Kola: My Mother Told Abiola to Suspend His Presidential Ambition Until IBB Would Leave Office

The first son of the late Chief MKO Abiola, Kola, on Tuesday revealed that his mother, late Alhaja Simbiat Atinuke Abiola, told his father to suspend his presidential ambition until the then military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, would have left office.

Babangida, who was military president of Nigeria from August 27, 1985, to August 26, 1993, annulled the June 12, 1993, presidential election presumed to have won by Abiola.

That crisis that followed the annulment of the election by the Babangida government led to the death of Abiola in 1998.

But late MKO Abiola’s first son, who appeared on ‘Political Stew,’ a live political talk show on Television Continental (TVC) anchored by Sulaiman Aledeh, stressed that his mother told his father to drop his ambition until Babangida would have left office.

Contrary to claims that his mother told his father not to run, Kola noted that his mother was only concerned about the timing and not his father’s ambition at the time.

He said: “Contrary to what is out there, my mother never told my father not to run or get into politics, what she said was look, “the way it’s being played now’ she was not sure it’s going anywhere.

“I am not telling you not to run, I can’t stop you from running but allow Babangida to finish his programme and then you can get on board. It was a matter of time to step in. She felt the timing then was not right and the thing we all agreed to then was that he would let it play out and subsequently get involved, but he had his own way of doing things, he didn’t wait for that. The rest is history now.

“When he went out to pick the form in Abeokuta back then, he didn’t tell me because he knew what the agreement was, so I equally acted as if I didn’t know he did, but obviously it was all over the news.”

President Muhammadu Buhari had last week honoured Abiola with the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR), recoginsing him as the winner of 1993 presidential election, 20 years after his death in 1998.

Like Abiola, Kingibe was also conferred with a national honour as well as late Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), a tireless fighter for human rights and democracy.

Buhari, who said he made the decision after due consultations, stressed that “June 12, 1993, was and is far more symbolic of democracy in the Nigerian context than May 29 or even October 1.”