Jamiu Abiola, son of the late democracy hero, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, has affirmed that Nigeria would have made significant economic progress had his father been allowed to become President in 1993.
The late business mogul was the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election annulled by General Ibrahim Babangida, then-military ruler.
Abiola’s campaign centred on poverty alleviation, wealth creation, and radical economic reforms. However, those dreams were shattered following the annulment and his subsequent death in detention in 1998.
32 years on since the election, all the challenges Abiola promised to tackled still exist even on a larger scale.
ALSO READ: June 12: How Abiola’s legacy birthed Nigeria’s Democracy Day
Speaking at a Channels Television’s June 12 Special Forum to celebrate Nigeria’s 26 years of unbroken democratic rule, Jamiu said Nigeria missed a chance by not having his father as president.
“Nigeria would have been better because, at that time, it was a very special time in global times; that 1993 period was a time when the world itself was having an international economic boom,” he noted.
“So, we could have tapped into that. But what did we get in return? We got a Kleptomaniac as head of state. I am not going to talk about (Sani) Abacha because he has his problems wherever he has found himself.”
Abiola’s son says some Nigerians wanted his father forgotten
Abiola, a Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Linguistics and Foreign Affairs, also believed some people were hellbent on erasing his father’s name from Nigeria’s history.
“I wrote a book in 2015 because I came to realise that my father’s name was becoming like a memory that was becoming distant and people were hellbent on rewriting the history of Nigeria without him,” he said.
“People would come from abroad, foreign presidents, they would mention Yar’Adua and others, and they would not mention Chief MKO Abiola.
“Some people wanted to bury his name. Like my father would say: they wanted to shave his head in his absence.
“So, I now wrote a book in 2015, ‘The President Who Never Ruled’, so that his name cannot be forgotten.”
ALSO READ: June 12: Pro‑democracy movement rises
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo turned down an opportunity to immortalise June 12, when he chose to be sworn into office on May 29, 1999.
However, 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 move considered by many as long overdue.
