{"id":67997,"date":"2025-06-13T13:39:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T13:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=67997"},"modified":"2025-06-13T13:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T13:40:09","slug":"ibb-apologized-to-us-privately-for-annulling-june-12-polls-abiolas-son-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/13\/ibb-apologized-to-us-privately-for-annulling-june-12-polls-abiolas-son-reveals\/","title":{"rendered":"IBB Apologized to Us Privately for Annulling June 12 Polls, Abiola\u2019s Son Reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lekan Abiola, son of the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, has revealed that former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (retired), privately apologised to the Abiola family over the annulment of the historic June 12, 1993, presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on Thursday at the MKO Abiola Memorial Symposium in Lagos, Lekan said the apology, which was initially delivered behind closed doors, was later repeated publicly by the former head of state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe returned from the United States and met IBB. He apologised to us privately. When he came out publicly to say he was sorry for annulling the election and admitted that MKO won, he was simply repeating in public what he had already told us in private,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Lekan noted that although the family had accepted the private apology, the public statement helped to clear long-standing doubts about the true outcome of the June 12 election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor someone to punch you in public and apologise in private, there\u2019s little comfort in that. But when he admitted publicly that MKO won the election, it helped put to rest the constant questions and conspiracy theories,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, Babangida now consistently sends representatives to honour the late Abiola during annual June 12 events, further indicating a reconciliatory posture.<\/p>\n<p>He also urged President Bola Tinubu to give legal backing to June 12 as Nigeria\u2019s official Democracy Day to prevent any future reversal.<\/p>\n<p>The June 12 election, widely regarded as the freest and fairest in Nigeria\u2019s history, was annulled by Babangida\u2019s regime, plunging the country into political turmoil and leading to the eventual incarceration and death of Chief Abiola, who was believed to have won the polls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo Lekan Abiola, son of the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, has revealed that former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (retired), privately apologised to the Abiola family over the annulment of the historic June 12, 1993, presidential election. Speaking on Thursday at the MKO Abiola Memorial Symposium in Lagos, Lekan said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":68000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,186],"tags":[1545,1008,1738],"class_list":["post-67997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-ibb","tag-june-12","tag-mko-abiola"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67997","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=67997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67999,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67997\/revisions\/67999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}