The son of late Chief MKO Abiola, Jamiu Abiola who also serves as Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Linguistics and Foreign Affairs, has disclosed what Nigeria would have looked like if his father was the president of the country in 1993.

During an interview with Channels Television on Thursday to mark June 12 – 26 years of unbroken democratic rule in Nigeria, he said there have been persistent attempts to erase his father’s legacy three decades after the annulled election and 25 years after MKO’s death.

He said, “Nigeria would have been better because, at that time, it was a very special time in global times; that 1993 period was a time when the world itself was having an international economic boom.

“So, we could have tapped into that. But what did we get in return? We got a kleptomaniac as head of state. I am not going to talk about (Sani) Abacha because he has his problems wherever he has found himself.

“I wrote a book in 2015 ‘The President Who Never Ruled’, so that his name cannot be forgotten, because I came to realise that my father’s name was becoming like a memory that was becoming distant and people were hellbent on rewriting the history of Nigeria without him.

“People would come from abroad, foreign presidents, they would mention Yar’Adua and others and they would not mention Chief MKO Abiola. Some people wanted to bury his name. Like my father would say: they wanted to shave his head in his absence.

Also, the former minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola shared the same thoughts stating that;

“If the rule of law had prevailed, there would have been no crisis on June 12. MKO would have been president, and perhaps all of his promises about a farewell to poverty would have happened.”

In 1993 presidential election, Abiola, a presidential candidate under the Social Democratic Party, was considered to have the winner as many Nigerians regard the election as Nigeria’s freest and fairest election, till date.