PDP to Buhari: Posthumous Award on Abiola Does Not Make You a Democrat

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has told President Muhammadu Buhari
that bestowing a posthumous national award on the acclaimed winner of 
the June 12, 1993 Presidential election and democratic icon, Chief MKO 
Abiola, does not make him (Buhari) a democrat.

The PDP supports in full, any honour done by the nation to the memory of 
Chief Abiola and all that he stood for, but rejects the inclination by 
President Buhari to use the occasion to posture as a democrat and 
desperately seeking to garner votes ahead of 2019 Presidential election.

This is because the Buhari Presidency has unapologetically violated and 
still violating, with gross impunity, all democratic tenets for which 
Chief Abiola suffered, died and is being honoured.

Nigerians still hold that President Buhari has not considered it 
necessary to apologize for staging the military coup that destroyed 
democratic governance on December 31, 1983, suspended our 1979 
Constitution, foisted siege mentality on Nigerians and set the stage for 
a long despotic military rule for which Chief Abiola, his dear wife, 
Kudirat and other democratic martyrs ended up paying the supreme 
sacrifice to restore.

Rather than apologising for his roles in those dark ages, President 
Buhari recently boasted of violation of human rights during his regime 
as military head of state including locking up citizens in prison 
without trial; the same injustice which Chief Abiola later suffered 
under General Sani Abacha.

This is a leader under whose current watch our democracy has been 
subjected to the worst kind of abuses as even documented by 
international bodies, including the United States Department of State, 
Amnesty International (AI) and Transparency International (TI).

Chief Abiola, in his life time, stood for personal liberty of citizens, 
particularly, the right to aspire for any position; respect for 
constitutional order and principle of separation of powers, national 
cohesion as well as a free press, all of which were upheld by the PDP.

It is however a notorious fact that all these freedoms are being 
trampled and strangulated under this Buhari Presidency, even as the 
national cohesion, which was the watershed of the June 12 election, is 
being daily assailed under the watch of President Buhari.

While the PDP congratulates the family of late Chief Abiola and other 
martyrs of democracy, we also remember the roles of the late Senator 
Abraham Adesanya, Bagauda Khalto, Dan Suleiman, Raph Obiorah, Alex 
Ibru, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, Pa Ajayi Laniwun and a host of others, as well as 
the Management and Staff of the Concord, Guardian, Vanguard, Punch and 
other media houses, who suffered undue hardships for our nation to 
attain this democracy.

PDP therefore urges the Buhari Presidency to save the nation the 
international opprobrium of attempting to use the event for political 
capital and to posture President Buhari as a democrat, whereas his 
Presidency has an unparalleled disdain for democracy and democrats.