Atedo Peterside, the founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc, has publicly dismissed former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida’s recent acknowledgement of MKO Abiola’s 1993 election victory, characterising the admission as trivially obvious and decades too late.
“IBB admitting, in 2025, that MKO Abiola won the June 12 Presidential elections in 1993, is as significant as him admitting that night follows the day,” Peterside stated via X on Friday. “Are we supposed to clap because he told the truth after three decades?”
Read Also: How annulment of June 12 election prevented second civil war – IBB
In his new autobiography “A Journey in Service,” IBB made a startling claim about Nigeria’s famous 1993 election. Babangida, who ruled Nigeria as a military president from 1985 to 1993, said he cancelled the election results to prevent violence.
IBB admitted that businessman MKO Abiola won what many considered Nigeria’s fairest election ever. The numbers he shared in his book showed that Abiola won since he “obtained 8,128,720 votes against Tofa’s 5,848,247 votes and securing the mandatory one-third of the votes cast in 28 states of the federation, including Abuja.”
However, IBB claimed he had to cancel these results because he believed Abiola would have been assassinated if he had become president. He feared this would lead to another civil war in Nigeria (the country had already experienced a devastating civil war from 1967-1970).
The aftermath was tragic – Abiola later declared himself president anyway and was imprisoned by the next military leader, Sani Abacha.
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
