Why MKO Abiola nominated many of Abacha's cabinet ministers - Agbakoba

- Olisa Agbakoba has revealed the reason why MKO Abiola nominated some Abacha's cabinent ministers

- He said late Sani Abacha had promised to restore Abiola's mandate

- Agbakoba also wondered why late MKO did nnot see the deceit in Abacha

Olisa Agbakoba, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association and active participant in the June 12 struggle has claimed that late MKO Abiola nominated many of cabinet to the late Nigerian dictator, Genera Sani Abacha.

Agbakoba said Abiola erroneously believed Abacha was trying to help him reclaim his mandate.

The activist also revealed that Ibrahim Banbagida who annulled the June 12 presidential election was reluctant to leave power. And had hatched a plan with the late Abacha to return him to power while pretending to helping Abiola, Punch reports.

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"Babangida was interested in looking for a way to stay in power but he was also forced to deal with the human rights and pro-democracy communities. If you look at the transition train, he would create like 16 parties and in another few months, he would ban all of them. The power was too sweet.

"That was why they kept finding ways to keep shifting the transition to civil democratic rule until they started to confuse themselves. The place became completely riotous and the civil and human rights community had also created a lot of tension and by August 26, 1993, Babangida was forced to step aside.

"He banned the late Olusola Saraki; it got to a point where he got confused quite frankly. But eventually, there was enough pressure from inside and outside to push him out and if you watch his broadcast, you would realise that he was not ready to leave.

"That was why he used the words- stepping aside. It is like stepping aside for the time being, to give it to Abacha and allow things to cool down before coming back. So his plan with Abacha was to pretend to give to Shonekan and then Abacha would seize power again and pretend to return it to Abiola.

"Here is where we differed from Abiola; we told him it was a trap because there was no way Abacha would give him power. He didn’t listen to us; rather, he listened to greedy politicians – people like Ebenezer Babatope and co. They packed the cabinet for Abacha because Abacha had told Abiola to bring him some cabinet ministers, so, many of the ministers were nominated by Abiola. I don’t understand why he didn’t see this as a trap.

Going further, he argued that: "Abacha didn’t intend to relinquish power. Abacha had been eying power since the 1980s but he allowed himself to be the fool, so people thought he was a dull man. But he was a very intelligent man.

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"What he did was to hang in as a mole from one government to the other; he kept moving and Babangida thought he was loyal and he allowed him to become the head of state. And that was it; once he became the head of state, he crushed everything. But the plan was to return power to Babangida.

"That was why Babangida stepped aside; he had planned to reclaim it from Abacha. They had planned it, but Abacha played him because when he became the head of state, he retired all of Babangida’s boys. He reshuffled the military too and strengthened his own hands.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that few days after President Buhari conferred national honour on late MKO Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the 1993 presidential election which was annulled by former military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, Nigerians who played active roles in the struggles that followed the annulment have continued to speak on the event which remarkably marked a turning point in the country's history.

Abiola Is The Messiah of Nigeria's Democracy; I Foresaw the Annulment - Kenny Martins | NAIJ TV.

Source: Legit.ng