEY