A chieftain of Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo says he and other leaders are not impressed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s declaration that June 12 will henceforth replace May 29 as Nigeria’s Democracy Day in honour of the late Chief Moshood Abiola.

He also stated that they were also not excited about the conferment of the award of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic, GCFR, on the late businessman.

The elder statesman said this in a chat with Punch.

He said: “But if he (Buhari) has now done it because the presidential election is coming, well, he cannot bamboozle anybody with that. What we are saying is that if he wants to honour the memory of Abiola and June 12, he should implement what June 12 stands for, which is good governance and democracy.

“He should restructure the country before the elections to show his genuineness and not just be playing to the gallery. This is because all that June 12 stands for is democracy and good governance. It is not about people being killed right, left and centre and pretending that you don’t know what is happening.

“It is not people being killed every day and after three months, you now wake up and say you are beefing up security. People have been complaining about the awkwardness of the lopsided appointments of heads of security agencies since you came into office, but it was not until now that the vice president (Prof. Yemi Osinbajo) said, “Oh yes, we are going to review it” – because election is approaching.

“We are no fools in this country. He should know that many of us have not got cattle brain, we are well educated and we know what we want. Nobody can come and bamboozle us because elections are coming. It is just like he said in 2015 that he was a born-again democrat. Now, he has shown us that he is a dictator. We are not moved by it. It is a welcome idea and yes, it is a thing that ought to have been done. But that he is now doing it because elections are coming, I am not excited by that at all.”