June 12: an opportunity to rectify wrongs – Obi

By Pat PA Okon

The former Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, has commended President Mohammadu Buhari for the decision he took  on June 12, saying that the primary lesson inherent in that move is that no time is long or overdue to rectify wrongs and mistakes of yesterday.                                                     
Obi was speaking yesterday with journalists at the  Local Wings of Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos.

Obi advised the President to go a step further and rectify what he called “other wrongs that were by-products of June 12 and  punctuated our democratic journey”.                                                   

He said the Presidency should also consider all those that suffered various degrees of wrongs and deprivation as a result of June 12 and Nigeria’s tortuous democratic journey.                       
Obi specifically mentioned names such as Prof. Humphrey Nwosu;  Gen. Musa Yar’Adua who also died in prison; Gen. Akinrinade; Dan Suleiman whose property were burnt to the ground, as well as Chief Ralph Obioha, whose African Trust Bank, Safari Brewery, Vegetable Oil Company, Cement Company came under heavy attack, from which he has not recovered from till this day.

Enlisting the death of  Ken Saro Wiwa as one wrong that needed rectification,  he also said: “Of course, we all know the exodus of the Igbos from Lagos during those turbulent times from which many of them lost their lives and means of livelihood.                       
Comprehensive efforts towards correcting the ills of June 12 must look at such cases.”

Concluding, Obi called on Nigerians to look beyond the external gestures being expressed now to the lessons inherent in them, one of which, according to him, is that the survival of democracy requires sustained  and patriotic sacrifices by all Nigerians, especially the leaders.