Eldest son of the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Kola Abiola has revealed that he made three attempts to persuade former President Goodluck Jonathan to confer the honour of the Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (GCFR) on his late father, MKO Abiola.

Kola, who stated this during a programme titled ‘Question Time’ on Channels Television on Thursday however said it could be realized due to what he described as political reasons.

He revealed that he first approached the then Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke (SAN) to honour his father during the Centenary celebration in January 2014 but a gold award was given to the deceased,  which the family rejected.

Kola said at his second attempt, he wrote a letter to then President Goodluck Jonathan through the Serving Overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, during the build-up to the 2015 elections but nothing was done.

He added that even after Jonathan lost the presidential election and was preparing to leave office, he made another attempt to get him to honour his father but yet again, it failed.

His words: “Towards the election, I approached them again, this time in writing, and solicited the help of Pastor Bakare and told them that even if it was for selfish political reasons, this was something you could do to help your chances of winning elections.

“I really didn’t mind how he got it done. But we couldn’t get President Jonathan to get it done so we left that.

“After he lost the election, I approached him a second time also through the same Pastor Bakare to try to get him to do this as a legacy of his Presidency, something that Nigerians would never forget about him. Last minute, we couldn’t get it to happen.”

Kola disclosed that after President Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election and took office, he sent a letter to him through Pastor Bakare again to take to the President who was in Kaduna at the time.

He said Buhari bought into the idea and exceeded the expectations of the Abiola family as he did not only honour the deceased with the highest title in the land but also issued an apology to his family on behalf of the Federal Government.

Kola however noted that he did not approach former President Olusegun Obasanjo to honour his father because he felt there was no point doing so as the answer would have been an obvious no.

He, however, said he also approached the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, who promised to address the issue but unfortunately died in office

 Kola maintained that Jonathan’s naming of the University of Lagos as Moshood Abiola University was a mistake as according to him, in doing so, they were trying to regionalize MKO.

Kola said there was no need demanding the release of the result of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections since it was obvious to all Nigerians, faulting the National Assembly for asking the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to release the results of the annulled election.

“Like Rochas Okorocha would say, ‘It is Ibeberism’ as far as I am concerned. How many times have I been to the National Assembly? All they do is just talk and it gets to the committee and it dies there. That is what they call filibuster in politics. How many times have they not done what is right?

“For me, Mr. President has done undoubtedly what no one was capable of doing and that apology given not just to my father but to Gani Fawehinmi’s family was more than what I bargained for when I was pushing for this,” he added.