M.K.O Abiola Must Be Declared Nigeria’s Posthumously Elected President- Soyinka

Marking the 14th anniversary of MKO Abiola’s death, Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka has called for the late politician to be posthumously named as Nigeria’s elected president.

Professor Soyinka in statement read by the leader of Campaign for Democracy (CD), Dr Joe Odumakin, made the call at the event which was marked in the late politician’s family house in Lagos on Saturday.

The brief ceremony was brought together  by family, friends and well-wishers of  late MKO Abiola.

You will recall that a similar call was recently made by the leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Bola Tinubu, during a ceremony to mark the 19th anniversary of the June 12 election.

Referring to the Federal Government’s  plan to re-name the University of Lagos after the late business mogul, Mr Tinubu noted that “Naming of the University of Lagos after Chief M.K.O. Abiola is a move that reduces the national mandate to a sectional mandate” adding that “What should be done is for the Federal Government to posthumously recognize Chief Abiola as the winner and President elect of the 1993 elections.”

In his address at the event to mark MKO’s death, the convener of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), Pastor Tunde Bakare noted that late Abiola lived and died for a just cause and that no matter what is done to diminish his sacrifice for the nation, it will not stand.

The high point of the occasion was the laying of wreath on the grave of the late politician by organisers of the event.

MKO Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election passed away in detention on the 7th of July 1998, fighting to regain his mandate. The election was adjudged to be the freest and fairest election in the nation’s history.

Culled from CHANNELTV
http://www.channelstv.com/home/2012/07/07/abiola-must-be-declared-nigerias-posthumous-elected-president-soyinka/