Tinubu Names University After Late Major General Yar’Adua, Finally Remembers Joe Igbokwe

By Akinwale Kasali

President Bola Tinubu has honoured the memory of the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua.

During his address to the Nation on June 12 to mark Nigeria’s Democracy Day, the President announced the renaming of the Institute of Petroleum Studies, Kaduna, to General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua University of Geological Sciences and Engineering Technology.

Yar’Adua died in captivity while serving a jail term under the late maximum Head of State, for a purported aborted coup aimed at removing him, Abacha, from office.

Among those awarded National Honours was Joe Igbokwe a staunch believer in President Tinubu and an All Progressives Congress, APC, Chieftain, who he seemed to have ignored since his presidency.  Igbokwe, to his relief, is among the over 50 people whose names were contained in the list of awardees.

President Tinubu had during his Democracy Day Broadcast conferred  National Honours on the aforementioned, that includes; Prominent media icons, pro-democracy activists, and retired military officers who fought against military dictatorship during the historic June 12 struggle.

This year Democracy Day marks 27 years of uninterrupted Democratic Rule, in which President Tinunu paid tributes to the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, and other icons.

He stated that while Nigeria’s democracy is not perfect, it remains the ultimate vehicle for national development.

Igbokwe alongside members of National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, chieftains Chief Ayo Opadokun, Chief Ralph Obioha, and Dr. Arthur Nwankwo (posthumous); media veterans Lade Bonuola, Femi Kusa, Sir Ademola Osinubi, and Dele Alake; and activists Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, Richard Akinnola, and Prof. Sylvester Odion-Akhaine.

The President, also, recognized “soldier-democrats” who opposed military junta regimes, including retired Colonels Sambo Dasuki, a former National Security Adviser during the President Goodluck Jonathan Government,  Lawan Gwadabe, Major-General Ishola Williams, the Etsu Nupe, Brigadier Yahaya Abubakar.

Addressing the nation’s security challenges, particularly recent student abductions in Oyo and Borno states, President Tinubu declared that democracy without security is a mirage, revealing that the 2026 budget commits a record 5.41 trillion Naira to defense alongside the recruitment of over 50,000 police officers.

He however warned bandits, kidnappers, and sponsors of terror to surrender or face the full force of the Nigerian State, andbthe wrath of the law, noting that windows of surrender will not remain open forever, though terror-related deaths have dropped by 81% since 2015 with over 13,000 terrorists neutralized in the past year.

Speaking on the economic situationof the country, the President defended his administration’s aggressive reforms as a necessity to salvage public finances, stating that the next phase of his administration is to ensure that democracy is felt in the pocket of everyday citizens by tackling inflation and boosting local production.

He stated that in resolving the chronic electricity crisis, the President announced that the Presidential Power Sector Task Force has been authorized to raise a 4 trillion Naira bond to clear legacy debts drowning the power value chain, adding that the Electricity Act, which decentralizes power generation to states, is already yielding results.

Reaffirming his commitment to grassroots development, while emphasizing his administration’s push for full financial autonomy for the 774 local government areas, attributing the rise in rural insecurity to the collapse of local governance.

He also urged the political class and institutions to protect democratic guardrails ahead of the upcoming Ekiti and Osun governorship elections, the President stated that while the generation of the nation’s founding fathers secured independence and the generation of June 12 secured democracy, the current generation must now secure prosperity.