Oseh Anenih's attempt to exonerate his father, the late Tony Anenih, of the allegations against him by presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga has been rubbished by facts issued by Remi, who goes by the handle @tolutee, on X.

MyNigeria reported that Onanuga accused Oseh's father of abandoning the winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, MKO Abiola, by siding with the military government that annulled the election.

Reacting, Oseh issued a statement to rubbish Onanuga's claim about his father's role in the annulment of the election.

Reacting, Remi issued a fact-check analysis to prove that the presidential spokesperson was right about Anenih being in cahoots with the military.

Read Remi's analysis below.

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You wrote:

“Chief Abiola initially fled the country after the annulment of the June 12 presidential elections by Gen. Babangida. When he eventually returned, one of his first visits was to my father… My father accused him, to his face, of abandoning the party and its supporters… Abiola’s public response?
‘A bird does not tell his friends that the stone is coming.’”

Fact #1:

M.K.O. Abiola left Nigeria on August 4, 1993, and did not return until September 24, 1993.
If your father told you that he was loyal to the June 12 mandate at the time of Abiola’s return, then either he lied to you, or he had selective amnesia, or was willfully mischievous. I advise you to look beyond “my father told me” and consult primary accounts from actors like Frank Kokori, Prof. Omo Omoruyi, Segun Osoba, and others who witnessed these events first-hand.
Here are the facts according to Omoruyi’s “The Tale of June 12”:

· On June 4, the SDP in its Benin forum firmly rejected the Interim National Government (ING) and any plan to hold a new election. This forum was convened by the Senate President, Professor Iyorchia Ayu.
· By July 7, however, everything had changed. In active connivance with IBB, your father — Tony Anenih — along with Alhaji Sule Lamido, orchestrated a treacherous volte-face that (a) jettisoned the June 12 election, (b) abandoned Abiola and party supporters, and (c) traded the party's integrity for proximity to power.
· The fruit of this betrayal was a joint communiqué with the NRC endorsing IBB’s ING plan - one that Abiola, SDP Governors, and lawmakers were never consulted on.
· Omoruyi further wrote that your father and Lamido were "just too willing to ditch the President-Elect," and became "civilian components of the IBB clique."
The truth is this: Your father had already sold out the June 12 mandate before Abiola even boarded a plane. To now blame Abiola’s absence for the collapse of the struggle is not only absurd, but also ahistorical.

Claim #2:
You wrote:

“My father also told me...he warned Abiola that his increasingly close dealings with Gen. Abacha would ultimately destroy his chances of reclaiming his mandate...that both parties (SDP and NRC) had negotiated for an Interim National Government with the understanding that it would eventually hand over power to Abiola…”

Fact #2:

Your father was hardly an honest broker. Here are the facts:

· Following the July 7th pact with the NRC and the military government, a tripartite committee was established, and on August 5, one day after Abiola left the country, it published its final report. That report, co-signed by your father and Sule Lamido, had the following among its conclusions:

“The Interim National Government will arrange for, plan, and conduct free and fair elections at all levels culminating into [sic] a peaceful transition from Military [sic] to a democratically elected President." (Omoruyi, p.229)

That is not a plan to restore Abiola’s stolen mandate. It is a plan for new elections, a direct contradiction of the June 12 mandate.

· Amos Idakula, the SDP’s Publicity Secretary, was equally blunt. In an interview published in West Africa(September 1993), he stated that insisting on June 12 was “futile,” and that the party had opted for the ING instead. (Diamond et al., Transitions Without End, p.290).

· Even more damning, Omoruyi revealed the real agenda: your father and Lamido bypassed their party to cut a deal with Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. The plan was to use the ING as a bridge to a 1994 presidential election, where Yar’Adua, not Abiola, would run. (Omoruyi, p.266)

· To smooth the way, they - your father and Lamido - and the Yar’Adua faction in the National Assembly engineered the unconstitutional removal of the Senate President, Professor Iyorchia Ayu, who opposed this scheme because of his commitment to June 12. (Omoruyi p.266).

Your father’s memoir may comfort you, but history’s verdict is unsparing: He and his sidekick, Alhaji Sule Lamido, were never heroes of democracy; they were turncoats who midwifed the burial of the June 12 mandate.

No amount of emotional blackmail, selective memory, or posthumous whitewashing will change that.

ASA