Moshood Abiola
Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, also known as M. K. O. Abiola , was a Nigerian business magnate, publisher, and politician. He was the honorary supreme military commander of the Oyo Empire and an aristocrat of the Egba clan.
Abiola ran for the presidency in 1993, for which the election results were annulled by then military president Ibrahim Babangida. He would later die in detention after making an attempt to assert himself as the elected president. Abiola was awarded the National honour Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic, an honour awarded to only Nigerian heads of state, posthumously on 6 June 2018, by President Muhammadu Buhari, and Nigeria's democracy day was changed from 29 May to 12 June in his honour.
Abiola was a personal friend of Ibrahim Babangida and is believed to have supported Babangida's coming to power.
Abiola's support in the June 1993 presidential election cut across all geo-political zones and religious divisions. He was among a few politicians to accomplish such influence during his time. By the time of his death, he had become an unexpected symbol of democracy.
Early life
M. K. O. Abiola was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State, to the family of Salawu and Suliat Wuraola Abiola. His father was a produce trader who primarily traded cocoa, and his mother traded in kola nuts. His name, Kashimawo, means "Let us wait and see". Moshood Abiola was his father's 23rd child, but the first of them to survive infancy, hence the name 'Kashimawo'. It was not until he was 15 years old that he was properly named Moshood by his parents.Abiola attended African Central School, Abeokuta for his primary education. As a young boy, he assisted his father in the cocoa trade, but by the end of 1946, his father's business venture was failing, precipitated by the destruction of a cocoa consignment declared by a produce inspector to be of poor quality grade and unworthy for export and to be destroyed immediately.
At the age of nine, Abiola started his first business, selling firewood gathered in the forest at dawn before school, to support his father and siblings. Abiola founded a band at the age of 15, and would perform at various ceremonies in exchange for food. He was eventually able to require payment for his performances, and used the money to support his family and his secondary education at the Baptist Boys High School, Abeokuta. Abiola was the editor of the school magazine The Trumpeter, Olusegun Obasanjo was deputy editor. At the age of 19, he joined the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons ostensibly because of its stronger pan-Nigerian origin compared with the Obafemi Awolowo-led Action Group.
In 1960, Abiola obtained a government scholarship to study at the University of Glasgow, where he later earned a degree in accountancy and qualified as a chartered accountant. He later became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.
Business career
In 1956, Abiola started his professional life as a bank clerk with Barclays Bank in Ibadan, South-West Nigeria. After two years, he joined the Western Region Finance Corporation as an executive accounts officer, before leaving for Glasgow, Scotland, to pursue his higher education. He received a first-class degree in accountancy from Glasgow University, and he also gained a distinction from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. On his return to Nigeria, Abiola worked as a senior accountant at the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital, then went on to the US firm Pfizer, before joining the ITT Corporation, where he later rose to the position of vice-president, Africa and Middle East. Abiola spent a lot of his time, and made most of his money, in the United States, while retaining the post of chairman of the corporation's Nigerian subsidiary.ITT
While Abiola worked at the Nigerian subsidiary of Pfizer pharmaceuticals, his desire was to own some equity in the firm but the options available to him were not appealing. He then applied to a job listing seeking a trained accountant, and it was during the interview that he found out the firm was ITT Corporation. Abiola was employed by the firm and one of his immediate responsibilities was to clear the backlog of debt owed to the firm by the military. An office meeting with the army's Inspector of Signals, Murtala Mohammed, to seek a resolution of the debts resulted in verbal argument heard by the Chief of Army Staff Hassan Usman Katsina. The intervention of Katsina ended up being favourable to Abiola, as he was given a cheque to cover the debt. Abiola used his determination to clear the debts as a bargaining tool for more role in the company; initially he was able to remove the expatriate manager but was unable to get a requested 50 per cent equity in the Nigerian arm of ITT. Abiola subsequently established Radio Communication as a side business, new employees were trained in marketing of telecoms equipment and Abiola targeted the military who were replacing civil war-era equipment as business clients. His marketing strategy proposed training of military personnel in the use of equipment so as to reduce reliance on outside vendors for maintenance, this strategy gained favor in a security conscious armed forces. Abiola soon received a contract to supply hardware to the military that got the attention of ITT and he was offered 49 per cent equity ownership of its Nigerian arm.RCN went on to develop a static communications network for the armed forces signal unit and Nigeria's domestic satellite communications. In 1975, ITT and partners secured a major contract to supply automatic telephone exchanges in a number of locations within the country.
