12/06/2026
HAPPY DEMOCRACY DAY!
THE PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA THAT NEVER RULE
BASỌRUN MOSHOOD KASHIMAWO ỌLAWALE ABIỌLA
THE 14TH ARẸ ỌNA KAKANFO OF YORUBALAND
BORN: 24th AUGUST, 1937
DIED: 7th JULY, 1998
SECRET OF HIS BUSINESS ACUMEN
BRIEF PROFILE OF CHIEF M.K.O ABIỌLA
Moshood Kashimawo Ọlawale Abiọla, often referred to as M. K. O. Abiọla, was a popular Nigerian Yoruba businessman, publisher, politician, and aristocrat of the Ẹgba clan born in Abẹokuta, Ogun State, Moshood was his father’s twenty-third child but the first of his father’s children to survive infancy.
MKO showed entrepreneurial talents at a very young age, at the tender age of nine he started his first business selling firewood. He would wake up at dawn to go to the forest and gather firewood, which he would then cart back to town and sell before going to school, to support his old father and his siblings.
He later established a band at age fifteen where he performed at different functions in return for food. He in the end came to be acclaimed enough to begin requesting money for his exhibitions and utilized the cash to uphold his family and his optional instruction at the Baptist Boys High School Abẹokuta, where he outperformed.
He was the editor of the school magazine The Trumpeter, and Olusẹgun Ọbasanjọ was deputy editor. At the age of 19, he joined the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons apparently as a result of its container Africanist office, inclining toward it to the Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ-led Action Group’s keep focus on investment and educational advancement for the Western Region of Nigeria, where the Yoruba were in the majority.
In 1956 Moshood Abiọla started his professional life as a bank clerk with Barclays Bank Plc 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. In Glasgow, he received 1st class in political economy, commercial law, and management accountancy.
He also received a distinction from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.
On his return to Nigeria, he worked as a senior accountant at the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital, then went on to Pfizer, before joining the ITT Corporation, where he later rose to the position of Vice President, Africa and Middle-East of the whole partnership, which was Head-quartered in the United States.
Therefore Moshood Abiọla invested a considerable measure of his time and money in the United States, whilst holding the post of executive of the corporation’s Nigerian subsidiary.
Abiọla invested heavily in Nigeria and West Africa He set up Abiọla Farms, Abiọla Bookshops, Radio Communications Nigeria, Wonder Bakeries, Concord Press, Concord Airlines, Summit Oil International Ltd, Africa Ocean Lines, Habib Bank, Decca W.A. Ltd, and Abiọla Football Club.
In addition to these, he also managed to perform his duties as Chairman of the G15 business council, President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, and Patron of the Kwame Nkrumah Foundation.
Moshood Abiọla sprang to national and global prominence as a consequence of his humanitarian exercises. The Congressional Black Caucus of the United States of America issued the following tribute to Moshood Abiọla...
“Because of this man, there is both cause for hope and certainty that the agony and protests of those who suffer injustice shall give way to peace and human dignity. The children of the world shall know the great work of this extraordinary leader and his fervent mission to right wrong, to do justice, and to serve mankind.
The enemies that imperil the future of generations to come: poverty, ignorance, disease, hunger, and racism have each seen effects of the valiant work of Chief Abiọla. Through him and others like him, never again will freedom rest in the domain of the few. We, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus salute him this day as a hero in the global pursuit to preserve the history and the legacy of the African diaspora”
From 1972 until his death Moshood Abiọla had been conferred with 197 traditional titles by 68 different communities in Nigeria, in response to the fact that his financial assistance resulted in the construction of 63 secondary schools, 121 mosques and churches, 41 libraries, 21 water projects in 24 states of Nigeria, and was grand patron to 149 societies or associations in Nigeria.
Moshood Abiọla was twice voted worldwide businessman of the year and gained various honorary doctorates from universities all over the world. In 1987 he was given the golden key to the city of Washington D.C., and he was bestowed with an award from the NAACP and the King Center in the USA, and also the International Committee on Education for Teaching in Paris, among numerous others. In Nigeria, the Oloye Abiọla was made the Aarẹ Ọna Kakanfo of Yorubaland.
It is the most noteworthy chieftaincy title accessible to everyday citizens around the Yoruba and has just been given by the tribe 14 times in its history. This rendered Abiọla the ceremonial Viceroy of the greater part of his tribes /people.
According to the folklore of the tribe as recounted by the Yoruba elders, the Aarẹ Ọna Kakanfo is expected to die a warrior in the defense of his nation to prove himself in the eyes of both the divine and the mortal as having been worthy of his title.
LESSONS FROM JUNE 12, 1993
June 12, 1993 to this moment seems just like yesterday, but it is not just another calendar day in Nigeria; because in progressive ideological circles, today is regarded as the authentic ‘Democracy Day’ as against the ‘May 29′ popularly celebrated by the federal government
Here are twelve important facts you need to know about this date.
The date is celebrated in honor of an annulled presidential election on June 12, 1993.
Chief Moshood Kashimawo Ọlawale Abiọla, often referred to as M. K. O. Abiola, ran for the presidency in 1993 and is widely regarded as the presumed winner of the inconclusive election since no official final results were announced to date.
The election was annulled by Ibrahim Babangida, because of alleged evidence that they were corrupt and unfair, a development that ushered in a political crisis that led to General Sani Abacha seizing power later that year.
In 1994, Abiọla declared himself the lawful President of Nigeria in the Ẹpẹtẹdo area of Lagos Island, an area mainly dominated by Lagos indigenes, after he returned from a trip to solicit the support of the international community for his mandate. After declaring himself president he was declared wanted and was accused of treason and arrested on the orders of military President General Sani Abacha, who sent 200 police vehicles to bring him into custody.
