The inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari for his second term as president will be low-key, the Federal Government has declared.
This is according to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
He made this known on Monday when he spoke with State House correspondents on the activities for the May 29 inauguration.
The minister said the decision to have a low-key celebration was because the government could not afford two major celebrations within a month.
Mohammed said the decision to shift the main celebration to June 12 was taken at the Federal Executive Council meeting held last week.
Speaking on the June 12 celebration as the new Democracy Day, Mohammed said invitations had been sent to world leaders.
“Since the first observance of June 12 as Democracy Day falls into an election year and as a measure to sustain June 12 as Democracy Day, the celebration of the inauguration and the advancement of democracy in the country will now take place on June 12,” he said.
He said full details of both the inauguration and the new Democracy Day would be made public on May 20 in Abuja.
It would be recalled that Nigeria’s Democracy Day has been shifted from May 29 to June 12 in honour of the winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, Moshood Kashimawo Abiola.
Abiola is the acclaimed winner of the presidential election which was annulled by the military government led by Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB.
The election was adjudged to the freest election in the history of Nigeria.
Abiola died in incarceration as he was arrested by the military for insisting that the mandate given to him by the Nigerian people had to be returned to him.
The crisis that followed the annulment of June 12 shook the country to its foundation.
