Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
“The most dangerous lie is not the one that attacks you. It is the one that demands your submission while disguised as history.”
There is a story travelling fast. Faster than fact. Faster than memory. It moves through WhatsApp broadcasts, television panels, and newspaper columns. It says Bola Ahmed Tinubu spent decades sacrificing his presidential ambition for others. It says his ambition was postponed for the nation. It says gratitude is now a permanent debt. It says submission is now a moral obligation.
But stories are not history. And repetition is not proof.
History begins in 1993. That year, Tinubu was a first-term senator. Not a presidential candidate. Not a presidential aspirant. Not a presidential contender. He did not contest the SDP presidential primaries. He did not step down. He did not withdraw. He had nothing to surrender. You cannot sacrifice what you never possessed.
In that same SDP primary, another man did step down. Atiku Abubakar. A northern Muslim. A presidential aspirant. A contender with delegates and structure. He withdrew. He aligned his machinery behind MKO Abiola. A southern Yoruba Muslim. That withdrawal cleared the path for Abiola’s emergence. That was a real surrender. A real withdrawal. A real sacrifice.
Tinubu was not in that contest. Tinubu surrendered nothing. Tinubu stepped down from nothing. Supporting Abiola after the June 12 annulment was not sacrifice. It was basic democratic duty. Hundreds did the same. None called it sacrifice. None called it surrender. Because duty is not sacrifice. And participation is not martyrdom.
The documented 1993 record tells a different story. That same year, Tinubu’s U.S. bank accounts were frozen. The U.S. government pursued civil forfeiture. Authorities alleged probable cause linking the funds to narcotics proceeds. The case ended in settlement. No criminal conviction. But the forfeiture happened. That is documented history. That is recorded fact. That is the real 1993.
There was no presidential sacrifice. There was no presidential withdrawal. There was no presidential surrender.
The mythology moves forward to 2007. Again, it claims sacrifice. Again, it claims surrender. Again, the record refuses to cooperate. According to Atiku Abubakar himself, Tinubu’s political support came with a condition. One condition. The Vice Presidency. Support in exchange for position. Alignment in exchange for elevation. That was the offer.
The request was declined. The reason was stated clearly. Religious balance. National arithmetic. Electoral viability. Atiku, a Muslim presidential candidate, rejected the idea of another Muslim running mate. He said a Muslim-Muslim ticket would damage national inclusiveness. He said the country required balance. That refusal ended the negotiation.
This was not sacrifice. This was transaction. This was negotiation. This was bargaining that failed.
Sacrifice gives without condition. Negotiation demands return. What occurred was not surrender. What occurred was refusal.
Then came 2015. The mythology becomes louder here. It claims Tinubu surrendered the Vice Presidency. It claims he stepped aside. It claims he chose unity over ambition. But the sequence of events tells a harder truth. Powerful political actors opposed a Muslim-Muslim ticket. They resisted it. They blocked it. They warned against it.
Opposition came first. Withdrawal came later.
This matters. Because surrender happens before resistance. Not after defeat.
What was presented as sacrifice followed political rejection. What was branded as generosity followed political exclusion. Rejection was repackaged. Exclusion was rebranded by the Nigerian traditional media. Constraint was renamed sacrifice.
But renaming does not change reality.
Then came 2023. And principle evaporated.
In 2015, Muslim-Muslim was dangerous. In 2023, Muslim-Muslim became acceptable. In 2015, it threatened unity. In 2023, it served ambition. In 2015, it was avoided. In 2023, it was embraced.
Nothing about the country changed. Only position changed.
That is not sacrifice. That is convenience.
Another claim stands at the centre of the mythology. That Tinubu made Buhari president. It is repeated often. Repeated loudly. Repeated confidently. But numbers do not obey mythology. Numbers obey arithmetic.
Before any merger existed, Buhari already commanded millions. In 2003, he secured over 12 million votes. In 2007, over 6 million. In 2011, over 12 million again. These votes existed before Tinubu’s alignment. They existed before APC. They existed before merger.
The base was already there.
By 2015, Buhari’s vote increased. But increases in coalition politics never belong to one man. They belong to convergence. They belong to circumstance. They belong to alignment. National victories are assembled. Not donated.
No single man manufactures fifteen million votes.
The sacrifice mythology serves a purpose. It manufactures debt. It manufactures loyalty. It manufactures obligation. It tells citizens they owe yesterday for what happens today. It converts ambition into moral blackmail.
But ambition is not sacrifice.
Ambition is pursuit.
Ambition advances. Ambition negotiates. Ambition adapts. Ambition survives.
Ambition does not surrender.
When stripped of mythology, the pattern stands naked. In 1993, nothing was surrendered. In 2007, negotiation failed. In 2015, opposition blocked. In 2023, principle shifted.
Across decades, one thing remained constant. Not sacrifice. Not surrender. Not self-denial. What remained constant was the objective. A selfish, self-serving objective. Protected. Preserved. Pursued without interruption.
The pursuit never paused. It never retreated. It never conceded defeat. It adjusted. It recalibrated. It waited. But it never stopped.
It was not sacrificed.
It was achieved.
And achievement, no matter how delayed, cannot be rewritten as surrender. Victory, no matter how patient, cannot be rebranded as loss.
Calling it sacrifice does not change its nature.
It only changes its marketing.
This matters because democracy depends on memory. When citizens inherit mythology, they lose judgment. When citizens lose judgment, they lose power. Mythology protects leaders. Truth protects citizens.
Nigeria deserves truth.
Not narrative inheritance. Not emotional obligation. Not constructed legend.
Truth.
Because sacrifice requires surrender.
And surrender never happened.
THE NARRATIVE FORCE. TRUTH. ALWAYS.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director-General
The Narrative Force
