A daughter of the late Chief Moshood
Kashimawo Abiola, the undeclared winner of the 1993 presidential election,
Hafsat Abiola-Costello, on Wednesday said that her father was greater than
ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, hence Abiola needed no recognition by the
former president.
This is coming after Obasanjo’s statement
on Saturday, acknowledging that the late acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993
presidential election made sacrifices that needed to be recognised by the nation.
Obasanjo made the remark in Abeokuta at
the 4th Founder’s Day of Nobelhouse College, and 85th birthday of an
industrialist, Chief Olatunde Abudu.
“Ogun State would have produced three
presidents if not for bad belle. I want to agree with him (Alake of Egbaland,
Oba Adedotun Gbadebo) that Abiola sacrificed for the nation”
His remark came barely two weeks to the
21st anniversary of the annulled June 12 election.
The June 12, 1993 election was regarded
as the fairest and freest in the annals of election in the country but the
result was annulled by former dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, though not
before it was clear to all that Abiola, candidate of the then Social Democratic
Party, had already won the poll, defeating his opponent, Ibrahim Tofa of the National
Republican Congress.
Abiola’s insistence on his mandate led to
his incarceration by the late Gen. Sani Abacha. The billionaire businessman
died in Abacha’s detention on July 7, 1998. His wife and mother of Hafsat,
Kudirat, had been gunned down on the streets of Lagos on June 4, 1996 while
fighting for the release of her husband and the restoration of his mandate.
On Wednesday, at the Kudirat Abiola’s
18th anniversary, organised by the Campaign for Democracy, in collaboration
with Women Arise and the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, Hafsat said
Obasanjo’s recognition of Abiola’s contribution was uncalled for.
“I feel that if he wanted to recognise
MKO Abiola now, it’s good for him. But, MKO Abiola was always the greater man.
And you cannot recognise somebody that is more than yourself. MKO Abiola did
not require General Obasanjo to recognise him,” Abiola-Costello said.
According to her, the recognition her
father needed is from the Nigerian masses.
“He required the Nigerian people to see
his heart. And the Nigerian people did. That was why they rewarded him with the
June 12 election, an election that was so free that no Nigerian leader can
claim that kind of mandate even till today,” she stated.
Meanwhile, while addressing the audience
at the Abiolas house to commemorate the death of her mother, Abiola-Costello
urged Nigerians to remain undivided by the country’s politicians.
She said, “We must not allow the
politicians who have an agenda to divide us as a country and as a people. MKO
won the June 12 election in large part and in large measure by the northern
votes. If we didn’t have the northern votes, we would not have June 12 today.
And yet, there are people today who say the North is against democracy and that
the Boko Haram issue is because the North is against a democratic government
that is run by a president that is from the South.
“Had the North been against a Presidency
run by somebody from the South, would we have had June 12? The North had most
of the votes and they gave their votes to MKO during the presidential election.
We should not allow ourselves to be divided; we should not allow ourselves to
be distracted. The truth is that the fundamental problem of Nigeria right now
is poverty.”
She said the late MKO Abiola had warned
of Nigeria’s current dilemma.
She said, “MKO wrote about this; he said
‘in the midst of poverty all you will have here is you will groom guerrilla
cells across Nigeria’. It is what we are seeing today. He said this over 20
years ago. And it is coming to pass.
“First, we have the militants in the
South-South. Now, we have militants in the North-East. Until we solve the
problem of poverty in Nigeria, we will continue to have militants; today, it’s
the North-East, tomorrow, it could be anywhere else.”
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