President Bola Tinubu awarded national honours to Colonel Sambo Dasuki on Democracy Day — the same man who once knelt before Tinubu's own party chairman, begging them to support Muhammadu Buhari.

The irony didn't escape those who know the full story.

For older Nigerians, June 12 is the wound of a stolen mandate. For younger ones, it's an inheritance of sacrifice. This year, Tinubu conferred honours on pro-democracy activists and soldier-democrats who fought General Sani Abacha's dictatorship. Dasuki was among them.

On the surface, it made sense. Dasuki was a serving military officer who openly opposed the annulment of the June 12 election. He was forced into exile by Abacha — the same dictator who deposed his father, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, as Sultan of Sokoto. He worked behind the scenes with pro-democracy groups abroad to keep international attention on Nigeria's struggle.

But Dasuki's story is far more tangled than a simple hero's tale.

Decades earlier, Major Sambo Dasuki was one of the architects of the 1983 coup that brought Buhari to power as military Head of State. Former Emir of Gwandu, Alhaji Mustapha Jokolo, who served as Buhari's ADC after the coup, revealed in a 2018 interview that Dasuki mobilised support, secured resources, and coordinated key aspects of the operation.

"It was Sambo Dasuki who facilitated it," Jokolo said. "He did a lot, honestly speaking. Sambo was the one getting money from Aliyu Gusau and Chief of Army Staff votes to support the coup."

Dasuki reportedly leveraged his family's influence and resources. He was in Jos where Buhari was GOC, briefed him, and facilitated his flight to Lagos after the coup.

Fast forward to 2011. Buhari wanted to run for president on the ticket of a merger between his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) led by Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande.

According to PR practitioner Yushau A Shuaib's book An Encounter with the Spymaster, Dasuki personally appealed to ACN leaders to support Buhari as a consensus candidate. Shuaib wrote that Dasuki "knelt down begging Baba Bisi Akande," insisting that "Buhari is a man to be trusted."

Dasuki and his associates proposed Tinubu as Buhari's running mate. When that met resistance, Tinubu's camp suggested a Buhari–Osinbajo ticket. Neither materialised. Tunde Bakare became Buhari's running mate in 2011.

Chief Bisi Akande corroborated this account in his 2021 book, My Participations.

So the man Tinubu honoured on Democracy Day is the same man who once knelt before Akande — Tinubu's own party chairman — to beg for Buhari's ticket. And he's the same man Buhari later imprisoned.

Dasuki served as National Security Adviser under President Goodluck Jonathan from 2012 to 2015. In 2015, Buhari's government arrested him over alleged diversion of funds meant for arms procurement. He spent years in detention before being granted bail in 2019. The case remains unresolved.

Now, Tinubu has given him a national honour. For some, it's a fitting recognition of a man who risked his life for democracy. For others, it's a reminder that in Nigerian politics, yesterday's enemy can be today's hero — and both can be true at the same time.