Jamiu Abiola, a son to late MKO Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the 1993 presidential elections, has slammed former President Olusegun Obasanjo for benefitting on his father’s blood but failing to recognise his contribution to the nation’s democracy.
MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the annulled election, died fighting for his mandate, while Obasanjo was elected President in 1999 on the country’s return to democracy.
Jamiu spoke on Sunday in Abuja at an event tagged “Testimonies of Change”, designed to showcase the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event, organised by the Ministry of Information and Culture, witnessed personal testimonies by beneficiaries of government programmes.
Jamiu, who was among the testifiers, said for over two decades, Nigerians gave a mandate to his father who was denied of it and eventually killed, adding that the family suffered emotional and psychological torture as a result.
He said his mother, Kudirat Abiola, who fought for his father’s mandate, was also killed in the process, leaving seven children behind.
He said Obasanjo benefitted from the democracy struggle by his late father and mother when he was elected as executive President in 1999.
Jamiu said in spite of coming from the same region and state as his late father and mother, Obasanjo declined to recognise their contributions to the enthronement of democracy.
He, therefore, commended President Muhammadu Buhari who after over two decades, recognised his father and declared June 12 national Democracy Day.
“What President Buhari has done, despite not being a Yoruba man, has ended the emotional and psychological trauma my family has gone through all these years,” he said.
Jamiu also testified to Buhari’s giant strides in reaching out to poor people and improving on infrastructure such as power, roads, rails, stressing that June 12, which his parents paid the supreme sacrifice for, was about the poor and the masses.
He said Buhari deserved a second term, and urged Nigerians to come out to vote for him in the forthcoming election.
Another testifier, who represented the 564 hitherto abandoned pensioners of Aladja Steel Rolling Mills in Delta, described the president as “God sent”.
Quoting from the Holy Bible, Proverb 29: 2, he said: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn”.
The testifiers said that for decades of previous administrations, they had wallowed in abject poverty and suffered but noted that the Buhari administration wiped away their tears by paying the pensions owed them for decades.
The representative of ex-workers of the Nigeria Airways, liquidated in 2004, said 800 of their members died waiting for their pensions.
He said Buhari promised to pay them in 2015 and had fulfilled his promise, thereby bringing succour, life and hope to them.
He disclosed that ex-Nigeria Airways workers would organise solidarity rally in support of Buhari’s re-election in Lagos and Kano.
Livinus Okoh, Chairman of Rice Growers Farmers Association in Ebonyi, said the Anchor Borrower Programme of the administration recorded tremendous achievements on local production of the staple towards self-sufficiency.
He also declared the support of rice farmers nationwide for the re-election of President Buhari.
