‘Desperate And Hypocritical Gesture’, PDP Lampoons Honours Award To Late MKO Abiola
The Oasis Reporters
June 7, 2018
(top left), who immediately took over, he tried to persuade Chief Abiola in detention to repudiate his rightful mandate. He was then assassinated in detention via lethal poisoning.
The posthumous national award announced six days ahead of the June 12 commemoration of the Chief MKO Abiola’s electoral victory that Buhari’s fellow coupist and successor, General Ibrahim Babangida annulled, with the victor being poisoned to death in military incarceration has received hard and critical knocks from Nigeria’s People’s Democratic Party, PDP.
They called it hypocritical and an act of desperation to lure the south west that Chief Abiola hails from because less than a year to another presidential election, Buhari is attempting to court the favor of the region that swung the electoral contest in his favor a little less than three years ago.
He’s back in civilian garb to undo the wrong they inflicted on democracy, 35 years after.
Press Statement
National Honours: President Buhari’s Action Smacks of Desperation, Hypocrisy
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the national honour proposed to be conferred on the acclaimed winner of June 12, 1993, Chief MKO Abiola, by President Muhammadu Buhari, smacks of hypocrisy and political desperation ahead of 2019 presidential election.
PDP declares that President Buhari’s action merely sought to use the name and person of Chief Abiola to gain a political capital and not out of genuine reverence and recognition for him.
The party recalls that President Buhari, who was serving in the military administration of General Sani Abacha during the travails of Chief MKO Abiola, did not associate either by words or actions with the late winner of June 12 election.
The party further stated that history did not record President Buhari as sympathetic to Bashorun Abiola’s family when his wife, Kudirat, was gruesomely murdered by the agents of a government which President Buhari served.
It is therefore a sign of political desperation for President Buhari to seek to use Chief Abiola’s name as a tool to sway Nigerians in less than twelve months to an election where he, (President Buhari) is seeking a second term.
It is also shocking that the respectable grave of Abiola can be dishonoured by granting a posthumous award on him along with someone who denounced the June 12 mandate and preferred the company of his (Abiola’s) traducers.
Even those who now masquerade as change agents were opposed to the naming of University of Lagos after Chief Abiola.
If President Buhari genuinely wants to honour Chief Abiola, he should do so by ending all anti-democratic proclivities of his administration and allow for the rule of law and respect for our constitution.
The PDP therefore urges President Buhari to shed his desperate actions in his quest to win the 2019 presidential election as Nigerians can no longer be deceived by such antics.
Signed:
Kola Ologbondiyan
National Publicity Secretary
