The former Speaker of Ondo State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Jumoke Akindele has called on all the Yoruba race in Nigeria not to be carried away with the posthumous award of GCFR bestowed on the late M. K. O Abiola by the Muhammadu Buhari led administration.
The former speaker, Rt. Hon. Akindele, described the award as “wicked and manipulative” which she said was a cheap attempt to be used as supreme sacrifice to score some unearned political point.
Akindele dropped this hint through a message she pasted on her facebook page early today.
The full statement read undited:
JUNE 12 DEMOCRACY DAY?
I AM NOT IMPRESSED.
I received with consternation the news that PMB has CHANGED the May 29th Democracy Day to June the 12th to honour our fallen hero, Aare MKO Abiola.
It is not that I’m unhappy about the fact that Abiola is acknowledged. It is the cheap attempt to use his supreme sacrifice to score some unearned political points that I find nauseating.
Buhari was an active part of the Abacha administration that incarcerated MKO FOR several years. It is instructive that throughout that struggle, the voice of Buhari who at the time was already an elder statesman having ruled as Head of State and retired at the time was not heard on the issue. He was deathly silent.
He found his voice when the Abacha Administration made him Chair the PTF and Abacha became his hero. The same Abacha had Abiola incarcerated for several years until his inglorious passing of June 8 1998. At no time is Buhari on record to have appealed to Abacha to do right by Abiola.
This same Buhari has been President for three years, has celebrated four May 29th Democracy Days. At no time did he deem it fit to even acknowledge Abiola as a hero of our democratic experience.. Now one year to another election, ten days after honouring the only day he truly believes in and possibly his very last as President now wants to gift us with some posthumous awards for our heroes in the SW of Nigeria. I cannot be fooled .
To water the award down and to show us how PMB ‘s mind is truly working, he also gives the same award to turncoat Kingibe who was feared to have colluded with the Abacha Administration to scuttle the mandate that was so freely and glaringly given by Nigerians. Even Kingibe’s die-hard supporters with all the charity they could muster could only say he was lukewarm at best. Yet PMB places him on the same pedestal with AARE ABIOLA!
The Abiola family can go and collect the award but if the dead could speak, I feel certain that Abiola would tell them that he has no need and certainly no use for the Greek gift.
As for my fellow Yorubas, let me ask this of you: surely you are not so foolish as to be taken in by this wicked and manipulative gift, are you?
As for me, I say it again;
I AM NOT IMPRESSED.
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