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The Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Festus Keyamo, has said the election of All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, in 2023 will correct “the June 12, 1993 election anomaly”.
The June 12 1993 presidential election was won by the late philanthropist, Chief M.K.O Abiola. However, the election was annulled by the military junta headed by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (retd), for inconsiderate reasons.
Going down memory lane on Thursday, Keyamo in a series of tweets on his Twitter handle, said that with those currently vying to succeed the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), only the former Lagos State governor was at the forefront of the battle for the June 12 mandate.
The minister alleged that the former vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, was among those who first abandoned the June 12 struggle.
He also alleged that Atiku’s principal, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who became Nigeria’s president in 1999, betrayed the June 12 cause.
According to him, the election of Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2023, a true hero of June 12, will largely address this anomaly of 1999.
He wrote, “No Presidential candidate today had ANYTHING to do with the June 12 struggle (which is the foundation of democracy we are enjoying today) except BAT and (to be honest) Sowore as a student leader, but BAT was more pivotal from exile. Atiku was one of the first to abandon June 12.
“After the June 12 struggle, ‘strangers’ emerged from nowhere and hijacked the democratic train at the center; OBJ who opposed June 12 became the greatest beneficiary of the struggle. The election of BAT in 2023, a true hero of June 12, will largely address this anomaly of 1999
“Some feel the Yorubas weren’t compensated by the election of OBJ in 1999; he wasn’t the choice of the Yorubas because he betrayed the cause of June 12, hence they rejected him at the polls in 1999. The election of BAT in 2023, a June 12 hero, will largely assuage that feeling
“I can speak on these because, apart from defending NADECO leaders in court with my late boss Gani Fawehinmi, on Oct. 1, 1994, we launched the National Conscience movement to fight for June 12, and on June 11, 1995, I along with other comrades were arrested by the DSS and detained
“When I left Gani Fawehinmi late in 1995, I started a youth movement to prevent the self-succession bid of Abacha and to oppose Kanu who was promoting that bid. We were collecting signatures on the streets to petition the UN when we were picked up by the military junta and detained.”