Moshood Abiọla was detained for four years, largely in solitary confinement with a Bible, Qur’an, and fourteen guards as companions.
Nigerian Professor Wande Abimbọla, the Awisę Agbaye and former Vice Chancellor of Ọbafęmi Awolọwọ University, Ile Ifę said to have predicted the annulment to Abiọla and warned him against contesting but refused.
Abiola’s involvement in politics started at a young age. He was 19 years old when he joined the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC).
For the June 12, 1993 presidential elections, Abiọla’s running mate was Baba Gana Kingibe. He overwhelmingly defeated his rival, Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention.
Abiola died on July 7, 1998, on the day he was due to be released from incarceration under suspicious circumstances shortly after the death of General Abacha. The official autopsy stated that Abiọla died of natural causes, but Abacha’s chief security officer, Al-Mustapha alleged he was beaten to death.
MKO Abiọla used a ‘Campaign that President Barrack Obama also used. Many people may have paid attention to the word ‘Hope’ being used to convey a message of possibility during Obama’s 2008 election in America, but 15 years before then in Africa’s most populous nation, MKO Abiọla became a rallying figure for many Nigerians with his ‘Hope’ campaign.
M.K.O Abiọla died for the June 12 mandate but he was not the only June 12 casualty as General Sani Abacha also died in mysterious circumstances on June 8, 1998.
Chief M.K.O Abiọla’s memory is celebrated in Nigeria and internationally. June 12, remains a public holiday all over Nigeria. MKO Abiọla Stadium was named in his honor.
The election was declared Nigeria’s freest and fairest presidential election by national and international observers, with Abiọla even winning in his Northern opponent’s home state.
June 12 is thus a day to remember Chief Moshood Kashimawo Ọlawale Abiọla as well as other democracy martyrs.
On 6th June 2018 Chief M.K.O Abiọla was awarded the GCFR posthumously, the highest honor in Nigeria by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Nigeria's Democracy Day was changed to June 12 in his honour and the National Stadium Abuja was named Moshood Abiọla Stadium.
QUALITIES THAT SET ABIOLA ASIDE.
1: Abiọla Was A Man Of Colours
Unknown to many, Abiọla had a very pleasing personality. The late publisher had acquired the art of making himself agreeable to other people because he knows that the prospective buyer must buy the salesman as well as the merchandise he sells or no sale can be made.” To Abiọla he sees any encounter with anybody as an encounter to sell his good product, and he does not waste time
“It is like a game of Showmanship. Abiọla was also a super-showman! He can reach the mind of his prospective buyer or listener by dramatizing his presentation and by giving it color sufficient to arouse intense interest through an appeal to the prospective listener or guest’s imagination, I see this in him all through my encounter with him.
2: Man Of Courage
The late Abiọla was a most courageous man and warned that anyone who aspires to be great must move to also be a man of peak courage for courage must be the part of every man or woman who succeeds in any undertaking, especially that of surviving in those trying times of intense competition after a devastating period of discouragement.
3: Power Of Hard Work
The late Abiọla realized that the only way one can get to the top is hard work for hard work is the only thing that will turn daydreaming and fantasy into money. No amount of good health, courage, or imagination is worth a dime, Abiola used to say unless it is put to work; and the amount of pay a man gets is usually fixed by the amount of very hard, intelligent work that he puts out. Many people sidestep this factor of success.
The above principles are simple. There is nothing unusual or impossible or even striking in them separately or collectively, unless perhaps it is the fact that most people fail to possess one or more of these five primary requisites.
Some salesman may work hard even intelligently, using their imaginations well until they meet a succession of rebuffs and turndowns. It is here that the salesman with sand in his soul, stamina in his backbone, and courage in his heart comes right back and whips the salesman who hasn’t these qualities, so courage is essential.
Then again, many salesmen have been known to possess courage imagination, and hard work, yet by dissipation and bodily excesses handicap themselves to be physically unfit half the time to carry on their work.
4. Knowledge of the merchandise one sells
Abiola is a super salesman who analyzes carefully the merchandise or service that he sells and understands thoroughly every advantage that it embraces because he knows that no salesman can sell successfully with which he, himself, does not understand or believe in, the merchandise or service one offers.
One should never try to sell anything in which one does not have implicit confidence because one knows that one's mind will broadcast his lack of confidence to the mind of the prospective buyer, regardless of what he or she may say about his or her wares.
5. The ability to close a sale is Abiola’s strong point
Here is a man who is an artist at reaching and successfully passing the closing point in selling. He trains himself to sense the psychological moment when terminal facilities may be reached successfully. He rarely, if ever, asks his prospective buyer if he is ready to purchase. Instead, he goes on the assumption that the buyer is ready and conducts himself in conversation and general demeanor accordingly, I was once with him abroad and watched him close a deal, I was moved says an admirer.
7. Self-Control
Abiọla has and exercises complete control over his head and his heart, at all times, knowing that if he does not control himself, he cannot control his prospective audience
8 Initiative
Abiọla understands the value and the principle, of initiative. He never has to be told what to do or how to do it. Having a keen imagination, he uses it and creates plans that he translates into action through his initiative. He needs but little supervision and, generally speaking, is given none.
9. Abiọla, a master thinker
Accurate thinking is his weapon. He thinks! Moreover, he takes the time and goes to the trouble to gather facts as the basis of his thinking. He does not guess when facts are available. He has no set or immovable opinions that are not based upon what he knows to be fact.
10. Enthusiasm
Abiọla is full of life and has an abundance of enthusiasm that he can use at will. Moreover, he knows that the vibrations of thought that he releases through his enthusiasm will be picked up by the prospective audience or guest and acted upon as if it were his creation, it is this giant enthusiasm that left him a very great giver, he loves to make people happy all the time.
