Veteran journalist and former Senator for Ekiti Central, Babafemi Ojudu, has dismissed allegations that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu betrayed...
Veteran journalist and former Senator for Ekiti Central, Babafemi Ojudu, has dismissed allegations that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu betrayed the June 12 democratic struggle, describing the claims as “revisionist, mischievous, and politically motivated.”
Ojudu, a former Special Adviser on Political Matters to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari and a prominent figure in Nigeria’s 1990s pro-democracy movement, said Tinubu’s role in the June 12 struggle was marked by courage and sacrifice, not personal ambition or collusion.
Speaking during a television appearance, Ojudu refuted claims that Tinubu collaborated with the military regimes of Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha, insisting that the president was among those who resisted dictatorship.
“As soon as IBB annulled that election, Tinubu rose up with others and began to fight,” Ojudu recalled. “He was arrested, locked up at Alagbon Close under harsh conditions. I visited him there several times. You cannot describe someone like that as working with the military.”
He said the fight for the actualisation of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, believed to have been won by Chief MKO Abiola, involved great personal risk, and Tinubu stood firmly with those who sought to restore democracy in Nigeria.
“He took a lot of risks. He put in a lot of resources. He was single-minded in his determination to ensure the military was ousted. There are things he did that history will later recount,” Ojodu said.
Ojodu’s comments come amid rising controversy triggered by recent remarks by Kola Abiola, son of the late MKO Abiola, alleging that Tinubu entered into negotiations with the Abacha regime in exchange for a political position in Lagos.
“That is not true,” Ojodu replied. “There was no negotiation made with Abacha during that period that Abiola was not part of. Abacha negotiated with Abiola, with Tinubu, with top members of the civil society and media chiefs. He offered to validate June 12 and swear in Abiola after cleaning up the military. The mistake we made was believing Abacha. We didn’t know he was playing a game of deception.”
He described the late dictator as a master of subterfuge who manipulated even the most determined pro-democracy advocates with false promises.
“Abacha deceived everybody,” he declared. “He promised to make some politicians deputy governors to military administrators just to buy time and sow confusion. But when we saw that he wouldn’t deliver, the fight against him intensified.”
Ojodu, who recently published his memoir, Adventures of a Guerrilla Journalist, also lambasted former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido for what he termed an attempt to diminish the role of key actors in the democratic struggle.
“What Lamido did was not quite right,” Ojodu said. “Honour should be given to whom it is due. If Lamido and his political group had been part of the struggle, people would not have referred to June 12 as a Yoruba affair. They handed over power to the military and rubbished that election.”
On calls to immortalise June 12 heroes, Ojodu said the real honour should be the delivery of democratic dividends to Nigerians.
“I didn’t go into that trouble for honour,” he said when asked why his name was omitted from the list of recent national honourees. “The honour we seek is satisfaction in what we did. My concern is that the President should honour Nigerians with good governance.”
No comments