Muritala Abiola, brother of the winner of June 12, 1993, election MKO Abiola has slammed former President Olusegun Obasanjo for the role he played in the June 12 struggle, noting that he is an “enemy” of the Abiola family.
Abiola, the presumed winner of June 12, 1993, presidential election died on July 7, 1998. Pro-democracy activists will mark the 26th anniversary of the election on June 12, 2019.
Chief Muritala Abiola claimed Obasanjo contributed to Abiola’s death despite benefiting immensely from Abiola’s generosity. He added that Obasanjo allegedly received N3m from Abiola to help organise retired military officers against the late dictator, Sani Abacha.
“I don’t fear any man. I took N3m cheque from MKO Abiola to Obasanjo’s driver… that he (Obasanjo) wanted to organise the retirement of Army officers meeting so as to confront Abacha. I took the cheque from him with my hands. My brother’s bag was always by his arms. He took a pen and the cheque, wrote the amount while I gave the cheque to Obasanjo’s driver,” he said.
Chief Muritala Abiola disclosed this in a 2017 interview with Asabe TV Africa where he narrated his encounter with Obasanjo over the June 12 struggle and how he challenged Obasanjo for been culpable in truncating the mandate.
He said, “I was with Obasanjo on January 6 this year (2017). I spent four hours with him in his Hilltop home. We discussed so many issues. I told him face to face that he is an enemy of the Abiola family. He asked me what he had done to be called an enemy. I told him he contributed to the death of MKO. He (Obasanjo) said, “how?”
“The Arewa people said they wanted to compensate Yoruba and they said they wanted the President to come from the South and so on. Ibrahim Babangida came to discuss this and your response (Obasanjo’s) was that in Yoruba land if one King does not die, we cannot have another king. In a simple language, you were asking them to go and kill my brother (MKO Abiola) and that was what happened.”
Asked what Obasanjo’s response to his accusation was, Chief Muritala Abiola said, “After telling him that, he said they should prepare food for me. I told him I didn’t visit him because I wanted to eat.
He (Obasanjo) said, ‘I don’t give people money.’ I said, ‘I don’t need your money. I didn’t come for money. We have cleared what I came for.’ He asked them to give me four bags of rice and four tubers of yam and put it in my car boot. I just left the place.”
