The Minister of State for Labour, Festus Keyamo SAN, took to his twitter handle to blackmail the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 general elections, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, over the annulled June 12 presidential election saga. Keyamo said that Atiku was one of the first Nigerians to abandon the June 12 struggle.
The minister stated that Atiku and other candidates for the 2023 presidential election did nothing about the annulled June 12 presidential election, except the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and Sowore.
The minister also stated former President Olusegun Obasanjo was a principal beneficiary of the June 12 struggle in 1999, which he initially opposed. He declared that Tinubu’s victory in 2023 would correct the error of picking Obasanjo in 1999.
Meanwhile, Keyamo had forgotten that when there was stalemate at the presidential primary election of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), between M.K.O. Abiola, Babagana Kingibe and Atiku Abubakar, on the intervention of late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Atiku stepped down for Abiola, ordered his supporters to vote for Abiola in the runoff election between Kingibe and Abiola. Abiola eventually won the SDP ticket. Even when Abiola picked Kingibe as running mate, Atiku still supported Abiola in the 1993 presidential election won by the SDP.
Keyamo also forgot that President Muhammadu Buhari was never involved in the struggle for the actualization of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election; he even took up appointment as the chairman of PTF in the military regime led by General Sani Abacha as Head of State. Yet, he became president on the platform of the Keyamo’s party, APC, for eight years.
Also, prominent politicians from the southwest accepted ministerial appointments from the Abacha administration while the June 12 struggle was going on.
Keyamo had in a series of tweets, written: “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 & (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.”