Lamido claims Tinubu supported annulment of June 12, his mother mobilised market women in support of IBB’s decision

President Bola Tinubu, supported Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s annulment of June 12 election Sule Lamido, Secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), under which the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola won the historic election in 1993, has revealed.

Lamido, also former Governor of Jigawa State, and founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), made the startling disclosure in an exclusive interview with ARISE NEWS television network. He alleged that Tinubu, then a Senator under General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) transition programme only joined in demanding for the validation of the Abiola mandate, when he was thrown out from the Senate with his colleagues.

Lamido, currently among those pushing for the removal of the President in 2027, vowed that he was ready to support any political arrangement or coalition seeking to end the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government, which he accused of incompetence, divisiveness, and betraying the spirit of democracy from office.

“I am part of any arrangement, no matter by whatever nomenclature or name, to remove the current government of incompetency, of insecurity, of dividing Nigerian family between North and South, out of power. I’ll go into any arrangement for that purpose.

“Today in Nigeria, we’ve got a government which is dividing Nigerians along north and south, dividing Nigerians along ethnicity lines, and also using institutions of the state in manipulating and controlling and coercing the opposition.

“So, to me, any arrangement, I’ll be part of any arrangement of any chemistry, any configuration, whatever you may call it, if it’s going to remove this government out of power, because the government for the first time in Nigeria is now a government not for Nigerians, but then for the political party. The entire government today in Nigeria is not for Nigeria, it’s for the political party.”

Dismissing Tinubu’s pro-democracy claim Lamido, argued that the true fighters for June 12 were those who remained in the country to confront the military and not people like Tinubu who ran away into foreign countries.

Re-affirming that the President was aligned with Babangida all true the annulment of Abiola’s election, he said: “He was part of those people who were supporting Babangida’s annulment of June 12. His own mother, Hajiya Mogaji from Lagos, was organising Lagos market women to come to Abuja to pledge support for Babangida. I’m saying this because it’s simply history. I mean no harm. I don’t mean to embarrass him. But you see, he was actively handing gloves to Babangida.

“When Tinubu today, after being a general president, decided to rewrite history, well, trying to maybe deconstruct history and then rewrite it, then it is very, very amusing because he was part of the Babangida support of June 12th. He was part of it. Now, it was only when Abacha took over government that Tinubu then became our so-called activist of June 12th.

“Tinubu is not about Yoruba. Tinubu is about him and him alone, his own interest. And whoever is going to play his own role, who is going to do his own bidding, he’ll bring him. I’ve been saying so. It’s not about Yoruba. All the Yoruba in APC today, in government, are his own boys who are going to do his own bidding, no more, no less. He’s willing to go and bring somebody from the south-south, southeast, or even from the north, so long as they are going to do Tinubu. So Tinubu is behaving like the emperor he is.”

Restating his support for unseating APC, Lamido warned that such a coalition must be issue-based, not motivated by vengeance or personal ambition like the 2014 APC alliance, adding: “The coalition I’m talking about is not similar to what we had in 2014 — a coalition of anger, revenge, hatred, and nothing but ambition. It should be based on national unity, security, economy, and restoring Nigeria’s honour.”