Former Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola has said that the late MKO Abiola would have become president if the rule of law had been respected during the June 12, 1993 election.
Speaking on Thursday, June 12, as a guest on The Platform, a Democracy Day event hosted by Covenant Nation in Lagos, Fashola stressed the need to uphold due process in Nigeria’s democratic system.
“If the rule of law had prevailed, there would have been no crisis on June 12. MKO Abiola would have been president,” he said.
Fashola described the rule of law as essential to the progress of any society and warned against neglecting it in moments of political uncertainty.
Abiola, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), is widely believed to have won the 1993 election, long regarded as the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history.
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The vote was later annulled by then military ruler General Ibrahim Babangida.
Years later, Babangida himself admitted at a book launch that Abiola had indeed won the election.
Fashola criticised the annulment, saying it breached fundamental democratic principles.
“I want us to see the rule of law in terms of law and order. That is the perspective that I want to share,” he added.
To formally acknowledge that historic election, the Federal Government in 2018 moved Nigeria’s Democracy Day from May 29 to June 12.