Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and ex-Governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido, has taken a swipe at President Bola Tinubu and others whom he accuses of hijacking the legacy of the June 12 struggle while sidelining its true heroes.
In a fiery excerpt from his memoir “Being True to Myself” (p. 177), Lamido lamented that those who braved the dangers of Nigeria’s darkest military era and resisted tyranny at home have been erased from the national memory.
“President Tinubu and others who are now championing June 12 and celebrating it have completely forgotten about the real actors of the era who stayed put and refused to run away for fear of the military,” Lamido wrote.
He argued that many of those now hailed as democracy icons played little or no part in the resistance following the annulment of the 1993 presidential election won by Chief Moshood Abiola. Lamido accused them of fleeing abroad while others faced the wrath of military regimes under Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha.
“Amusingly, all known June 12 activists, who were then docile or ‘sidon look,’ or who had taken refuge outside Nigeria for fear of Abacha, are now among those celebrating and claiming the victory of June 12,” he added.
The founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the narrative of June 12 has been distorted, with genuine patriots who risked their lives now excluded from public recognition.
“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,” he said. “No amount of deconstruction or reconstruction to stand history on its head can bury the truth.”
Lamido took direct aim at President Tinubu’s 2024 Democracy Day speech, questioning the inclusion of certain names he claims had no tangible role in the pro-democracy struggle.
“It must be clearly understood that there was June 11 before June 12,” he said, emphasizing that the groundwork for the 1993 election victory was laid by unsung heroes.
He further claimed that Tinubu and others now seen as champions of democracy were nowhere to be found during nationwide campaign tours for Abiola under the Social Democratic Party (SDP). “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,” Lamido asserted.
The former governor also criticized the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), accusing its members of turning what was a national cause into a regional crusade.
“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,” he stated.
Lamido concluded with a warning against what he described as the ethnic framing of the June 12 legacy: “They believed more in the bath water than the baby.”