{"id":67962,"date":"2025-06-13T10:10:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T10:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=67962"},"modified":"2025-06-13T10:10:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T10:10:50","slug":"olu-falae-reiterates-claim-of-winning-1999-presidential-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/13\/olu-falae-reiterates-claim-of-winning-1999-presidential-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Olu Falae Reiterates Claim of Winning 1999 Presidential Election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Huldah Shado<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Chief Olu Falae, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the 1999 presidential candidate, has reignited debate over Nigeria\u2019s return to civilian rule, insisting he not Olusegun Obasanjo, won the 1999 presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Arise TV\u2019s Morning Show during a special Democracy Day programme on Thursday, Falae claimed that the results of the election were manipulated in favour of Obasanjo.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, a detailed review of the declared results by his legal counsel, the late Chief JOK Ajayi, showed that he outpolled Obasanjo by over a million votes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy lawyer, the late Chief JOK Ajayi, informed me that I won the election by over a million votes after a thorough analysis of the figures declared,\u201d Falae said. \u201cBut we chose not to contest the outcome. Our focus was on ensuring a peaceful transition to democracy after prolonged military rule.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Falae\u2019s assertion revisits the fragile aftermath of Nigeria\u2019s transition following the death of General Sani Abacha.<\/p>\n<p>He recalled the immense pressure at the time to accept the result without protest, which he did for the sake of national peace.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not about me,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about the truth. Nigeria deserves to know the authentic story behind its so-called democratic rebirth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Falae further lamented that Nigeria has not conducted a truly credible election since 1993. While democracy has remained in place since 1999, he noted that the integrity of electoral processes continues to be a major concern.<\/p>\n<p>He called for respect for the sacrifices made to restore democracy, adding that the real story of the 1999 election must be acknowledged for the sake of historical truth and national healing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Huldah Shado Chief Olu Falae, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the 1999 presidential candidate, has reignited debate over Nigeria\u2019s return to civilian rule, insisting he not Olusegun Obasanjo, won the 1999 presidential election. Speaking on Arise TV\u2019s Morning Show during a special Democracy Day programme on Thursday, Falae claimed that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":67963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67962","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=67962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67964,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67962\/revisions\/67964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}