I Fought Abacha, and I Know That President Tinubu Is Certainly Not an Abacha! – By Reno Omokri

This is me in the attached photo, taken in 1998. I was being honoured by Bastiaan Korner, the then Dutch ambassador to Nigeria, for my role in fighting for democracy against the despotic and murderous Abacha military junta. The other gentleman is one of the most patriotic Nigerians alive. He is the current editor of Thisday Newspaper.

Having fought that despicable regime, I will not sit idly by while persons like Farooq Kperogi and Dele Momodu make unjust and unfair comparisons between that government, if you can call the Abacha regime a government, and the Tinubu administration.

Making accusations that the judiciary is “susceptible to political manipulation” without supporting them with facts, data, and statistics is unhelpful to democracy, undermines the trust Nigerians have in their government, and is itself anti-intellectual. I wonder why a man like Kperogi would say such.

You shouldn’t make such opinionated statements without backing them up, because that assertion is not only false but will also negatively affect Nigeria’s FDI drive, as investors do not invest in countries without an independent judiciary.

And for Mr Kperogi to say the President is “stealthily but systematically weakening all the political parties that could provide viable platforms for his opponents in 2027” is fallacious.

Again, he, like Dele Momodu before him, offers no evidentiary backup for those strong words.

But it is not just that. These gentlemen betray both a lack of grasp of party politics and history.

Let me start with history. It is not President Tinubu who is systematically weakening opposition parties. No. The truth is that it is the character of his opponents that is ruining these parties.

Some of these persons have a history of lacking the patience to build solid structures and of causing dissension, whether they go.

For example, Peter Obi began his political career in the All Progressives Grand Alliance after he was picked up by Dim Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, whom he subsequently betrayed.

While in APGA, Peter Obi, in a now-viral video, swore that he would never leave the party. Yet he did leave, but not before dividing that party. The chaos he caused was so deep-seated that he was cursed by the then Chairman of APGA, Victor Oye! Please fact-check me.

Then he moved to the Peoples Democratic Party and also caused havoc in that organisation by insisting on contesting against his former principal.

After splitting the PDP, he joined the Labour Party, which then split into two factions, each producing its own Chairman and NEC.

When he had finished destroying the Labour Party as a viable alternative, he officially joined the African Democratic Congress on Wednesday, December 31, 2025.

After just three weeks in the ADC, the official spokesman of that party publicly called the Obidient movement a “divisive” mob!

And instead of adjusting their behaviour, today, the Obidient movement has released a statement attacking the ADC for calling them divisive!

Now, if you have gone through four very different political parties and ended up with the same result of division, quarrels, and factionalism, the question you should ask yourself is this: Is it the parties that are the problem or Peter Obi?

How can a man who has divided four political parties in a row unite Nigeria? And how can men like Kperogi and Momodu overlook this and blame the President for the failings of these parties?

And then, they also ignore the historical fact that parties in Nigeria tend to splinter when elections are around the corner.

This started right from independence and has continued into the Fourth Republic.

For example, under our government (the Jonathan administration), when the All Progressives Congress was established on Wednesday, February 2013, an alternate All Progressives Congress was established by some persons, and this duplicate APC held press conferences, went to court, and organised protests against the Independent National Electoral Commission, insisting that they were the real APC and that the then Bisi Akande-led APC had registered.

Please fact-check me.

And then the ruling Peoples Democratic Party split into two because of the move to return the then-President unopposed rather than hold a competitive primary, which eventually became reality, with the main PDP and the n-PDP, consisting of Rotimi Amaechi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and three other governors and their followers.

That was the first time the PDP would have an unopposed Presidential primary. President Obasanjo faced a primary during his reelection campaign in 2003, with the now famous, “Obasanjo, Obasanjo, Obasanjo” win shepherded by Chief Tom Ikimi on live television, where delegates chose Chief Obasanjo over former Vice President, Chief Alex Ekwueme, former Kano Governor, Abubakar Rimi, and former party Chairman, Barnabas Gemade.

Why did these pundits not accuse the then-President and the PDP of dictatorship and acting like General Sani Abacha in 2013?

The reason they did not is because that is how democracy works!

You build political parties to face your opponent, and your opponent, whether they are in power or not, responds by seeking ways to expand, which may include poaching your own party members!

In fact, in a parliamentary democracy, coalitions are formed by complete strangers, and court cases are used to undermine other parties.

Just a few days ago, a former Conservative MP who cross-carpeted to the Reform Party, Andrew Rosindell, sued his former party, the Tories, while Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is battling for its existence in court after voters sued to challenge its registration over a dodgy members’ registry.

Even in America, whose presidential system we copied, Republicans go to court to challenge Democratic Party primaries and vice versa.

Just three days ago, the Democrats succeeded in getting a Republican, Dr Ehab Akkary, off the ballot, because of something as elementary as residency requirements!

These things happen in democracies.

But Abacha’s own case was completely different. I was a young teenager fighting Abacha. I stayed in Nigeria. I did not flee! I founded an NGO with Shaka Momodu, now the Editor of Thisday, and we had supporters, including Tope Fasua, now an adviser to the Vice President.

What we had under Abacha were five parties formed by that junta through its tele-guided National Electoral Commission, which is why they were called the “Five fingers of a leprous hand” by the late great Chief Bola Ige.

These so-called parties were given their manifestos and names by the government, which also chose their National Executive Committee, who all endorsed General Sani Abacha as their sole presidential candidate on Monday, April 20, 1998.

I ask Kperogi and Momodu if that is what is happening now!

Under Tinubu, elected governors, who have immunity from prosecution, are seeing the results that President Tinubu has delivered, including increasing their federal allocations by over 200%.

In fact, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was invited by His Royal Majesty, King Charles III, for a State Visit to the United Kingdom precisely because he is a thoroughbred democrat and an astute economist, who has turned around the political and economic fortunes of Nigeria in record time, moving us from a nation that had suffered two recessions in the last ten years, to one that, under President Tinubu, became the sixth-largest contributor to global GDP growth in 2025, a fact celebrated by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.

The British Monarch further invited our President for a State Visit because of the steady social and commercial progress that has been achieved in Nigeria under President Tinubu, who has added $67 billion to Nigeria’s GDP, moving us from a ₦269.29 trillion economy on May 29, 2023, when he became President, to ₦372.8 trillion today.

And due to policy changes, the United Kingdom has not invited any military dictators to the palace of Saint James for State Visits in the last ten years. The honour has been preserved for only democratically elected leaders or natural monarchs.

Even the International Community recognises that President Tinubu is a democrat who is expanding the democratic space by appointing people outside his party based on merit rather than party affiliation.

So, these two gentlemen, Kperogi and Momodu, may be good at many things, but they certainly do not quite understand democracy; that is why they confuse regular politicking with irregular dictatorships.

Reno Omokri

Ambassador Designate to Mexico. Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year, 2022. 21st Most Talked About Person in Africa, 2024.