{"id":67958,"date":"2025-06-13T10:08:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T10:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=67958"},"modified":"2025-06-13T10:08:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T10:08:40","slug":"rule-of-law-would-have-made-mko-abiola-president-fashola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/13\/rule-of-law-would-have-made-mko-abiola-president-fashola\/","title":{"rendered":"Rule of Law Would Have Made MKO Abiola President -Fashola"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onyeanya Ebere<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Former Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has underscored the importance of the rule of law in Nigeria\u2019s democratic development, stating that the late Chief MKO Abiola would have become president if due process had been followed during the June 12, 1993 presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>Fashola made the remarks on Thursday while speaking as a guest at The Platform, a special Democracy Day edition hosted by Covenant Nation in Lagos.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the rule of law had prevailed, there would have been no crisis on June 12. MKO would have been president, and perhaps all of his promises about a farewell to poverty would have happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Abiola, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, was widely regarded as the winner of what is still considered Nigeria\u2019s freest and fairest election.<\/p>\n<p>However, the results were annulled by the then-military regime led by General Ibrahim Babangida, sparking national outrage and political unrest.<\/p>\n<p>Fashola described the annulment as a clear violation of democratic principles and stressed that the rule of law remains a cornerstone for any nation striving for meaningful progress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want us to see the rule of law in terms of law and order. That is the perspective I want to share,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>General Babangida would later admit at a public book presentation that Abiola indeed won the election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onyeanya Ebere Former Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has underscored the importance of the rule of law in Nigeria\u2019s democratic development, stating that the late Chief MKO Abiola would have become president if due process had been followed during the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Fashola made the remarks on Thursday while [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":67959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[1008],"class_list":["post-67958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-june-12"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67960,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67958\/revisions\/67960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}