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.”
No comments:
Post a Comment