The Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, has said that if the former Nigeria President, Olusegun Obasanjo had wished to, no one would have challenge him if he immortalized the acclaim winner of June 12, 1993 Presidential election, late Chief Chief MKO Abiola.
Reacting to claim by Dr. Doyin Okupe that Northern leaders would have frustrated Obasanjo from recognizing June 12 as Democracy Day, Osita Okechukwu said that Obasanjo was rather more preoccupied with his plan to actualize his third term ‘pet project’ than the issue of recognizing late Abiola.
“It is arrant nonsense to say that Northern leaders frustrated Obasanjo from recognising June 12. Baba was solely engrossed with his pet project – the 3rd Term. He loathed MKO Abiola from their childhood days in Abeokuta. He was busy weaving his life president project.
“How can somebody revise the history of a former autocratic president who captured National Assembly, was changing Senate President like rapper? Obasanjo held the governors under bondage, muscled the press and used the EFCC as attack dog. Who on earth could have stopped him if he wanted to declare June 12 Democracy Day?”
Osita, who is also the chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) said: “whereas I agree with our big brother Omoba Doyin Okupe that Nigerian politics is so intricate; however one disagrees that Obasanjo only avoided the controversy and furore that would have greeted recognising June 12 as democracy day, while in office.
”Nobody could had stopped him, he ran an imperial presidency. I doubt if he was not in league with the annulment. Abiola narrated to us at Aba, how Obasanjo envied his capacity to pay his primary school fees from the local entertainment band he used in raising money. Abiola slept with us that night at Aba after the campaign.”
