Nigeria: The Politics of June 12: The Public Holiday and the Annulment

Okon E. Udoh & Chike S. Nwoko

Download article picture_as_pdf

Abstract

This paper examined the government’s rationalisation for the declaration of June 12 as a national public holiday in Nigeria. June 12 is a significant date in Nigeria, being the date on which the annulment of the presidential election of 1993 took place. The identified problem is that while Nigerians have accepted June 12 as a national public holiday, and whereas many commentators, researchers and writers have written on the decision by the Federal government to shift democracy day from May 29 to June 12 to commemorate the annulment of the presidential election of June 12, 1993, none of them has written on the politics behind those declarations. In the course of the investigation, some questions were asked. They included: if the winner of the 1993 presidential election had been Alh Tofa, would IBB have annulled it, and why did Buhari declare June 12 a public holiday, 8 months to the 2019 general election? Adopting the historical methodology of political inquiry and decision-making frame of analysis, it was concluded that in admitting that Chief Abiola won the June 12, 1993, presidential election after 25 years and declaring June 12 as a national public holiday (8 months to the 2019 general election), Buhari and his administration were not benevolent but conscious of their interests.

Authors

Read more