WUN NEWS UPDATE: IBB Blames Abacha For Annulling 1993 Presidential Election

Nigeria’s former military president, Ibrahim Babangida (IBB), says he regretted the annulment of the 12 June 12 1993 presidential election, 32 years after the event.

Mr Babangida also blamed Sani Abacha and other military officers for annulling the election.

Mr Babangida stated this in his autobiography – “A Journey in Service”, which was presented to the public on Thursday. The book chronicles Mr Babangida’s experiences, decisions, and challenges in national service.

In the 420-page memoir, the former military ruler acknowledged that the 1993 election was “credible, free and fair” and was won by the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Moshood Abiola.

The retired army general took responsibility for cancelling the exercise in which Mr Abiola defeated the late Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC). Mr Babangida, who officially announced the annulment of the election in a national broadcast on 24 June 1993, said he is now convinced that Mr Abiola won the election.

“Although I’m on record to have admitted after the election that Abiola may have not won the election, upon deeper reflections, and a close examination of all available facts, particularly the detailed election results which I published as an appendix to this book, there was no doubt that MKO Abiola won the June 12 election.”

“Upon closer examination of the original collated figures from the 110 polling booths in the country, it was clear that he satisfied the two main constitutional requirements for winning the presidential election; mainly the majority votes and the geographical spread, having obtained 8,128,720 votes against Tofa’s 5,84,8247 votes and securing the mandatory one-third of the vote cast in 28 states of the federation, including Abuja,” Mr Babangida said.

However, in other parts of the memoir, Mr Babangida said military officers led by Sani Abacha, his chief of defence staff who later became military head of state, annulled the June 12 election “without his permission”.

Nevertheless, the retired army general took responsibility for cancelling the exercise.

“I regret June 12. I accept full responsibility for the decisions taken and June 12 happened under my watch. Mistakes, missteps happened in quick successions,” he said.

Two months after the June 12 annulment, Mr Babangida stepped down as military president in August 1993 and installed an interim government led by Ernest Shonekan. Mr Abacha toppled the government in November 1993.




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