Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, on Monday challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to add the deaths of acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola; his wife, Alhaji Kudirat Abiola; and former Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate in Lagos State, Funso Williams, to the list of high-profile murders to be investigated by the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris.
Fayose made the call in a letter to Buhari signed by his spokesman, Lere Olayinka, and posted on social media.
Fayose was reacting to Buhari’s directive to Idris to reopen the probe into the murders of former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige; PDP chieftain, Aminasoari Dikibo; and other high-profile Nigerians.
The letter reads in part: “Dear President Buhari, Good to hear that you have directed IGP to reopen (the murders of) Chief Bola Ige and Chief Aminasoari Dikibo and fish out the perpetrators. Mr. President Sir, can you also add the murders of Funso Williams, Kudirat Abiola and MKO Abiola to those to be reopened by the IGP? Nigerians are interested in knowing the killers of Bola Ige as well as those who killed Funso Williams, Kudirat Abiola and MKO Abiola himself.”
MKO Abiola died on July 7, 1998 while meeting with a United States delegation in Abuja. His death, which came a month after the demise of maximum ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha, was in the heat of negotiations over how to handle Abiola’s June 12 mandate.
Then military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, had stopped the National Electoral Commission from announcing the full results of the poll. Abiola was arrested a year later by Abacha in Lagos and clamped into detention where he died in 1998.
Kudirat was murdered by a killer squad in Lagos on June 4, 1994 as she was agitating for the release of her husband and his declaration as the winner of the election.
Williams was murdered in his bedroom at Dolphin Estate, Lagos by unknown persons on July 27, 2006.
