Jamiu Abiola, son of the late democracy icon Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, has said Nigeria would have been far better off economically if his father had been allowed to become president after the annulled 1993 election.
“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,” Jamiu said on Thursday during Channels Television’s June 12 Special Forum to mark 26 years of uninterrupted civilian rule in Nigeria.
“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 added.
Jamiu, who serves as Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Linguistics and Foreign Affairs, expressed concern that some forces had tried to erase his father’s legacy from Nigerian 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,” he said.
“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.
“So, I now wrote a book in 2015, The President Who Never Ruled, so that his name cannot be forgotten.”
In 2018, then President Muhammadu Buhari posthumously awarded MKO the GCFR title, Nigeria’s highest honour, and declared June 12 as Democracy Day.
Jamiu’s mother, Kudirat Abiola, was also honoured posthumously on Thursday by President Tinubu, who conferred on her the title of Commander of the Federal Republic. Kudirat, a vocal pro-democracy campaigner, was assassinated in 1996 during Abacha’s military regime.
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“One of the most loyal persons to him (MKO Abiola) at that time, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is now the president of Nigeria. May God bless him for honouring my mother today,” Jamiu said.
The 1993 election, widely regarded as Nigeria’s freest and fairest, was annulled by then Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida.
In his 2025 memoir, A Journey in Service, Babangida admitted for the first time that Abiola won the poll and blamed General Abacha for the annulment.
However, Jamiu dismissed Babangida’s claim as revisionist.
“He (IBB) mentioned that the election was annulled by General Abacha but all of that is tales by moonlight,” he said.
“If that was the case, nothing stopped him from bringing up that when General Abacha died to General Abdulsalami who is also from Niger State and a good friend of his, to say: ‘I was forced to annul this election because General Abacha wanted to kill MKO Abiola. Now, MKO Abiola is in jail. Why don’t you release him to get a medical checkup as opposed to him eventually dying in jail?’
“Even if he didn’t tell Abdulsalami to de-annul the election, at least let him go to have a medical checkup and Abacha was dead.
“If Abacha was the problem, they could have come up with the result.
“This result that was announced in his book could have been announced when General Abdulsalami came into power and they could have allowed him to get a medical checkup. Maybe he would have survived,” Jamiu said.
MKO Abiola died in detention in 1998 while still fighting to reclaim his presidential mandate.