Former military president General Ibrahim Badamasi Babanjida (retired) insisted on Monday that it was in the country’s interest to cancel the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
Bagandida, who appeared on the “Politics Today” TV show, said that she made a decision 28 years ago to save the country from a serious 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 Monday’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.”
