Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday said those who prevented Late MKO Abiola from becoming president in 1993 are “bad belle” people.
Obasanjo said this while speaking at an event marking the 100th anniversary of his secondary school, the Baptist Boys High School (BBHS), Abeokuta.
While recalling that Abiola and he were both alumni of the high school, Obasanjo said the school would have produced two Nigerian presidents if not for ‘Nigerian bad belle’.
“Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the first communication industry millionaire in Nigeria and the acclaimed winner of the 1993 Presidential election was in a class by himself. If not for Nigerian bad belle, M.K.O. Abiola would have been President and with me as President, we would have needed one more old student of BBHS to be President for us to permanently locate it in BBHS after three times. And that is a challenge for up-and-coming generations of old boys,” he said.
DAILY POST recalls that a former Nigerian Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida, had nullified the June 12 presidential election.
Abiola, who was the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) at the time, was acclaimed to be the winner of the election, which was said to be one of the freest in Nigeria.
The annulment of the election, the detention of Abiola and his eventual death in 1998 triggered civil unrest in Nigeria at the time.
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2018 confirmed Abiola as the winner of the June 12, 1993 election and apologised on behalf of the Federal Government to his family, the Yoruba race and the entire nation.
Buhari also honoured Abiola posthumously with the highest honour in the land, GCFR, while declaring every June 12 a public day to celebrate the nation’s democracy, instead of May 29.
