Former Military head of state, Ibrahim Babangida is pained that Nigerians have failed to recognise that he indeed gave Nigeria her freest election.
The former dictator sat down for an interview exclusively with Channels Television on their political show ‘Roadmap 2019’
In it he stressed how he was behind the country’s freest election– June 12, 1993.
It was also the election won by the late Chief MKO Abiola who later died in prison. The election was cancelled and while it was internationally recognised worldwide as Nigeria’s freest, it was also seen as a dark time in Nigeria’s history.
Speaking on the issue Babangida said; “Nobody has ever sat down to say the two persons are friends, what went wrong? We tried to rationalise why we had to do what we did but nobody is prepared to listen to us,
“I have never seen anybody write anything on this to try to give people a different version altogether. He (Abiola) knew my feeling; I knew his feeling about the country generally because I do talk about Nigeria with the presumed winner of the truly democratically freest election. We even talked about it during the crisis itself.”
He was also asked if he’d ever write an autobiography, to which he answered that he felt Nigerians would be reluctant to read it given their disposition towards the military ruler.
“People may not read it because it’s coming from a dictator. Yea, he cancelled June 12 and that will kill the thing about the book, but I will try.
“I hope one day if God spares my life I will discuss about it (June 12 elections) because I still believe people don’t get what we were trying to put across.” he said.