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| M. K. O. Abiola |
Princewill Odidi|14 June 2017
June 12th is symbolic for its uniqueness. It was the day majority had their way and the minorities a say, but eventually truncated by a man we then called Maradona, some called him an evil genius. It was an era we talked about letter bombs, public state sponsored assassinations and an era corruption was institutionalized in our national culture. All these happened when Babangida was head of state.
The man in question here is Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, CFR often referred to as M. K. O.
Abiola, was a popular Nigerian Yoruba businessman, publisher, politician and aristocrat of the Yoruba Egba clan. He ran for the presidency in 1993, and is widely regarded as the presumed winner of the inconclusive election since no official final results were announced.
He died in 1998, after being denied victory when the entire election results were dubiously annulled by the preceding military president Ibrahim Babangida because of alleged evidence that they were corrupt and unfair.
His name, Kashimawo, means “Let us wait and see”. Moshood Abiola was his father’s twenty-third child but the first of his father’s children to survive infancy, hence the name ‘Kashimawo’. It was not until he was 15 years old that he was properly named Moshood, by his parents.
MKO showed entrepreneurial talents at a very young age, at the age of nine he started his first business selling firewood. He would wake up at dawn to go to the forest and gather firewood, which he would then cart back to town and sell before going to school, to support his old father and his siblings.
Moshood Abiola married many wives notable among them are Simibiat Atinuke Shoaga.
From 1972 until his death Moshood Abiola had been conferred with 197 traditional titles by 68 different communities in Nigeria, in response to the fact that his financial assistance resulted in the construction of 63 secondary schools, 121 mosques and churches, 41 libraries, 21 water projects in 24 states of Nigeria, and was grand patron to 149 societies or associations in Nigeria.
In this way Abiola reached out and won admiration across the multifarious ethnic and religious divides in Nigeria. In addition to his work in Nigeria, Moshood Abiola was a dedicated supporter of the Southern African Liberation movements from the 1970s and he sponsored the campaign to win reparations for slavery and colonialism in Africa and the diaspora.
Chief Abiola, personally rallied every African head of state, and every head of state in the black diaspora to ensure that Africans would speak with one voice on the issues.
He died mysteriously while in detention for declaring that he is President elect. June 12th was the day of the first free and fair election in Nigeria directed by the then national elections commission chairman Professor Humphrey Nwosu under a voting platform popularly referred to as option A4. It was once upon a time.
Princewill Odidi
Is an international development consultant, he writes from Atlanta