President Bola Tinubu has given nearly 90% of all national honours he's handed out since taking office in May 2023 to people linked to the agitation against the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election.

Last week, Tinubu conferred honours on about 35 people he said “suffered persecution, endured indignities, exile, incarceration, and, at times, solitary confinement, so that we have democracy today.” That followed a similar list of about 32 people last year.

But the 2025 list was widely condemned for leaving out most of the original June 12 activists. This year's list is seen as an attempt to fix that — though it still excludes Tinubu's vocal critics, who many argue deserve recognition.

Olu Fasan, a journalist and political analyst, argues the entire exercise is intellectually dishonest. Writing in a piece published Thursday, Fasan says it was providence — not June 12 activism — that brought civil rule in 1999.

“It was Abacha's sudden death that triggered the process,” Fasan writes. “Had he not died, the story would, indeed, be different today.”

General Sani Abacha died of a heart attack on June 8, 1998. In his autobiography Call of Duty, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who succeeded Abacha, confirmed the cause of death and dismissed poison theories.

Fasan points out that June 12 protests didn't bring down Abacha's regime the way the Arab Spring toppled leaders in North Africa between 2010 and 2011, or the 2024 student uprising ended autocracy in Bangladesh.

“Such seismic events have never happened in Nigeria, which has never had a genuine popular uprising,” he writes.

Instead, Abacha brutally suppressed all opposition. Ordinary Nigerians who endured his reign of terror until his death deserve credit, Fasan says — not just the activists now being honoured.

He also traces the politicisation of June 12 back to former President Muhammadu Buhari. In 2018, facing re-election and deep unpopularity in the South-West, Buhari changed Democracy Day from May 29 to June 12.

Before becoming president in 2015, Buhari had never publicly condemned the annulment of the June 12 election. Professor Wole Soyinka said at the time that Buhari took the decision “with an eye on electoral fortunes, undoubtedly.”

Fasan also calls out the so-called pro-democracy politicians now in power. Many, he says, secretly colluded with General Ibrahim Babangida, who annulled the election, and hobnobbed with Abacha. Before Abacha's death, five political parties — populated by today's “democrats” — endorsed him as sole presidential candidate in April 1998, calling him Nigeria's “saviour.”

Tinubu himself was a beneficiary of the annulment. He was a key figure in the pro-democracy movement and later became the standard-bearer of the opposition. Today, as president, he's made June 12 honours a centrepiece of his awards.

But Fasan asks: what kind of democracy do Nigerians have today? And what have the activists contributed since 1999?

“Sadly, hardly anything positive!” he writes.

The implication, Fasan argues, is that over 30 years, the only Nigerians deemed worthy of national recognition are June 12 activists — not teachers, doctors, or the countless others who sustain the country daily. Other nations with honours systems, like the UK, honour a broad range of contributors.

Tinubu's focus on June 12 activists, Fasan says, needs “a dose of humility.”