Every June 12, Nigeria returns to a wound that never fully healed. For older Nigerians, it is the memory of a democratic mandate stolen by military fiat. For younger generations, it is an inheritance of grief, sacrifice, and unfinished history.
More than three decades after the annulment of the 1993 presidential election won by Chief MKO Abiola, June 12 remains more than a date on the calendar. It is a reminder that democracy was neither gifted nor accidental; it was fought for, suffered for, and in some cases, paid for with exile, imprisonment, and death.
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This year’s Democracy Day carried a particular irony. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu conferred national honours on several pro-democracy activists, NADECO veterans, and soldier-democrats who resisted the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. Among them was Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd), former National Security Adviser (NSA) and one of the lesser-appreciated figures in Nigeria’s democratic struggle.
On the surface, the recognition was appropriate. Yet for those familiar with the twists and contradictions of Dasuki’s political journey, the honour evoked something far more complex than celebration. It reopened questions about loyalty, sacrifice, betrayal, and the often-unforgiving nature of power. Both Tinubu and Dasuki were frontline actors in the resistance against military dictatorship.
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Tinubu, then a senator in the aborted Third Republic, became one of the principal financiers and leaders of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). Forced into exile after the Abacha regime targeted opposition figures, he helped sustain the international campaign for the restoration of democracy.
Dasuki’s path was no less perilous. As a serving military officer, he openly opposed the annulment of the June 12 election and later became involved in efforts to challenge military rule. Forced into exile by a military dictator and Head of State, General Sani Abacha, who also deposed his father, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, as the Sultan of Sokoto.
Sambo Dasuki worked closely behind the scene with pro-democracy groups abroad and became part of the network that kept international attention focused on Nigeria’s democratic struggle. The shared experience of persecution and resistance became part of the foundation upon which Nigeria’s Fourth Republic was eventually built. Yet Dasuki’s story neither begins nor ends with the June 12 struggle.
Perhaps one of the greatest ironies of contemporary Nigerian politics is that the man later imprisoned under President Muhammadu Buhari was also among those who helped bring Buhari to power in the first place as the military Head of State.
In a revealing 2018 interview, the former Emir of Gwandu, Alhaji Mustapha Jokolo, who served as Buhari’s Aide-de-Camp following the 1983 coup, disclosed that Major Sambo Dasuki played a pivotal role in the military takeover that ended Nigeria’s Second Republic.
According to Jokolo, it was Dasuki who mobilised support, secured resources, and coordinated key aspects of the operation that installed Buhari as military Head of State.
“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.”
Beyond military coordination, Dasuki reportedly leveraged his family’s influence and resources to sustain the operation. Historical accounts suggest that he was in Jos, where Buhari was GOC, to brief him and he facilitated his flight to Lagos, following the coup.
In short, Dasuki was not a passive participant. He was one of the architects.
Decades later, his commitment to Buhari’s political ambitions remained remarkably intact.
In his book, An Encounter with the Spymaster, PR practitioner and author Yushau A Shuaib recounts Dasuki’s extraordinary efforts to persuade opposition leaders to support Buhari’s presidential aspiration ahead of the 2011 election.
According to the account, Dasuki personally appealed to then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) leaders, including Chief Bisi Akande and Bola Tinubu, urging them to support Buhari as the consensus joint presidential candidate of the ACN and CPC in 2011.
According to Shuaib, Dasuki “knelt down begging Baba Bisi Akande,” then ACN chairman, insisting that “Buhari is a man to be trusted.” Believing that the South‑West was less inclined toward religious politics, Dasuki and his associates proposed Bola Tinubu as Buhari’s running mate.
When that option met resistance, Tinubu’s camp was said to have suggested a Buhari–Osinbajo ticket. Shuaib notes that the idea did not materialise, as Tunde Bakare eventually became Buhari’s running mate for the 2011 election, instead of Tinubu.
This account was also corroborated by Chief Bisi Akande, who was former governor of Osun State in his book, My Participations, which released in 2021.
Mr Dasuki’s lobby, according to Akande, occurred in the build-up to the 2011 presidential election when negotiations for alliance between ACN and CPC were ongoing.
“The efforts of Sambo Dasuki is worth mentioning in this political bridge-building attempt between ACN and CPC. Dasuki was then in support of Buhari becoming the presidential candidate of the alliance.
“Sambo Dasuki was coming around, begging us, to support Buhari’s presidential aspiration. Nuhu Ribadu, whom we had earlier chosen as our presidential candidate in the ACN, said he was ready to step down for Buhari. He said when he accepted to run, he did not know that Buhari was also interested in running,” Akande wrote in the book.
History, however, would take a different turn. When Buhari eventually emerged as Nigeria’s democratically elected president in 2015, Dasuki became one of the first major casualties of the new administration’s anti-corruption campaign.
Accused of involvement in the diversion of funds earmarked for arms procurement during his tenure as National Security Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan, Dasuki was arrested and detained. What followed became one of the most controversial legal episodes in Nigeria’s democratic history.
Multiple courts granted him bail. The orders were ignored. Despite several judicial pronouncements, he remained in detention year after year.
His incarceration increasingly became a symbol of a troubling contradiction: a democracy struggling to reconcile its anti-corruption agenda with respect for constitutional rights and judicial independence.
Dasuki consistently maintained his innocence, while challenging the legality of his prolonged detention.
Contrary to the widespread belief that Sambo Dasuki led the team that arrested Muhammadu Buhari during the 1985 coup, former Borno State military governor, Colonel Abdulmumini Aminu (Rtd), publicly clarified the identities of the officers involved.
In an interview with Daily Trust published in 2015, Aminu — who retired as a colonel in 1993 — said he led the three‑man team that arrested the then Head of State. The other officers, he said, were Lawan Gwadabe and John Madaki.
Aminu stated: “I must confess that I led that operation. I went to Dodan Barracks in the company of two other officers — then Major John Madaki and Lawan Gwadabe. Three of us went, but specifically I was the one that went upstairs to bring Buhari. It was a military assignment from our superior.”
Dasuki’s ordeal under the Buhari administration later took a personal toll. His ailing father was reportedly prevented from seeing him while he was held in Abuja, and Dasuki was unable to attend the burial after the body was taken to Sokoto.
He was eventually released in December 2019 — after Buhari had secured re‑election and passed the most politically vulnerable phase of his presidency.
How does a political ally become a political prisoner? Perhaps only Buhari could have answered that. The man many had helped elevate turned against one of his most committed supporters.
That irony is now part of Nigeria’s democratic history. This is why President Tinubu’s decision to honour Sambo Dasuki on Democracy Day carries significance beyond ceremony. It is not merely the recognition of an individual; it underscores the reality that Nigeria’s democratic journey is neither simple nor linear.
Heroes become villains. Allies become adversaries. Victims rise again. And power reshapes relationships in ways that defy logic.
As Nigeria marks another June 12, Dasuki’s story stands as a cautionary tale about the fragility of political loyalty and the enduring complexity of democratic struggles. Democracy may have triumphed over military rule, but the human stories woven into that struggle remain unresolved.
Perhaps none is more poignant than that of a man who helped bring a leader to power — twice — only to spend years wondering why that same leader chose to imprison him.
Mohammed Dahiru Lawal is an award winning factchecker and development journalist. Writes from Lugbe Abuja.
