FORMER military President, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (retd), insisted that the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election was in the best interest of the country.
Bagandida, who featured in a Channels Television’s programme, Politics Today, said he took the decision 28 years ago to save the country from a major crisis.
The former military ruler controversially annulled the election widely acknowledged as the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history on June 24, 1993, and plunged the country into a major political crisis that lasted five years.
Babangida had in an interview on Arise TV about two weeks said he annulled the election in order to prevent a violent military coup in Nigeria.
He reaffirmed the position in yesterday’s interview.
Babangida said: “It is a decision we took. I had to take that decision. I did that to the best of my knowledge in the interest of the country.
“I did the right thing. I can sit back and say some of the things I said manifested after I had left. We had the coup, and that coup lasted for five years.”
