Jamiu Abiola, son of the late Chief MKO Abiola, has asserted that Nigeria would have experienced significant economic advancement had his father been allowed to assume the presidency following the annulled June 12, 1993 election.

Speaking at Channels Television's June 12 Special Forum on Thursday, which celebrated Nigeria's 26 years of uninterrupted democratic governance, Jamiu highlighted the missed opportunities during that pivotal period.

"Nigeria would have been better because, at that time, it was a very special time in global times; that 1993 period was a time when the world itself was having an international economic boom," he stated.

"So, we could have tapped into that. But what did we get in return? We got a Kleptomaniac as head of state. I am not going to talk about (Sani) Abacha because he has his problems wherever he has found himself," Jamiu added.

Preserving MKO Abiola's Legacy

Jamiu, who currently serves as Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Linguistics and Foreign Affairs, expressed concern about deliberate attempts to erase his father's name from Nigeria's historical narrative.

"I wrote a book in 2015 because I came to realise that my father's name was becoming like a memory that was becoming distant and people were hellbent on rewriting the history of Nigeria without him," he revealed.

According to Jamiu, foreign dignitaries would visit Nigeria and acknowledge other political figures while omitting his father. "Some people wanted to bury his name. Like my father would say: they wanted to shave his head in his absence," he noted.

This motivated him to author the book "The President Who Never Ruled" in 2015, ensuring his father's contributions would not be forgotten.

BenriNews recalls that former President Muhammadu Buhari posthumously conferred the Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (GCFR) award on MKO Abiola in 2018 and officially declared June 12 as Democracy Day, a move many Nigerians considered long overdue.

The special event where Jamiu spoke was themed "Nigeria's Democratic Journey: An Inter-Generational Conversation On Building A Better Nation."

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