Former Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, has said no amount of reconstruction can obliterate the truth about the true heroes of the June 12, 1993 struggle.
Lamido, who was the National Secretary of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP), the platform on which Chief MKO Abiola stood for and presumably won the election, said this on page 177 of his autobiography: “Being True To Myself” unveiled to the public in May.
He said, “Amusingly, all known June 12 activists who were then docile or ‘side-on look’ or who had taken refuge outside Nigeria for fear of Abacha are now among those celebrating and claiming the victory of June 12.
“And those who resisted every effort by Babangida to continue after annulling June 12, as well as those who fought Abacha, are now shamelessly being ignored, all in an attempt to rewrite history.
“No amount of deconstruction and reconstruction can stand history on its head and bury the truth.
“It must be clearly understood that there was June 11 before June 12. All the heroes listed in the speech by President Tinubu on the 2024 Democracy Day Speech – none but a very few were in SDP on June 11.
“In the campaigns we undertook in all the states of the federation, none of them were there, not even President Tinubu himself. Babagana Kingibe can attest to this.
“All of these interlocutors have no idea how Abiola defeated Bashir Tofa in Kano, even at his polling unit.
“The June 12 was a national accomplishment. The elements in NADECO simply snatched away the finished product at the end of the mill and, by so doing, sectionalized, trivialized, and diminished an otherwise national sacrifice, bereft of today’s religious, regional, ethnic, and ephemeral politics, especially an EMILOKAN claim. Typical of their character, they believed more in the bathwater than the baby.”