Other ventures
In addition to his duties throughout the Middle-East and Africa, Abiola invested heavily in Nigeria and West Africa. He set up Abiola Farms, Abiola Bookshops, Radio Communications Nigeria, Wonder Bakeries, Concord Press, Concord Airlines, Summit Oil International Ltd, Africa Ocean Lines, Habib Bank, Decca W.A. Ltd, and Abiola football club. He was also chairman of the G15 business council, president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, patron of the Kwame Nkrumah Foundation, patron of the W. E. B. Du Bois foundation, trustee of the Martin Luther King Foundation, and director of the International Press Institute. In 1983, he teamed up with Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, Bamanga Tukur and Raymond Dokpesi to establish Africa Ocean Lines. The firm began operations in 1984, using chartered vessels, before acquiring two cargo ships in 1986 with a capacity for 958 TEUs. The shipping firm's route linked the major shipping ports along the West African coast with the United Kingdom and Northern Europe.Involvement in politics
Abiola's involvement in politics started early in his life, when he joined the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons at the age of 19. In 1979, the military government kept its word and handed over power to the civilians. As Abiola was already involved in politics, he joined the ruling National Party of Nigeria in 1980 and was elected the state chairman of his party. Re-election was done in 1983 and everything looked promising since the re-elected president was from Abiola's party and based on the true transition to power in 1979; Abiola was eligible to go for the post of presidential candidate after the tenure of the re-elected president. However, his hope to become the president was shortly dashed away for the first time in 1983 when a military coup d'état swept away the re-elected president of his party and ended civilian rule in the country.Abiola was a member of Ansar Ud Deen organization in Nigeria. In the 1980s, through his National Concord Newspaper Abiola supported Islamic causes including introduction of a Sharia Court of Appeal in Southwestern Nigeria and Nigeria's entry to the Organization of Islamic Countries. The support given the latter received less favorable response from some readers of the National Concord. Notwithstanding, he was actively involved in the formation and activities of the National Sharia Committee. In 1984, he was given a title of Baba Adinni of Yorubaland by a committee of Muslim clerics. His support of Islam in Southern Nigeria earned him some recognition in the Northern region of the country. In his hometown of Abeokuta, Abiola built a Quran training centre that was named after his mother, Zulihat Abiola.
After a decade of military rule, General Ibrahim Babangida came under pressure to return democratic rule to Nigeria. After an aborted initial primary, Abiola stood for the presidential nomination of the Social Democratic Party and beat Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to secure the presidential nomination of the SDP ahead of the 12 June 1993, presidential elections. Abiola had managed to work his way out of poverty through hard work. He established Abiola bookshops to provide affordable, locally produced textbooks in the 1980s when imported textbooks became out of the reach of ordinary Nigerians as the naira was devalued. He also made available daily necessities such as rice and soap at affordable prices in the market.
Presidential election
Primaries and campaign
Abiola announced his candidacy for president in February 1993; this was after a previous round of presidential primaries had been cancelled by military President Babangida. His party of choice was SDP, although he was an outsider who was new to the partisan politics within the party, which at the time was dominated by two major factions: People's Front and PSP. Both SDP and its opposition, NRC held presidential primaries in March 1993. SDP's primaries was held in Jos and was largely a three-way contest between Abiola, Kingibe and Atiku even though there were more aspirants. Abiola was heavily supported by the People's Solidarity faction within SDP while Atiku was supported by PF faction led by Yar'Adua and Kingibe was supported by a loose coalition of party members. During the first ballot, Abiola was able to score a slim majority vote of 3,617 to Kingibe's 3,225. A second round was contested two days later and Abiola again emerged victorious with a slim margin and he became the party's presidential candidate for the 12 June election.Abiola's political message was an optimistic future for Nigeria, with slogans such as "Farewell to poverty", "At last! Our rays of Hope" and the "Burden of Schooling". His economic policy included negotiations with foreign creditors and better management of the country's international debts, in addition, increased cooperation with the foreign community while presenting himself as someone the international community can trust.