She said the election that made Obasanjo president was not free and fair. Tundun Abiola, daughter of the late Chief MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, said former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was used to placate the south west region for her father’s death, and was not properly elected by the Nigerian electorate in 1999.After the 1993 election was annulled by then-military Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, Abiola refused to give up his mandate and was imprisoned in 1994 by another military dictator, General Sani Abacha. Abiola died in custody under suspicious circumstances on July 7, 1998, four years after his arrest. While speaking during an interview on Channels Television on Sunday, June 10, 2018, Tundun said Obasanjo was used by the military to reward the south west for Abiola’s ultimate sacrifice, a debt she says Obasanjo never repaid by honouring her father’s memory.The lawyer said the election that made Obasanjo president was not free and fair but merely a coronation by the miitary who were prompted to ‘exit the stage’ due to the enormity of Abiola’s death.She said, “It seems strange that somebody (Obasanjo) who benefited from the death of somebody else (Abiola) would be the one who’s so adamant about trying to completely erase it from history, but it’s actually not. It takes the special grace of God to humble oneself and acknowledge a debt to anybody. To say, ‘I owe this person that. I’m grateful for this’. An egomaniac cannot do that; they’re not capable of doing that. So he has to deny it within himself and other people. He has to tell himself that, ‘This all me. I earned this,’ but he did not. “We did not have an election in 1999, we had a coronation. My father had been killed. It’s only somebody of his calibre that could die for the military to decide, ‘Enough is enough; we do have to exit the stage,’ and in order to sort of placate the south west region, they brought out President Obasanjo. “He was appointed the president, he was not elected the president; that was not a free and fair election. He knows all of these facts.”Tundun says Obasanjo always felt inferior to AbiolaTundun further claimed that Obasanjo had a relationship with her father before his death and that he always felt inferior to him. She explained that this is why Obasanjo never honoured her father’s memory even though he was president for eight years between 1999 and 2007.She said, “Ego is such a problem for most human beings. When you know you were not elected, you know you were selected and just appointed president by the military, it’s kind of galling for him to acknowledge a democratic process and his ego would not allow it.”President Obasanjo and my father had a relationship and I think he’s always felt inferior to my father and what happened in their lifetime continues even after my father was dead. He cannot bear the idea of Moshood Abiola. This erasure that he tried to accomplish is so offensive to me. I have nothing to say to President Obasanjo.”Buhari honours Abiola with post-humous GCFRTundun’s interview comes in the wake of President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to confer a post-humous award of Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (GCFR) on the late Chief Abiola. This was disclosed in a press statement released on Wednesday, June 6, 2018. The president also announced that June 12 will replace May 29 as the nation’s official Democracy Day because it’s a more symbolic date.
