One of the sons of the acclaimed winner of the 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola, Abdulmumuni Abiola has said his kinsmen betrayed his father by literally killing and sharing his meat.
Speaking with journalists, Abdulmumuni said the family was not interested in the clamour in some quarters that the late business mogul should be posthumously conferred with the title of the former president.
He said the title was of no use to the family and would not in any way bring back the late politician.
Abdulmumuni said, “Can you imagine? My father died in 1998 and we’re still discussing his death as if he died recently.
“I feel there was something my father was trying to do and the powers that be then didn’t want him to do that. What could that possibly be? What did MKO do to deserve that death? We want to know.”
He wondered why some people decided to kill his father who was only trying to make the country better.
“These were people from his own ethnic group; they cut him (Abiola) into pieces and shared his ‘meat’.
“The decision (to kill him) that they made back then, are they enjoying it now? We can’t go back in time but going into the future we can avoid making the same old mistake, which is the most important thing”, he said.
Asked if he was in support of the call that the late Abiola should be conferred with the title of the Ex-President in his grave, the son said the country had other better things to attend to than giving the title to a man who was no longer alive.
His words, “That might just be a symbolic measure actually; my father has been long dead. What’s the point of giving him back his mandate when he’s no longer alive to accept it? They should keep the mandate.
“The country has more pressing issues to deal with. The country will be a better place if our leaders can apply their heads as well as hearts to lifting the majority of the people out of poverty, injustice, hopelessness, insecurity and corruption. There is so much rot in the country.”