Ose Anenih, son of the late Chief Tony Anenih, has faulted Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to President Bola Tinubu on information and strategy, over comments about his father’s role in the June 12 crisis.
Onanuga had alleged that Tony Anenih and Sule Lamido, former governor of Jigawa, colluded with the National Republican Convention (NRC) to sabotage MKO Abiola’s presidential mandate after the annulled 1993 election.
His remarks came in response to an interview Lamido granted Arise TV, where the former governor claimed Tinubu supported the annulment and that his late mother, Hajiya Mogaji, mobilized market women to back General Ibrahim Babangida, then military head of state.
Responding, Onanuga dismissed Lamido’s claims as revisionist and accused both Lamido and Anenih of failing to defend Abiola’s mandate.
His words: “It is important to remind Nigerians that Alhaji Lamido, as secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP)—the party whose candidate, MKO Abiola, won the June 12 election—was among those who failed to oppose the military’s injustice.
“The SDP leadership, including Lamido and chairman Tony Anenih, wrote their names in the book of infamy by surrendering the people’s mandate without resistance. To their eternal shame, Lamido and Anenih teamed up with the defeated National Republican Convention to deny Abiola his mandate.”
But in a post on his official X handle, Ose Anenih said Onanuga’s account was false, unfair, and unbecoming of a presidential spokesperson.
He wrote: “Your account of my father’s involvement in June 12 is, to put it politely, untrue.
“It is disappointing that you chose to use uncouth language to describe Chief Tony Anenih, and in an official communication from ‘the Presidency,’ no less.”
He said his father, who was the national chairman of the SDP, confronted Abiola after the annulment when the late businessman returned from abroad.
“Chief Abiola initially fled the country after the annulment of the June 12 presidential elections by Gen. Babangida. When he returned, one of his first visits was to my father, then national chairman of the SDP, in Benin City.
“True to form, my father confronted Abiola. He accused him, to his face, of abandoning the party and its supporters in the immediate aftermath of the annulment while they risked life and limb defending his mandate,” he stated.
He added that his father did acknowledge Tinubu’s early resistance to the delay in announcing the election results.
“In fact, my father acknowledged that Tinubu had initially spoken out against the delay in announcing the results of the June 12 election.
“It was the only time he mentioned Tinubu in his 260-page book,” he said
Ose said many actors in that political era were still alive and that his father’s account, documented in his memoir My Life and Nigerian Politics, stands as a credible reference.
“I have no personal knowledge of what role your principal played after that, though I find it curious that you consider his early visit to Abacha, immediately after a coup to remove the ING he (MKO) helped birth, a mark of honour,” he said.
He described Onanuga’s intervention as “a lie issued in the name of the President” and added that it was regrettable to have to defend his father’s legacy under such circumstances.
“I had hoped that this level of toxicity left with the former occupant of your office.
“I am happy to send you a copy of my father’s memoir to help you avoid this sort of ahistorical misadventure in future,” he said.
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