“I don’t get enough credit for conducting Nigeria’s freest election” – Babangida
Former military Head of State Ibrahim Babangida has said he doesn’t get enough credit for conducting Nigeria’s freest election.
Babangida annulled the election which saw MKO Abiola emerge winner in June 1993.
Babangida said he had reasons for annuling the election, but no one cares to listen.
He made this known in an interview with Channels TV on Monday.
When asked to explain further if it was true that people dismissed his words because of the annulment of June 12 election, he said, “That is right. They say, ‘he cancelled the freest election in the history but he annulled it’ but nobody gives me credit for conducting the freest election in the country.”
He added, “We try to rationalise why we did what we did but nobody is prepared to listen to us. So, it is a matter of time. One day, the younger generation will say they have heard one side and want to hear the other side of the story.
“Maybe by then we will have a better society that is prepared; that is well-informed of what happened within a period of their existence. They will then be able to say this is the true story.”
Babangida, who was once friends with Abiola, said no one would read his biography because of his past records.
“I don’t know. People may not read it because it is coming from a dictator. A lot will say ‘he is the one who cancelled June 12 and that will kill everything that I have to talk about,” he said.
“I hope that one day God will spare my life so that I can discuss it because I still believe people don’t get what we were trying to do. Nobody has ever sat down to say the two personalities are friends, what went wrong.”
