A HIGH-RANKING member of the Nigerian Army during the military years, General Ishola Williams (rtd), says contrary to the disclosure in a recently released book by former Head of State, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, the ex-military general prepared the late General Sani Abacha to take over before his controversial annulment of June 12, 1993.
Gen Williams, a former Chief of Defence Training and Planning, was a guest on the Friday edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television.
Gen Williams was one of those mentioned in Babangida’s 420-page memoir titled, ‘A Journey in Service: An Autobiography of Ibrahim Babangida’ which was launched at a well-attended event in Abuja on February 20, 2025.
In his memoir, which has now attracted a cocktail of knocks and kudos, Babangida, popularly known as IBB, admitted for the first time that the late philanthropist and democracy hero Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola won the June 12, 1993 election.
On page 296 of the book, whilst he described the ripple of reactions that trailed the annulment of the election adjudged the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history, IBB said, “Within the military leadership, there was palpable outrage. The best of us, like Lt-General Salihu Ibrahim and Major-General Ishola Williams, were alarmed, and Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar threatened to resign.”
To provide perspectives into what transpired, Gen Williams took a trip down memory lane. According to him, IBB had prepared Abacha to succeed him before he annulled the election. Gen Williams also said the transition government headed by the late businessman Ernest Sonekan was just a ruse. Major Williams said he resigned after the June 12 annulment.
Gen Williams said he attended a meeting of generals with IBB and Abacha in attendance where the plan was hatched.
Gen Williams said, “Gen Babangida forgot to mention that he used to call Gen Abacha the Khalipha which meant that one way or the other, he was encouraging Gen Abacha to succeed him.
“And to a certain extent, in my conversation with Gen Babangida, just before he stepped aside, one midnight in Minna, he could not answer a question that I asked him: ‘Did you have a blood oath with Abacha that he would succeed you?’ I asked him that question but he refused to answer. In Minna, one-on-one, at the Presidential Guest House in Minna.
“Before that, there was a group of civilian governors in his regime that came to visit him and encouraged him not to hand over. It was when they left that I asked him the question and told him not to mind the governors, that the best thing is for him to leave.”
Gen Williams said he wrote a letter to IBB in August 1993 to the effect that the best thing for the military to do is to hand over to civilian rule.
“I told him that we were preparing to receive him in Minna with full military honours after he stepped aside. And I did that. I was a Commander in Minna at that time. He came to Minna with his wife. Many officers came with him. These officers knew that he had stepped aside but put pressure on him to appoint a new CDS (chief of defense staff) and service chiefs.
“He (IBB) appointed new service chiefs and when those ones came to tell me, I said you are not going to last very long… Shortly after that, Gen Abacha flew in, met with Gen Babangida in his house and when he came out he changed all of them (service chiefs).
“There was a meeting before the interim government where officers from Brigadier General and above of the Armed Forces met in the Villa. The late Attorney General (Clement) Akpamgbo was the only civilian at the meeting.
“When the discussion started about June 12, I was alarmed and I said: ‘What are we discussing? I thought we came here to discuss the handover process?’ Gen Abacha was sitting to my right and in between us was Gen Diya. Gen Abacha said Ishola don’t talk like that but I said we should be discussing handing over, not annulment. On what basis will the election be annulled? But nobody answered me.
“It was only Gen Ikonne who supported me. By that time, the election had not been annulled yet but the election had taken place.”
Gen Williams said a decree for a transition period was designed at the meeting by Babangida.
“I said we don’t need the transitional government but it was ruled out. The whole decree was planned in such a way so that Abacha could take over,” he said.
The return of democracy in Nigeria in 1999 followed a series of events, some bloody and undesirable. In 1993, Babangida who took over power in 1985 through a coup against General Muhammadu Buhari backed the transition to civil rule with the 1993 presidential election. He would later cancel the poll and resign in the wake of the protests and unrest that followed.
Babangida subsequently formed an interim government with businessman Ernest Sonekan as president and Sani Abacha as Chief of Defence Staff and Minister of Defence.
On November 18, 1993, three months into his administration, Abacha overthrew Sonekan in a palace coup.
The annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election between Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and his main challenger Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC) sparked protests and unrest nationwide.
Buoyed by the incontrovertible evidence of his electoral victory, Abiola declared himself as president. He was not only denied his mandate but was subsequently imprisoned by the military regime of Sani Abacha who was Babangida’s chief of defence staff.
The political colossus died in troubling and deeply suspicious circumstances in detention on July 7, 1998. He was 60 years old. One of his wives, Kudirat, was viciously assassinated on June 4, 1996.
After the death of Abacha, General Abdulsalami Abubakar took over power and midwived the transition to democratic rule with a former head of state Obasanjo winning the presidential election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), signalling the democratic era known as the Fourth Republic.
Obasanjo was first military head of state between February 1976 and October 1979 before becoming the country’s democratically elected President between 1999 and 2007.