The Peoples Democratic Party says the national honour proposed to be conferred on the acclaimed winner of June 12, 1993, Chief MKO Abiola, by President Muhammadu Buhari, smacks of hypocrisy and political desperation ahead of 2019 presidential election.
PDP said that President Buhari’s action merely sought to use the name and person of Abiola to gain a political capital and not out of genuine reverence and recognition for him.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday and signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, the party recalled that President Buhari, who was serving in the military administration of General Sani Abacha during the travails of Abiola, did not associate either by words or actions with the late winner of June 12election.
Ologbondiyan further stated that history did not record President Buhari as sympathetic to the Abiola’s family when his wife, Kudirat, was gruesomely murdered by the agents of a government which President Buhari served.
He said, “It is, therefore, a sign of political desperation for President Buhari to seek to use Chief Abiola’s name as a tool to sway Nigerians in less than twelve months to an election where he, (President Buhari) is seeking a second term.
“It is also shocking that the respectable grave of Abiola can be dishonoured by granting a posthumous award on him along with someone who denounced the June 12 mandate and preferred the company of his (Abiola’s) traducers.