February 20, 2025
After more than 3 decades of hues and cries over the annulment of June 12 ,1993 Presidential election, the protagonist, former Military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB, finally came out with the truth and expressed regret over his action.
Babangida revealed this on Thursday, during the launch of his Memoir – “A Journey in Service”, in Abuja,
IBB, who spoke to a crowd of past and serving leaders, took responsibility for the cancellation of the exercise which was a two-horse race between M.K.O Abiola as candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP and Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention, NRC.
The General popularly called “Madonna” said “I regret June 12. I accept full responsibility for the decisions taken and June 12 happened under my watch. Mistakes, missteps happened in quick successions,”
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IBB acknowledged that the election was free and fair and also the best of all elections ever conducted in Nigeria’s history, with M.K.O Abiola winning the election across board , said though Nigerians accepted the election, the Military was not ready for a democratic rule as of that time
“June 12 was accepted by Nigerians as the best of elections in Nigeria. It was free and fair. But unfortunately, we cancelled that election. I used the word unfortunately, for the first time. We were in government at the time and we knew the possible consequences of handing over to a democratic government. We did well that we wanted ours to be the last military coup deta’t. To be honest with you, the situation was not ripe to hand over at the time.
“Forget about the wrong things that happened in politics. The issue of security of the nation was a threat and we would have considered ourselves to have failed, if six months after handover, there was another coup. I went through coup deta’t and I survived it. We knew that there would be another coup deta’t. But not many people believed what we said. They could have allowed me to go away and then they (coup plotters) would regroup and stage another coup. This is how coups are staged – one man will always come to complain. And he will try to convince you about his complaints,” Babangida said.
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It would be recalled that after the annulment of the June 12 presidential election and mounting protests against the cancellation, the Junta appointed Sir Ernest Shoneksn as Interim President, However, his stay in office was short-lived as what was conceived as a palace coup took place Gen Sani Abacha was announced as Head of State and Commander – in Chief of the Armed Forces.
Abiola declared himself President amid cheers by his supporters in the country but Abacha, declared him wanted and eventually put him under bars. Abiola, never reclaimed his mandate.
In 2018, Muhammadu Buhari in recognising the winner of June 12 and the grave injustice meted to him, conferred a posthumous honour of GCFR on Abiola and also named the National Stadium in Abuja after him.
