I’ll swim Atlantic for Tinubu if he practises what we fought for — Momodu

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Publisher and former presidential aspirant, Dele Momodu, has said he would go to great lengths to support President Bola Tinubu if his administration practised the democratic principles they fought for during the military era.

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Momodu said he would even “swim to the depth of the Atlantic Ocean” for Tinubu if the President upheld those principles, stressing that his major concern was the possibility of replacing military dictatorship with civilian dictatorship.

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He made this known during an interview on Arise TV on Thursday.

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Momodu said, “I will ordinarily swim to the depth of the Atlantic Ocean for Tinubu if he was practising what we fought against when we were fighting the military.

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“There is no earthly reason why I would not, but I would be a bloody hypocrite if after we claimed to have changed the way of military dictatorship, we now replace it with civilian dictatorship. That’s my only problem with him.”

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The publisher added that his criticism of the President was selective and did not extend to personal attacks.

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He said the President was among those who trained him and instilled in him the discipline to challenge established authority.

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“Everything else, you see, when they are abusing him, you won’t see me abusing him. I have tremendous regards for him, and he was one of those who trained me and instilled this kind of discipline that, look, you can take on the establishment and win. And he did win,” Momodu said.

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Momodu said Tinubu’s political success was responsible for the reputation he carried from Lagos into national politics.

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“And that is why that was the record he carried from Lagos as a local champion to a national champion,” he said.

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Momodu and Tinubu’s relationship dates back more than three decades to the pro-democracy struggle against military rule in the 1990s.

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Tinubu, then a serving senator, was a founding member of the National Democratic Coalition, which championed the actualisation of the June 12, 1993, presidential election mandate of Chief Moshood Abiola after its annulment by the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida.

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Momodu was also active in the pro-democracy struggle at the time, having worked for Abiola’s presidential campaign before the annulment.

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He was later detained over his support for the June 12 cause.

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When the late General Sani Abacha seized power and cracked down on pro-democracy campaigners, Tinubu fled into exile in 1994, operating from the United Kingdom and the United States until Abacha’s death in 1998 paved the way for his return to Nigeria.

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Momodu also fled the country around the same period, crossing into the Benin Republic before making his way to Togo, Ghana and eventually the UK, where he spent time in exile.

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The two have occasionally clashed publicly since Tinubu assumed the presidency in 2023, with Momodu becoming an increasingly vocal critic of the administration’s economic and political direction, even while continuing to credit Tinubu with shaping his political consciousness.

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He has previously said that despite his criticism, he has not forgotten the support he received from the President in the past.

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Momodu, who ran as the National Conscience Party’s presidential candidate in 2011, has more recently aligned himself with the African Democratic Congress and has been an active voice in opposition politics ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general election.

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