The narrative of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a prominent activist during Nigeria’s military era has been openly challenged by Omoyele Sowore, a human rights activist, who asserts that Tinubu’s past actions do not align with the definition of genuine activism.
Speaking on Channels Televisio Rubbin’ Minds on Sunday, Sowore contended that the President’s participation in politics and subsequent exile did not equate to the on-the-ground struggle faced by many.
“Your president was never an activist,” Omoare stated, directly refuting the common portrayal.
He said that genuine activism involves direct, personal risk and visible participation in protests and defiance.
“Participating in politics, partisan politics and being left out of what was supposed to be an arrangement between them and the military is not activism,” he argued. “It wasn’t. The people who did activism, you know them, they have name, they have addresses, you see their videos.” Sowore drew a sharp contrast, recalling his own involvement from a young age: “Even when I was 21 years old, you could see me behind that bill that’s activism. You could see me leading protests. That’s activism. You see, people go to jail.
“So people like Tinubu who said, ‘Oh, they want to come and bomb my house.’ And the next day, he’s out of the country, and we never saw them until 1999 when we had driven away the military. They’re not people you should call activists.”
The activist further contended that the aftermath of the June 12, 1993, election inadvertently created an environment for opportunists as well as corrupt people to emerge and claim a role they did not earn.
“It provided opportunists, you know, corrupt people, notice me people, everybody came because June 12 provided that and people started leaving the June 12th scene based on what they could grab,” he said.
He also pointed to what he described as enduring ties between some current political figures and former military leaders. “Some of the closest friends of the APC people, the ACN people, are still the military people. They are their best friends. Babangida is best friend of Tinubu. Abdul Salam is Tinubu’s best friend,” Sowore claimed.
He cited an instance in 1999 when, after leaving Nigeria, he protested an international award arranged for Abdulsalami Abubakar by Tinubu’s associates in Chicago, which later led to a lawsuit against Abubakar.
“They are their friends, they are their partners in this business of creating the impression that they fought for Nigeria,” he said.
Sowore urged for a “categorisation of fighters” to distinguish “who is real and who is not real.”
THE GUARDIAN
