Thread by @Morris_Monye

1. Today is May 29.

A day that was supposed to be our democracy day but moved to June 12 in memory of Abiola

Let me take you back to Abiola's journey, how he was supposed to be Chairman of IBB Transitional Council which may have changed the course of history etc.

THREAD!!!

2. In 1982, MKO Abiola was a leading national executive for the NPN (National Party of Nigeria) and one of the major financiers.

He had eyes to contest for Presidency on the platform of the party in 1983.

However, party stalwarts frustrated him.

3. They simply didn't trust MKO Abiola. He got angry and quit politics in 1982.

He later changed his mind and got affected by the ban on former Politicians and public office holders by IBB.

The ban was later lifted and he joined SDP in January 1993.

4. He was made the party's flagbearer at its convention in Jos in March that same year

Atiku came 3rd in that convention

It was believed that Abiola used money to buy his way into relevance with huge donations in the party here and there that other aspirants couldn't match him

5. Alhaji Tofa, who like Abiola was national executive member of NPN. He was Financial Secretary of the party.

He picked the Presidential ticket of the NRC party in PH on March 1993.

Both men were close to IBB

6. Some suspected that IBB knew from the start that he was not going to handover to civilians but played along hoping that the Politicians would be greedy and scuttle it themselves.

This was not to be the case.

7. IBB gave Abiola N35m as support and wished Abiola to become Chairman of the Transitional Committee.

Abacha seeing the future, violently opposed it and said Abiola would just be member of the committee.

Abiola insisted that he would be Chairman or nothing

8. At the end, it was nothing and Abiola could no longer control the narrative of how things went from there.

Now to the issues...

9. Members of the Defence and Security Council instigated by Abacha wanted both men disqualified.

They didn't see Abiola as someone morally fit to be President.

They raised allegations that he was a govt contractor (which was mostly true) and was all about the money

10. IBB reasoned with them that stopping the election would make Nigerians angry and suspicious of the army and asked that they be patient and let the Politicians self-destruct themselves.

But, Abiola proved to be so popular that even some NRC members secretly supported him

11. The military was not impressed. The IBB script was not going as planned.

What was to be done???

Now comes Sen. Arthur Nzeribe, a shadowy powerful man from Imo state. His body, the ABN (Association for Better Nigeria) went to the High Court on June 10 to stop elections

12. Abimbola Davies his deputy prayed the court to cancel it based on irregularities and corruption.

How????

Justice Bassey Ita Ikpeme (Now late) restrained NEC from conducting elections

13. The Military now had an excuse!

But IBB the evil genius he was, told NEC to disregard the court order. NEC led by Prof. Nwosu went ahead with the election.

It was a bobby trap.

14. It was the freest election in Nigerian history and went smoothly.

Nzeribe struck again!

He asked an Abuja court to stop them from announcing results.

ABN argued that NEC defied a subsisting court order

15. Justice Dahiru Saleh agreed with ABN.

He ordered NEC not to announce results.

Prof. Nwosu, a politically naive man appealed the judgement.

All hell broke loose!

16. Court orders started flying left and right from Lagos, Benin and Abuja.

11 days later on June 23, IBB annulled the election. He dissolved NEC and sacked Nwosu.

Worthy to note is that the annulment statement was unsigned, undated, and carried no govt letterhead or seal

Why?

17. It may have been determined member of the military like Abacha that forced IBB's hands.

Chief Duro Onabule, Chief press secretary to IBB was not aware of the annulment and was upset when he heard. Aikhomu, the VP was also not aware.

Anyways history will judge.

END!