The June 12 Vaudeville




The "June 12 struggle" was an interesting period in Nigeria's history. The story of the struggle goes beyond the election that was annulled and its custodian. And the story of the election and the roles different personages and organisations played in the high drama starts well before the six-year democratic revolution unfurled with the annulment. 

I've written a bit about this important, somewhat tragic, somewhat farcical, but none the less definitive moment in Nigeria's history. One of the two articles one might be interested in looking up are "Nigeria: the six year revolution" which which was first published in 2008 in the Working People's Vanguard and again in 2015 in the Socialist Worker. The other is "The shadow of June 12: June 12, the left and Nigeria's democratic revolution", which was published in the Republic in 2022 and which has been republished in its latest special print issue "Nigeria Imaginary", marking the paper's 20th anniversary issue. 

This year's "June 12" is not one for much words on my part, beyond saluting the radical gallantry of activists that took to the streets across the country, despite the state's repressive antics yet again, and demanding the immediate release of those still being detained, particularly Juwon Sanyaolu, National Coordinator of the Take It Back movement (TIB) who was abducted by the secret police, otherwise constitutionally known as the State Security Service (SSS), but which illegally describes itself as a so-called Department of State Services. 

To these, I only add the poem I wrote on the June 12 vaudeville in my Drafts of Becoming collection.


On June 12 they stood

 

They stood on it, sat on it

ate from it and shat in it.

Beyond their antics

dark clouds gathered.

 

The first trumpet blasted

with hope and illusion

in harmony.

 

The trumpet's second blast shredded fear,

quickened anger, and sparked a fire.

 

Was this judgment day?

Had yesterday's devil become Israfil?

Or was this a concerto of the damned?

 

The ensemble was more than its conductor.

The concert was more than the ensemble.

 

Sea foam of confusion and opportunism

peaked the waves

of a mass storming Olympus.

 

As the false Zeus

played cat and mouse with his father

detritus sucked life

from a cycle of struggle for rebirth.

 

© Baba Aye, 2021, Drafts of Becoming


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