Sixty Six of Abiola’s ‘Children’ Failed DNA Test – Olalekan Abiola

By The9jaTREND

One of the children of the late business mogul and politician, Chief MKO Abiola, the widely acclaimed winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, Olalekan Abiola last week spoke to Sunday Vanguard during the 32nd anniversary at the family residence in Ikeja, Lagos on the impact of the incident on the family and on democracy in Nigeria.

He also shared his views on the best way to immortalize his father among other issues. Excerpts:

Honestly, it’s been 27 years of trauma, especially with my mother’s assassination. I am saying this because she was all the way with us at home when my father was in detention at that time. She was not arrested, she was not detained by the military junta and she was not under house arrest.

One minute my mom was at home, in good health, and the next minute she had been shot. So that was more painful, more traumatic than the fate my father suffered.

In my dad’s case, he had been locked up for like four years before he died, so we had been used to not seeing him anymore.

Four years before he (MKO Abiola) died, he was already in detention but my late mom was the one that we could talk to and relate with. All the time, we were on the phone with her a couple of days before she died. We were expecting her to come and see us in the US when she was killed. That was more traumatic than my father’s own, but equally they were both painful, definitely.

“But now that my mother has been killed, we were hoping that my daddy will come back to us, so that we will be able to try to rebuild our lives”, but that never happened. So it happened that, basically, due to June 12th agitation we lost both parents. So it is both painful.

Well, we’re quite fortunate that our parents educated us. So we’re all educated. So we all can work and engage in some form of business activities. Both parents were equally well-off. Even though my father’s companies have been hijacked by my older brother, Kola, my mother still left quite enough for us to be able to survive with. I won’t say I cannot complain, because I know that I’m better off.

It’s (support) been here and there. Initially, when this current democratic journey began in 1999, we got some level of support but a lot of failed promises from officials of government who would promise to help rebuild my late father’s business concerns. They, Federal Government till date promised to pay the debts that they are owing my father to the family. They never did it till the moment.