It is exactly 32 years since the June 12, 1993, presidential election won by the late Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo, MKO, Abiola but annulled by former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, retd. In this interview, one of the children of the late Abiola, Jamiu Abiola, Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Linguistics and Foreign Matters, speaks on issues around June 12 and the current state of the Abiola family. Excerpts:
It has been 32 years since the botched June 12 elections. Do you think the ideals of the struggle for which your father lost his life are still alive?
Yes, the ideals of the noble struggle are not dead; they are still alive. What were the ideals of that struggle? Farewell to poverty by bidding farewell to ethnicity and religious discrimination. These are among the biggest obstacles standing in the way of our national progress, and Nigerians realised that on June 12, 1993. That was why all over the country, Nigerians voted for my father, whom they deemed capable of unifying the country based on his decades-long detribalised record.
In a nutshell, the ideals of the June 12 struggle can be summarised as follows: standing against poverty-induced policies and standing against actions that promote religious and tribal bias. It would be an understatement to say that these vices have destroyed the fabric of Nigerian social and economic cohesion, and that it would be impossible for democracy to make any meaningful positive impact as long as negative trends are present. Over the course of history, ideals have been the driving force of democratic success.
For instance, in the United States of America, the so-called American dream contributed immensely to that country’s progress; so over here in Nigeria, we should not forget the ideals of June 12 or take them for granted. We should be proud of them and ensure that we pass them on to the younger generations.
Looking back, do you think your father made the right decision to contest in that election, which he eventually won?
Of course. My father made the right decision to contest in that election, and he also made the right decision to declare himself the president after his victory was annulled. Many believed that the latter was a suicide move, but then again, it is better to die fighting for what you believe in than to live after abandoning a worthy cause. This is my opinion. In history, there will always be people like this, whether they like it or not. It is their inescapable fate. Take away June 12, and my father would have been just a generous, wealthy man who lived and
He is an icon envied by even his enemies. Some of them are Muslims, and they know that he has been purified and has earned the best place in heaven along with my mum, the late Kudirat Abiola, who was assassinated on June 4, 1996.
When all of this was happening and immediately after the tragic deaths of my parents, I was too bitter to think like this, too angry to see any silver lining in this sad cloud.
A turning point, though, was when I wrote my books on them: ‘The President Who Never Ruled and The Stolen Presidency’. From that point, I was liberated from the shackles of agony and melancholy. That was when I started looking at the big picture and began appreciating that both my parents were on the same level as Winnie and the late Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Junior and Omar Mukhtar. I am proud of them and will also die for humanity if that is required of me.
Former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, has asked Federal Government to pay your father the money accrued to him. Do you support this call?
Whether or not I support this call in particular will not make any difference. The call I always make to government is to uphold the ideals of equity and fairness to Nigerians as a whole so that the democracy for which my parents died can be meaningful to Nigerians.
It is only when it is meaningful to them that I can look in the mirror and say with all honesty that Moshood and Kudirat Abiola did not die in vain.
This is the truth. By the time we start monetising the struggle by demanding debt payments, some cynics would wrongly claim that the struggle was all about money all along. However, the government is free to pay the debts owed to my father, but such a decision should be made by the government on its own, not because the Abiola family clamoured for it.
On a similar topic, my father was fond of giving, and that was why he could easily give his life away. We should all learn from him because this is an attribute that is badly
So many people have so much and give so little without knowing that people are happier when they give. I am glad that President Bola Tinubu, in whose government I serve, is also a very generous man.
It has been 27 years since your father died. A lot of stories about family disunity have also made the news within these years. Is the Abiola family currently united?
Since my father died, we have been somewhat united under our matriarch, Mrs Adebisi Abiola. We can even boast that we are as united as we can possibly be in view of the size of our family and our dramatic historical background. She is an outstanding matriarch and we thank God for that. You see, it is not easy managing a family as large as ours.
Even my father used to say that the bigger the head, the bigger the headache. As a Muslim, a man is not meant to have more than four wives in his life, but my father had much more than his four official wives so by the time the June 12 crisis erupted, the foundation of the entire family was deeply shaken.
As a family, though, we have been able to keep his flag flying regardless of the legal fireworks here and there regarding his estate between various members of his family, and we are sure that God will see us through until the very end when all these matters are resolved. After all, God has already seen us through decade after decade ever since our patriarch died on July 7, 1998.
What do you miss about your father?
I miss my father’s humour and wit. He was one of a kind in the sense that in his presence, there was never a dull moment. And to honour his memory, I wrote two books about him. They say that perception is greater than reality, and sadly, he had so many powerful enemies who wanted to rewrite his history to create a false perception that would alter the reality of what he stood for.
Well, my father did not call me his reliable son for nothing. I came to his rescue 10 years ago (17 years after his death) with my bestselling thriller: ‘The President Who Never Ruled,’ which I first wrote in Arabic, then English.
Then I followed it up with: ‘The Stolen Presidency.’
By the way, these books were the first in the history of Nigeria to be non-fiction and yet written as though they were fiction.
I wanted the books to be fun and exciting, and the books are because the Bashorun and Aare Onakakakanfo of Yoruba, the Chairman of ITT and the elected President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria deserved nothing less. (Vanguard)
