Son of the late Chief MKO Abiola, Jamiu Abiola, has said Nigeria would have achieved far greater economic development if his father had been allowed to assume the presidency after the 1993 presidential election.
Speaking during Channels Television’s 12 June Special Forum on Thursday, held to mark 26 years of uninterrupted democracy, Jamiu reflected on the global economic environment at the time and described the annulment as a missed opportunity for Nigeria to benefit from a period of international economic growth.
‘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.
‘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’, he said.
Jamiu, who serves as Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Linguistics and Foreign Affairs, also lamented what he described as attempts to erase his father’s legacy from Nigeria’s political 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.
‘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’, he said.
Jamiu’s book, ‘The President Who Never Ruled’, was written to preserve MKO Abiola’s legacy and ensure future generations remember his historic role.
In 2018, former President Muhammadu Buhari posthumously awarded MKO Abiola the Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic and officially declared 12 June as Democracy Day—a gesture widely seen as long overdue.
