Sina Adedipe
Atiku Abubakar is favoured to win the 2019 poll is that there was nothing the Heavenly Father told me in the last 25 years that He would do or happen in the country that did not come to pass. This included His telling me on Sunday, December 21, 1997, that He would take away General Sani Abacha and Chief Moshood Abiola shortly after Easter celebrations on April 12, 1998. I will come back to this later in this series.
Their stories are in my book: Nigeria set aside by God for greatness and the untold story of June 12 annulment. In Chapter 13 you have the Revelation of Abacha’s imminent death (Pages 252 – 64). Abiola’s oncoming demise is in Chapter 14 (Pages 265 – 87).
I had in the columns of December 12 and 19, last year told how the Ancient of Days fulfilled the promise He made to me in January 1993, that He would make Chief Abiola win the primaries of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in March. The continuation of the story is that He also gave him victory in the June 12 presidential poll as He had promised me two months earlier, in April.
I took the election matter to the Most High when Chief Abiola chose Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe, a fellow Muslim, as his running-mate and most of his supporters in the SDP and other well-wishers who did not belong to the party were apprehensive. They said he would lose the poll because he did not pick a Christian as his opponent, Alhaji Bashir Othoman Tofa, the candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC) did.
Indeed, the members of the NRC were happy that Abiola’s Muslim–Muslim ticket would give victory to their party because Most Christians in the country would not vote for him. This was because in the late 1980s during the administration of his friend, General Ibrahim Babangida, Abiola had campaigned that Nigeria, a secular country, should join the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).
Thus, when he picked Kingibe as his running-mate most Christians in the country vowed not to vote for him because if he was elected president he would make Nigeria join the OIC. So serious was the matter that Abiola travelled to Abuja and the 36 state capitals to meet Christian leaders. He told them that he was forced to pick Kingibe because 80 per cent of the SDP governors were backing him and said they and their supporters would not vote for him, if he chose another person as his running – mate.
Chief Abiola reminded them that he went to a Christian secondary school, Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta and that he had read the Bible from Genesis through Revelation, while some of his wives were Christians. He had more than 20 spouses. He promised the Christian leaders that he would not take Nigeria into the OIC.
When I raised the matter in April 1993, the Most High promised me He would make Abiola win the presidential election in spite of his Muslim–Muslim pairing. To this end, in my presence the Lord told the leader of the 41 Muslim clerics in Ado – Ekiti to get his men to fast and pray for seven days.
Chief Abiola not only won the election, but did so with landslide superiority, defeating Tofa with close to three million votes. It was the first time any candidate would win a national election with such a wide gap majority and when a southerner would defeat a northerner.
I was amused in 2014 when some members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) urged Buhari to pick Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a fellow Muslim, as his running mate for the 2015 poll. They did this because to them the victory of Abiola and Kingibe in 1993 had shown that Nigerians do not care about Muslim – Muslim ticket or Christian–Christian pairing.
But they said so because they were ignorant of the fact that Almighty God caused 41 Muslim clerics in Ado-Ekiti to fast for 7 days for the Abiola–Kingibe ticket to be accepted by most Nigerians who would vote on June 12. Given the religious sensitivity in Nigeria, the APC would have lost if they had tried a Muslim–Muslim ticket in 2015
To be continued next Wednesday with General Abdulsalami Abubakar ignoring God’s message I conveyed to him in April 1999 that would have prevented the ceaseless tragedies in the country in the last 20 years.
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Ayodele Adedipe, a huge loss to our family (2)
Cousin Ayo, who after retiring from Wellcome Le Petite Nigeria Limited in 1977 established his own company, Fountain Pharmaceutical and Chemical Supplies Limited, contributed immensely to the development of pharmacy in Nigeria. He also played an important role in the economic affairs of the country for 33 years, 1971 – 2004 when he reached the age of 70 and retired from public activities.
A year after he established his company, he took over from J. L. Morrison Nigeria Limited, the sale and distribution of all Wellcome products in Lagos, Ogun and Ondo States for a period of 20 years.
His accomplishments in the corporate and academic worlds included serving as the Chairman of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Lagos branch and as the association’s Deputy National President from 1982 – 85. He was also a member of the Pharmacists Board of Nigeria from 1976 – 78 and served on the
Health Management Boards of Lagos State from 1979 – 83 and that of Ondo State from 1991 – 92.
For his distinguished and invaluable ser- vices to the profession, Cousin Ayo was honoured by the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) with its Certificate of Merit in 1990 and the Fellowship in 1992.
Cousin Ayo was a member of the Executive Committee of Kings College Old Boys Association (KCOBA) for ten years. A Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International, he once served as the Director of International Services of the Rotary Club of Ikeja.
In this, morning showed the day, because when he was an undergraduate at the Nigerian College of Arts and Science (NCAS), Ibadan (1956 – 59), he served as the First National President of the All Nigeria Unit- ed Nations Students Association in 1958. In this capacity, he attended the International Conference of the United Nations Students Association in Berlin, Western Germany.
Continues next week