By AS Nigerians continue to reflect on the promises of democracy and the cost of our political journey, the quiet passing of Comrade Frank Kokori at 80 on December 7, 2023, strikes a sobering chord. Ovu-born Kokori was not just a labour leader; he was a central figure in the battle for the soul of Nigeria during one of its darkest hours – the June 12, 1993 de-annullment struggle. Yet, in an ironic twist of fate, while those he advised and stood beside now sit in corridors of power, Kokori left this world without national honours, state burial, institutional recognition, or the gratitude of the very democracy he helped birth!
This neglect is not only shameful, it is emblematic of the selective memory and political amnesia that has come to define our national story.
Tinubu & Kokori
Kokori’s struggle during the annulled June 12, 1993, presidential election was nothing short of heroic. Under the Abacha junta, Kokori, then General Secretary of NUPENG, wielded the power of organised labour to paralyse the regime’s economic lifeblood. His defiance came at great personal cost: incarceration, torture, and exile. His was not the comfortable activism of speeches and safe panels. It was the raw, street-level resistance that came with consequences.
And yet, when democracy finally found its footing in 1999, Kokori was pushed to the margins.
Meanwhile, among those whose lives intersected with his during the struggle was Bola Ahmed Tinubu: then a US-based exile contemplating his political return. According to Kokori’s own accounts in his book, Frank Kokori: The Struggle for June 12, it was he who persuaded Tinubu to return to Nigeria, seek a political base, and contest. They strategised in hotel rooms in Washington, weighed options, and agreed that mere boycotts without building political structures were futile. Tinubu listened. He returned. He won Lagos. And from that base, he built a formidable political empire that led him to the presidency in 2023.
But what has that presidency done for Frank Kokori?
Nothing.
No national honour. No proper state funeral. No immortalisation. Not even a commemorative word of gratitude befitting his role in what has become the foundation of the Fourth Republic. Not a minute attention given to the late labour leader’s son, Kive Kokori, who placed an advertorial in two national dailies including The Nation, on the need to deliver a private message his father entrusted him to the president.
This is not merely an oversight. It is a moral failure.
Chief Frank Kokori while ebbing out at Mount Horeb Hospital in Warri in 2023
It brings to mind Kokori’s own reflection that many revolutionaries in Africa, unlike their counterparts in Europe, are celebrated too late—if ever. The same Pa Anthony Enahoro, who helped spark nationalist agitation, was met with indifference in Edo State, even while receiving a rousing welcome in Lagos, thanks to Tinubu’s political machinery. It seems that only those who command political capital are granted space in our national conscience!
And therein lies the tragedy: in Nigeria, justice and recognition are often posthumous; if they ever come at all!
How do we justify a system that honours convenience over sacrifice? How can a democratic order birthed by the sweat and suffering of labour, civil society, and grassroots resistance reduce itself to rewarding only the victors of elections?
Frank Kokori should have been a national hero in his lifetime. His name should ring alongside Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome-Kuti, and Anthony Enahoro, even MKO Abiola. He stood firm when many cowered. He gave when many took. And he believed in the promise of Nigeria even when Nigeria had forgotten itself.
If President Tinubu’s rise was part of the fruits of that struggle, he owes it not only to himself but to history to right this wrong. The country owes it to Kokori’s memory to, officially, confer upon him a national honour—posthumously, if belatedly. A scholarship fund or national institution bearing his name would be a fitting tribute. A reworking of Nigeria’s “Heroes of Democracy” list must include his name in gold, not in footnotes.
Because if democracy forgets its own defenders, it loses the moral authority to demand sacrifice from future generations.
Frank Kokori gave everything. Nigeria gave him silence.
It is time to break that silence. Can June 12, 2025 be the day Nigeria will correct the wrong?
Let the democracy he fought for remember him not just in rhetoric, but in action.
Ebenezer Adurokiya writes from Warri, Delta State.
What's your reaction?
