By Our Reporter
ABUJA (PRECISE POST) – The Presidency has come out swinging against former Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, following his explosive comments on national television accusing President Bola Tinubu of backing the annulment of the historic June 12, 1993, presidential election.
In a scathing rebuttal released by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information & Strategy, the Presidency described Lamido’s remarks as “a distortion of history” and a “regrettable attempt at revisionism,” dismissing them as entirely false.
Lamido, a former Secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP)—the very party under which Chief MKO Abiola won the election—claimed Tinubu only became relevant after the emergence of the pro-democracy group NADECO and further alleged that Tinubu’s late mother, Alhaja Abibatu Mogaji, rallied support for the annulment among Lagos market women.
“These allegations are patently false,” Onanuga thundered. “Let us set the record straight: Alhaja Mogaji never mobilised market women to support the unjust annulment. Had she done so, she would have been removed from her position as market leader in Lagos.”
Onanuga then turned the heat on Lamido himself, accusing him and the SDP leadership of betraying the democratic mandate. “Lamido and the then-party chairman Tony Anenih surrendered the people’s mandate without resistance. To their eternal shame, they even aligned with the defeated NRC to rob Abiola of his victory.”
In contrast, he said, Senator Tinubu stood tall during the crisis. Quoting Tinubu’s August 1993 Senate speech, Onanuga reminded Nigerians that Tinubu had condemned the annulment as “another coup d’état” and called on citizens to reject “injustice and lawlessness.”
According to the statement, Tinubu’s pro-democracy credentials are not in question. He allegedly confronted the Abacha regime, was arrested alongside other senators, and continued to fund June 12 protests from detention. Eventually forced into exile, Tinubu supported both NADECO and Wole Soyinka’s NALICON, providing critical resources to keep the struggle alive.
Photographs, Onanuga noted, even show Tinubu standing with Abiola and Abacha in the early days, though the alliance quickly soured when Abacha proved undemocratic.
“While Lamido and his ilk made deals with Abacha, Tinubu’s home was bombed by the junta,” Onanuga added. “He lived in exile for nearly five years. That is the measure of his sacrifice.”
He dismissed Lamido’s acknowledgment of Tinubu’s NADECO role as hollow and accused him of “confusion, envy, and a desperate bid to rewrite history.”
“This revisionism does not serve the cause of truth or our nation’s interest,” the statement concluded. “We don’t want to believe that Lamido suffers from tall poppy syndrome, but the conclusion is inevitable.”
