Adewale Banjo
Former minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, yesterday, put a lie to an interview by Ambassador Babagana Kingibe that former President Olusegun Obasanjo knew about the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election by former military President, General Ibrahim Babangid.
Kingibe was running mate to the presumed winner of the election, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola.
In a statement, yesterday, Fani-Kayode commended President Muhammadu Buhari for making June 12 authentic Democracy Day and naming the Abuja National Stadium after Abiola.
Fani-Kayode said: “I have immense respect for ambassador Kingibe and I congratulate and commend him for the great honour bestowed upon him and Abiola by the Buhari administration. However, the assertion that Obasanjo had any hand in the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election is a lie from the pit of hell. We must not allow anyone to indulge in historical revisionism or re-write history. Obasanjo was not a member of Babangida’s administration and neither did he have any hand in that monstrous perfidy and conspiracy against democracy and the Nigerian people. As a matter of fact, the man that insisted on the annulment of the election, literally at gunpoint, General Sani Abacha, was the same person that set up Obasanjo in a trumped-up coup plot a few years later, jailed him and attempted to murder him with a lethal injection while he was in jail. The same Abacha was responsible for the murder of General Musa Yar’adua when he was also falsely accused and jailed for coup-plotting.
“It is the greatest irony of history and fate that the same Kingibe that has made this grievous allegation against Obasanjo and who was a protégée of both Obasanjo and Yar’adua ended up serving in a government that was led by the same Abacha who not only insisted on the annulment of Abiola’s mandate but also jailed and was intent on killing them both. It is easy to see and discern who the real villain and traitor is between Obasanjo and Kingibe in this matter. One stood for democracy whilst the other joined and collaborated with those that literally killed it.”