Yoruba socio-cultural group, Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), has commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for awarding its Founder, the Late Dr. Frederick Fasehun, the national honour of the Commander of the Niger (CON).
OPC, also, urged Tinubu to organise compensation for hundreds of victims of military brutality during the struggle for June 12.
In a Press Statement on Tuesday by OPC President, Otunba Wasiu Afolabi, the organisation showered praises on Tinubu for placing its Medical Doctor-turned-OPC Founder in the honours list announced on June 12, 2025.
The group said it was a befitting recognition for the sacrifices that Fasehun and his organisation made to give birth to the current Nigerian democracy and the Fourth Republic.
Although he said the honour was coming 32 years after the onset of the current republic, Afolabi said:
Full statement: “This honour is better late than never.
“After granting those who are well-deserving of the national honour, the President should take the further noble step to implement a compensation scheme for those who lost life, limb and livelihood in the course of the struggle for this democracy. This compensation will be in line with the recommendation of the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission under Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, also known as the Oputa Panel.
“Moreover, the present crop of politicians has become beneficiaries of the sweat and blood of those whom the Military under Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha oppressed, assaulted and killed over the struggle for June 12 and democracy.
“Hundreds of OPC members, committed to the struggle to restore democracy to Nigeria, were attacked, maimed for life and murdered by General Abacha’s security forces, especially after OPC became affiliated with the umbrella organ for the June 12 struggle, NADECO.
“Dr. Fasehun was personally brutalised, arrested and incarcerated severally; his hospital, hotel and other businesses collapsed; but he remained undaunted and true to the struggle.
“But as God would have it, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a NADECO chieftain and frontrunner in the June 12 struggle, has today become the country’s President and Commander-in-Chief.”
OPC especially praised the Nigerian President for extending the national award to other patriotic Nigerians, living and dead, who struggled for democracy and ensured the exit of the military from governance.
The statement said: “Truly, the labours of our heroes past have not been in vain. This national award will tell the future generations of Nigerians that they can make sacrifices for the welfare of the nation and they will not be forgotten.
“Our prayer in OPC is that God will enable Tinubu to provide Nigerians with the dividends of democracy; and we pray that the policies he has put in place will guarantee the welfare and well-being of citizens from all regions and in all sectors.
“We, also, pray that the President will have the political will and courage to take bold and decisive steps to end the deadly insecurity imported into Nigeria by her enemies. We vehemently condemn the killings in Benue State and other places. This insecurity must be seen for what it is: A deliberate scheme by foreign non-state actors and their local collaborators to destabilise this country, grab lands and illegally exploit our natural resources by force of arms.
“The Civil War was fought to keep Nigeria one; this next phase of Nigeria’s corporate struggle must be aimed at keeping Nigeria safe and peaceful for bonafide Nigerians by all means necessary. Tinubu must muster the courage to do the needful because, as the Constitution says: The primary objective of government is to provide security for its citizens. Tinubu must not fail in this regard.”
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Eulogising its Founder, OPC said that Dr. Fasehun would be remembered as a quintessential Nigerian patriot, whose organisational skills and strategic capabilities propelled him to found OPC as a vehicle for resisting and rejecting the insult the Military spat on Nigerians by annulling the June 12, 1993 presidential election, reputed worldwide as the nation’s best ever electoral exercise.
Born 21st September 1935 in Ondo, Dr. Frederick Isiotan Fasehun trained as a Medical Doctor in Scotland, and later became the first African and Nigerian Acupuncture Practitioner.
He worked at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Kaduna and the Lagos University Teaching Hospital before founding Besthope Hospital in Lagos.
He founded OPC in 1994 and built it into a 6 million-strong membership at its peak, having as followers the descendants of the Yoruba progenitor Oduduwa from the states of Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Ekiti, Osun, Oyo, Edo, Kwara, Delta and Kogi.
Dr. Fasehun died in Lagos on December 1, 2018 aged 83.
OTUNBA WASIU AFOLABI,
OPC PRESIDENT.
