BEVERLY HILL, April 17, (THEWILL) – Former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (Rtd) aka IBB, has stated that he deserves credit for conducting the freest elections in the country in 1993 even though it was annulled.
He said this during an exclusive interview on Roadmap 2019, a Channels Television programme that aired on Monday saying that despite the fact that he had explained why the June 12 election was cancelled, nobody cared to listen to him.
The late Moshood Abiola, a philanthropist and successful businessman, had won the election which was later cancelled by the then military junta headed by General Babangida.
The poll, which was adjudged the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s democratic history, was the first presidential election held in Nigeria since 1983 when the military took power in a coup.
The late MKO Abiola of the then Social Democratic Party (SDP) had defeated Bashir Tofa of the defunct National Republican Convention (NCP).
IBB revealed that he had a good relationship with the presumed winner of the election saying they had communicated at different occasions.
“Nobody has ever sat down to say the two persons are friends, what went wrong? We tried to rationalise why we had to do what we did but nobody is prepared to listen to us,” the elder statesman said.
“I have never seen anybody write anything on this to try to give people a different version altogether. He (Abiola) knew my feeling; I knew his feeling about the country generally because I do talk about Nigeria with the presumed winner of the truly democratically freest election. We even talked about it during the crisis itself.”
On whether is he is planning to write an autobiography, the former military president said, “People may not read it because it’s coming from a dictator. Yea, he cancelled June 12 and that will kill the thing about the book, but I will try.
“I hope one day if God spares my life I will discuss about it (June 12 elections) because I still believe people don’t get what we were trying to put across.
“Nobody has ever sat down to say the two persons involved are friends, what went wrong? We tried to rationalise why we had to do what we did but nobody is prepared to listen to us.
“I have never seen anybody write anything on this to try to give people a different version altogether.”
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