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The June 12 Mandate Coalition (J12MC) has strongly condemned recent statements made by a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain and a member of the Tinubu Campaign Council, Ṣẹgun Ṣowunmi, regarding the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, describing Ṣowunmi as a “desperately hungry politician and a poor student of history.”
Therefore, the coalition has issued a strict ultimatum urging Ṣowunmi to retract his offensive statement immediately and offer an unreserved apology to the Abiola family and the Nigerian people.
The coalition’s reaction follows what it describes as “an irresponsible and senseless statement” credited to Ṣowunmi, where he asserted that anyone who announces or shows election results in 2027 other than the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will go to prison just like M.K.O. Abiola.
The J12MC noted that not even President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a fellow actor in the June 12 struggle, would ever make such disparaging, insensitive, and reckless comment against the symbol of Nigeria’s current democracy.
In a powerful statement issued today and signed by its National President, Comrade Mark Adebayo – a frontline June 12 activist and author of the 300-page book on Abiola’s June 12 struggles, “Martyred by Killer Owls – M.K.O.” – the coalition lambasted Ṣowunmi for his historical revisionism and opportunism.
“Chief M.K.O. Abiola is universally and officially respected as the hero whose supreme sacrifice and blood birthed the current democratic dispensation that opportunists like Ṣẹgun Ṣowunmi are enjoying today,” Adebayo stated.
“To compare a future regulatory or electoral guidelines warning to the systemic, brutal, and unjust incarceration of the custodian of a stolen sacred mandate is the height of historio-political illiteracy.”
The coalition reminded the public that “Chief Abiola’s popular mandate, freely given by Nigerians in the historic June 12, 1993 election, was criminally annulled by military dictatorship.
“Abiola was entirely justified, legally and morally, in declaring himself president and fighting for the actualisation of that mandate. He did so with unmatched courage and paid the ultimate price, refusing to compromise the will of the Nigerian people. He was never a coward like a Ṣowunmi.”
The J12MC stated that it would not stand by while the legacy of Nigeria’s greatest democratic martyr was desecrated by individuals seeking cheap political relevance.
“Consequently, the coalition has issued a strict ultimatum: Ṣẹgun Ṣowunmi must retract his offensive statement immediately and offer an unreserved apology to the Abiola family and the Nigerian people.
“Failure to do so will result in an immediate and indefinite ban of Ṣẹgun Ṣowunmi from attending or participating in any civil society gathering or pro-democracy event nationwide.
“Henceforth and until further notice, this political scavenger is declared a persona non grata in Nigeria’s Civil Society circles”, concludes the statement.
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