Photo credit: Channels TV
His grass to wealth story was known to almost everybody then. Many a parent prayed his kind of fortune for their wards.
He made the difference between being rich and being wealthy clear. It was rumoured in those days that if he wanted to travel by air and he was yet to board the flight, the pilot dared not fly the plane.
He knew suffering so much that the first place he would eat scrambled eggs was at his in-laws. He himself said it but he forgot to say what he ate the eggs with.
He was generous to a fault. It was common knowledge then that if anybody had a hydra headed problem, all he needed to do was to link up with anybody that knew Abiola, his anguish would turn to happiness.
It was due to the fact that people were in so much suffering that despite his own generous disposition, the suffering of the people still persisted, that Abiola felt if he could become president, he would be in a position to eliminate poverty among our people.
He ran and won!
When people heard unofficially that Abiola had won, prices of commodities started going down.
However, he never became president. The powers that be ‘in their wisdom’, felt their will was superior to the people’s. By the way, the election was the freest and fairest as at then.
Abiola did not think it possible for himself to be cheated anywhere in the world. Being cheated in his own country was therefore a seeming abomination. But he was cheated by a government led by HIS own bosom friend.
After so many consultations, he made the Epetedo declaration. Meanwhile, IBB had ‘stepped aside’ for Shonekan and that one too was swept away for the goggled one.
Abacha clamped Abiola into detention. He died in detention!!!
I would have thought the right thing to do would have been to give Abiola a national recognition and pay some damages to his family. If government fails to do that, Abiola’s family should sue the government for damages.
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