…Defends father’s legacy

…Sule Lamido suffering memory loss, his June 12 submission dishonest — Dele Alake

Ose Anenih, son of the late elder statesman and former chairman of Social Democratic Party, SDP, during the June 12, 1993, election, Chief Tony Anenih, has rejected claims by the Special Adviser to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, over his father’s role in the June 12 saga.

Recall that former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, had alleged in an interview with Channels Television on Saturday that President Tinubu supported former Military Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida, in annulling the June 12, 1993, election presumably won by late business mogul, Chief MKO Abiola.

But the Presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, in a reaction on Sunday, attacked both Lamido and Tony Anenih who, he claimed, abandoned Chief Abiola in his struggle to take his mandate from the military junta.

However, miffed by the allegation against his father by Onanuga, Anenih’s son, Ose, described Onanuga’s portrayal of his father as ‘’untrue, accusing him of distorting historical facts in an official presidential communication.

His response came on the heels of the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, who described the Jigawa governor as suffering memory loss.

Ose, in a statement on X (formerly Twitter) yesterday, titled “Rebuttal:  in defence of history and my father,’’ said:  Dear Bayo, Your account of my father’s involvement in June 12 is, to put it politely, untrue.

‘’It is disappointing that you chose to use uncouth language to describe Chief Tony Anenih, and in an official communication from ‘the Presidency,’ no less. I will rise above the emotional baiting that this conversation has clearly sparked and will speak only to the truth.

‘’I will also assume that your mischaracterisation of historical events stems from ignorance, not malice. To the facts. Chief Abiola initially fled the country after the annulment of the June 12 presidential elections by General Babangida.

‘’You mentioned that MKO eventually returned. When he did, one of his first visits was to my father, then National Chairman of the SDP, in Benin City. True to form, my father confronted Abiola. He accused him, to his face, of abandoning the party and its supporters in the immediate aftermath of the annulment, while they risked life and limb defending his mandate.

‘’Abiola’s public response? ‘A bird does not tell his friends that the stone is coming.’  My father also told me of another conversation, one in which he warned Abiola that his increasingly close dealings with Gen. Abacha would ultimately destroy his chances of reclaiming his mandate.

‘’At that time, both parties (SDP and NRC) had negotiated for an Interim National Government, with the understanding that it would eventually hand over power to Abiola. MKO walked in step-lock with this arrangement, in fact, strategically ring-fencing a few sensitive ministerial portfolios for himself. ‘’But Abiola perhaps grew impatient of waiting; and decided to pursue a different path. According to Anenih, when he warned Abiola of the folly in trusting the military, Abiola told him: ‘Whether you go by plane or by car, what matters is that you get to Kano.

‘’The ING, to Abiola, was a road trip. Abacha’s military coup, which Abiola publicly encouraged, he regarded as a private jet. Indeed, Abiola was one of the first to visit and congratulate Abacha after he overthrew the ING and seized power.

‘’Now, I am not aware of any animosity that ever existed between my father and President Tinubu. In fact, my father acknowledged that Tinubu had initially spoken out against the delay in announcing the results of the June 12 election.

‘’It was the only time he mentioned Tinubu in his 260 page book. I have no personal knowledge of what role your principal played after that, though I find it curious that you consider his early visit to Abacha, immediately after a coup to remove the ING he (MKO) helped birth, a mark of honour.

‘’Like Lamido said, many of the key players in that chapter of our history like IBB, Abdulsalami, Oyegun, Ikimi, Mark, Ayu, Dele Momodu, and others – including Kola, MKO’s son – are still alive. We are also fortunate that my father wrote his own version of events before he passed.

‘’It is, however, unfortunate that I have had to defend my father’s name against a lie, and doubly unfortunate that that lie was issued in the name of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I had hoped that this level of toxicity left with the former occupant of your office.

‘’I am happy to send you a copy of my father’s memoir, ‘My Life and Nigerian Politics,’ to help you avoid this sort of ahistorical misadventure in future. I’m just surprised, and slightly disappointed, that so much energy is going into the re-telling of a tale that is more than 30 years old.

‘’Of what relevance to the average Nigerian is any of this, today? I truly wish you had used your pen today to issue condolences to the victims of the suicide bombings in Kano and Borno, rather than rewriting history and smearing the dead.’’

Sule Lamido suffering memory loss, his June 12 submission dishonest – Dele Alake

Meanwhile, the Minister of Soluid Minerals, Dele Alake, has said former Jigawa governor, Sule Lamido, was suffering memory loss, following his (Lamido) that Tinubu aided Babangida in annulling the June 12, 1993, eldection.

Speaking in an interview on Arise TV on Sunday, Alake described Lamido’s narrative as “false, revisionist and historically dishonest.”

While insisting that Tinubu was a central figure in the fight to actualise MKO Abiola’s mandate, Alake said:   “I feel very appalled at his own submissions, which I would ascribe largely to selective amnesia at best, or at the very worst, an impairment of the medulla oblongata — or memory loss in layman’s terms.’’

He said it was ironic that Lamido, who was national secretary of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, dared to accuse Tinubu of betrayal when he and the party’s leadership “capitulated to the military”.

Alake said he wrote Abiola’s first public declaration of interest to contest the 1993 election as editor of Sunday Concord, and has first-hand knowledge of the events of the time.

He added that Tinubu was fully committed to the pro-democracy movement before, during, and after the election, restating that the current president played a vital role in persuading Atiku Abubakar to step down for Abiola during the SDP primaries

Alake dismissed Lamido’s claim that Tinubu’s mother, the late Abibatu Mogaji, mobilised support for the annulment, as “completely untrue”.

He said:  “Alhaja Abibat Mogaji was a very prominent and important market leader in Lagos who commanded large following among the women folk and market people in Lagos.

“Obviously, there was no government pre-IBB that did not seek the endorsement or support of Alhaja Mogaji’s large movement in Lagos at the time. Now, Alhaja Mogaji, IBB also, as a government, as a leader, sought the support of the market women.

“However, on the annulment of June 12, I recall vividly that Alhaja Mogaji not only begged IBB, she came to Abuja to kneel down and weep before IBB.

“It was to beg IBB to reverse the annulment, and we were all witnesses anyway to when she left and came back and gave the report. That was what happened.”

Alake said Tinubu not only condemned the annulment as a senator, but also helped organise mass protests against the decision, before Sani Abacha seized power in November 1993.

“Tinubu was one of the organisers and funders of the July 1993 protests,” he said.

“He confronted the military head-on and eventually had to flee the country when Abacha’s regime declared him wanted — dead or alive.”

Alake said Lamido and the late Tony Anenih traded off Abiola’s mandate by endorsing the Interim National Government, ING, set up by Ibrahim Babangida, adding that Tinubu continued to support the struggle from exile, funding the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, and other resistance movements.

He noted that Tinubu even accompanied Abiola to meet Abacha to negotiate a return of the mandate, questioning how someone supposedly supporting Abacha could have done that.

“If Tinubu was loyal to Abacha, would he be confronting him? Why was there an arrest order on him?” he queried.