Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Group backs Senate’s resolution on Abiola, Kingibe

By Clarkson Voke Eberu
11 June 2018   |   3:39 am
The New Nigeria 2019 Group has backed the Senate’s resolution urging President Muhammadu Buhari to declare Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola posthumously as winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.

Members of the Nigerian Senate during a plenary

• Urges payment of their ‘outstanding entitlements’
The New Nigeria 2019 Group has backed the Senate’s resolution urging President Muhammadu Buhari to declare Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola posthumously as winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. It noted that the move would finally settle every issue regarding the polls.

In a statement yesterday by its deputy spokesperson, Rosemary Ajuka, the group also agreed with the position of the upper chamber of the National Assembly asking for the official release of the results of the election, described in many quarters, as a watershed in Nigeria’s history.

The group had a couple of months ago paid courtesy visits to former leaders, General Ibrahim Babaginda (rtd), Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan; in line with its clamour for generational leadership change and higher youth inclusiveness in the nation’s political space.

The statement reads in part: “The New Nigeria movement is supporting the resolution of the Senate thanking Mr. President for posthumously honouring the late MKO Abiola for winning the annulled 1993 presidential election. We also urge him to make good his intention by ensuring the release and declaration of the annulled results of the polls by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“Also, the Abiola family should be paid reparations and all other entitlements due to him as former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And that Ambassador Babagana Kingibe should be recognised henceforth as former Vice President of Nigeria and be paid his accompanying entitlements.”

“What the President has done is laudable and is a validation of the June 12 election and its significance in Nigeria’s democratic journey “We at the New Nigeria 2019 Group, are elated about this and urge Mr. President to complete what he has started by paying the said reparations to the families of MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe.

“The June 12 election is considered one of the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history and believed to have been won by late Moshood Abiola and his running mate Babagana Kingibe. It is therefore gratifying that the President did what Nigerians had asked for since the election was annulled, but Mr. President needs to take this even further and complete the process.”

0 Comments