Jamiu Abiola, son of the late democracy hero, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, has affirmed that Nigeria would have made important financial progress had his father been allowed to turn out to be President in 1993.
The late enterprise mogul was the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election annulled by Common Ibrahim Babangida, then-military ruler.
Abiola’s marketing campaign centred on poverty alleviation, wealth creation, and radical financial reforms. Nonetheless, these goals have been shattered following the annulment and his subsequent dying in detention in 1998.
32 years on for the reason that election, all of the challenges Abiola promised to tackled nonetheless exist even on a bigger scale.
ALSO READ: June 12: How Abiola’s legacy birthed Nigeria’s Democracy Day
Talking at a Channels Tv’s June 12 Particular Discussion board to have a good time Nigeria’s 26 years of unbroken democratic rule, Jamiu stated Nigeria missed an opportunity by not having his father as president.
“Nigeria would have been higher as a result of, at the moment, it was a really particular time in world occasions; that 1993 interval was a time when the world itself was having a world financial increase,” he famous.
“So, we might have tapped into that. However what did we get in return? We received a Kleptomaniac as head of state. I’m not going to speak about (Sani) Abacha as a result of he has his issues wherever he has discovered himself.”
Abiola’s son says some Nigerians needed his father forgotten
Abiola, a Senior Particular Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Linguistics and International Affairs, additionally believed some individuals have been hellbent on erasing his father’s name from Nigeria’s historical past.
“I wrote a ebook in 2015 as a result of I got here to understand that my father’s title was turning into like a reminiscence that was turning into distant and other people have been hellbent on rewriting the historical past of Nigeria with out him,” he stated.
“Individuals would come from overseas, international presidents, they might point out Yar’Adua and others, and they might not point out Chief MKO Abiola.
“Some individuals needed to bury his title. Like my father would say: they needed to shave his head in his absence.
“So, I now wrote a ebook in 2015, ‘The President Who By no means Dominated’, in order that his title can’t be forgotten.”
ALSO READ: June 12: Pro‑democracy movement rises
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo turned down a possibility to immortalise June 12, when he selected to be sworn into workplace on Could 29, 1999.
Nonetheless, former President Muhammadu Buhari declared June 12 Democracy Day and posthumously awarded Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (GCFR) in 2018, a transfer thought of by many as lengthy overdue.
