The minister of solid minerals development, Dele Alake, says Sule Lamido, former governor of Jigawa, is suffering from memory loss.
On Saturday, Lamido claimed that President Bola Tinubu supported the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
Speaking during an Arise Television interview on Sunday, Alake described Lamido’s narrative as “false, revisionist and historically dishonest”.
The minister insisted that Tinubu was a central figure in the fight to actualise MKO Abiola’s mandate.
“I feel very appalled at his own submissions, which I would ascribe largely to selective amnesia at best, or at the very worst, an impairment of the medulla oblongata — or memory loss in layman’s terms,” Alake said.
He said it was ironic that Lamido, who was national secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), dared to accuse Tinubu of betrayal when he and the party’s leadership “capitulated to the military”.
Alake said he wrote Abiola’s first public declaration of interest to contest the 1993 election as editor of Sunday Concord, and has first-hand knowledge of the events of the time.
He added that Tinubu was fully committed to the pro-democracy movement before, during, and after the election, restating that the current president played a vital role in persuading Atiku Abubakar to step down for Abiola during the SDP primaries.
Alake dismissed Lamido’s claim that Tinubu’s mother, the late Abibatu Mogaji, mobilised support for the annulment, as “completely untrue”.
“Alhaja Abibat Mogaji was a very prominent and important market leader in Lagos who commanded large following among the women folk and market people in Lagos,” he said.
“Obviously, there was no government pre-IBB that did not seek the endorsement or support of Alhaja Mogaji’s large movement in Lagos at the time. Now, Alhaja Mogaji, IBB also, as a government, as a leader, sought the support of the market women.
“However, on the annulment of June 12, I recall vividly that Alhaja Mogaji not only begged IBB, she came to Abuja to kneel down and weep before IBB.
“It was to beg IBB to reverse the annulment, and we were all witnesses anyway to when she left and came back and gave the report. That was what happened.”
Alake said Tinubu not only condemned the annulment as a senator, but also helped organise mass protests against the decision, before Sani Abacha seized power in November 1993.
“Tinubu was one of the organisers and funders of the July 1993 protests,” he said.
“He confronted the military head-on and eventually had to flee the country when Abacha’s regime declared him wanted — dead or alive.”
Alake said Lamido and the late Tony Anenih traded off Abiola’s mandate by endorsing the Interim National Government (ING) set up by Ibrahim Babangida.
The minister said Tinubu continued to support the struggle from exile, funding the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and other resistance movements.
He noted that Tinubu even accompanied Abiola to meet Abacha to negotiate a return of the mandate, questioning how someone supposedly supporting Abacha could have done that.
“If Tinubu was loyal to Abacha, would he be confronting him? Why was there an arrest order on him?” he asked.
Bayo Onanuga, presidential spokesperson, had also accused Lamido of trying to rewrite history for political reasons.
“Alhaji Lamido’s claims represent a distortion of history and a regrettable attempt at revisionism,” he said.
The president’s aide said Tinubu’s contributions to the June 12 struggle are well-documented.
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