Atiku, You Met Buhari Twice but Forgot to Ask Him, “Who Gave the Order?”, By Fattykolly Ibn Alimi

Dear Atiku Abubakar,

In case you have forgotten, Nigerians have not.

On the 22nd of June 2024, you visited the late former President Muhammadu Buhari in his hometown Daura. You sat with him. You smiled with him. You drank tea with him.

Less than a year later, on the 11th of April 2025, you visited him again at his retirement home in Kaduna – a home renovated by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the same man you now try to blame for Lekki.

Two golden opportunities. Two private meetings with the man who was Commander-in-Chief on October 20, 2020. The man who controlled the Army. The man who controlled the Police. The man who could answer “Who gave the order?”

And you said nothing. You asked nothing. You forgot the youths. You forgot Lekki. You forgot the dead.

Today, six years later, you suddenly remember Lekki. Today, you remember to ask Tinubu, a man who in 2020 was an ordinary citizen with no uniform, no gun, no power.

That it took you six years to ask this question is not activism. It is insincerity. It is desperation. It is a man who knows his final attempt at the Presidency is slipping, throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.

Sir, may I remind you of what Tinubu went through in 2020, since your memory seems selective?

President Tinubu, who was an ordinary citizen in 2020, suffered perhaps more than anyone else during that protest. His Bourdillon home was almost razed to the ground. He and his domestic staff fled for safety in the middle of the night like common refugees in their own city. He was harassed. He was cyberbullied. He was insulted, cursed, called a killer for a crime he never committed, for a toll gate he does not own.

His investments – TVC, The Nation, BRT buses bought to ease the suffering of Lagosians – were burnt. Years of investment turned to ash because of a lie. He was the victim of EndSARS. Not the villain.

And you know this, sir. But you prefer to twist the tragedy.

You use the phrase “Lekki Massacre” to score cheap political points, ignoring the fact that a definitive, legally established massacre remains unproven till today. Forensic evidence, the Lagos State Judicial Panel, multi-agency investigations all contradicted the initial social media figures of mass killings. Bodies were not found. Morgues were empty. But truth does not matter to a desperate politician.

Twisting the complex tragedy of 2020 to pin it on a man who was himself a primary financial and political victim of the fallout is uncharitable and mean-spirited. It is cruel. It is playing politics with the tears of mothers who still cry at night.

You say APC has governed for six years and cannot keep asking Nigerians to remember the dead while refusing to confront unanswered questions. But sir, APC did not refuse. The Lagos Judicial Panel was set up by APC. The panel sat. The panel called witnesses. And Tinubu’s name never came up once. Not once. Hakeem Muri-Okunola told the panel under oath that Lagos State owns the toll gate. Where was your outrage then?

You talk about a young woman who resigned because salary cannot cover transport, who says “I am working for Bolt guys.” We feel her pain. But who created the hardship that made graduates become Bolt drivers? Who was Vice President when factories closed? Who was part of the privatization that threw thousands into joblessness?

You present an “Economic Recovery Plan” today as if Nigerians have amnesia. Nigerians remember.

This is your final attempt at the Presidency of Nigeria, sir. And it is tragic to watch you throw everything against the wall. Today it is Lekki. Tomorrow it will be something else. You will use our grief, you will use our pain, you will use our dead, just to appear relevant.

But Nigerians are not fools. They know you do not care about them. You only care about your inordinate ambition.

If you truly cared about who gave the order, you would have asked Buhari in Daura on June 22, 2024. You would have asked him in Kaduna on April 11, 2025. You had two chances to look a former President in the eye and demand justice for Nigerian youths.

You chose to take pictures instead.

Good luck on a journey that is clearly headed to a dead end. But please, leave the memories of Lekki out of your desperate campaign.

Fattykolly Ibn Alimi writes for NewsinNaija

#Atiku #Buhari #Lekki #EndSARS #TinubuWasAVictim #PoliticsOfBitterness #NewsinNaija