A former military
dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, says Nigerians no longer take him seriously
because he annulled the June 12, 1993 Presidential election adjudged as the
most credible election in the history of Nigeria.
Babangida said this
during a programme on Channels Television titled, ‘Roadmap 2019’ 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.”
The former maximum
ruler said he was hopeful that the younger generation would understand why he
annulled the election.
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.”
When asked if he would
publish his biography soon to tell his story, Babangida said nobody would read
it because of his past.
Babangida said no one
had ever reflected the fact that he and the acclaimed winner of the election,
MKO Abiola, were friends before and after the annulment.
When asked if he would
publish his biography, he said, “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.
“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.
“I have never seen
anybody write about this to try to give people another version of things. I
knew his feelings and he knew my own. We even talked about it during the crisis
itself.”
Copyright PUNCH.
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