PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the recognition of June 12 as Democracy Day and the plan to confer post humous national award on late winner of June 12, 1993 presidential election, late Chief Moshood Abiola as a demonstration of hypocrisy and political desperation on the part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

President Buhari on Wednesday declared that June 12 will henceforth be celebrated as Democracy Day.

He also conferred a posthumous national honour on the presumed winner of June 12, 1993, Presidential election, MKO Abiola.

But the opposition party said 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 signed by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan.

He noted 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 presumed winner of June 12 election.

Ologbondiyan also claimed there was no record of President Buhari being sympathetic to the Abiola’s family when his wife, Kudirat, was gruesomely murdered by the agents of the Abacha government.

“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 12 months to an election where he, (President Buhari) is seeking a second term,” the opposition party said.