Family replies journalist who linked late MKO Abiola to drug trafficking

The late Moshood Abiola’s (MKO) family has reacted to a report by a journalist, David Hundeyin, connecting their father to drug trafficking.

MKO won the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election in Nigeria.

Hundeyin had in an article titled: “Bola Ahmed Tinubu: From Drug Lord To Presidential Candidate” alleged that Abiola traded in hard drugs while he was alive.

In a statement signed by Yushau Abiola, on behalf of Kudirat’s children, the late MKO’s family said Hundeyin’s unfounded allegation was only rabble-rousing and intended to drag the legacy of the acclaimed winner of the June 12 presidential election in the mud.

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They went on to say that Abiola was so respected and dignified that he was the only Nigerian to have been permitted to enter the United States of America without his international passport up to this point.

Hundeyin had falsely claimed that the late businessman’s bank accounts and those of his companies had been frozen.

“Our father, Chief M. K.O. Abiola, GCFR, died a hero 24 years ago, after being victimised by the military junta. It is disheartening that his legacy is being dragged in the mud by David Hundeyin for his own ulterior motives.

“Yet when it came to this grave allegation about our father he merely quoted an American tabloid, the only source he could find for his malicious purposes,” the family said.

“He gave the impression that the article in the Daily Beast was a recent article which drew a parallel between Bola Ahmed Tinubu and M.K.O. but this article was published in 2015.

“Strange is it not, that he provided no other evidence of the same? Some research! An investigative journalist, indeed.

“Indeed, our family name ranks so high in the U.S. that a prominent corner in New York, right next to corners named after Nelson and Winnie Mandela and Yitzhak Rabin, was named after his wife, our mother, Kudirat Abiola,” they stated

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The family in the statement noted that when this unfounded allegation first appeared in the said American tabloid in 2015, they confronted John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, who was alleged to have said that MKO was accused of narcotics trading.

They stated that Campbell said that he knew of nothing concrete but a rumour he had heard from the military leadership, which he presumed was being peddled by persons who sought a justification for the annulment of the June 12 election.

The family challenged Hundeyin to provide results of his “so-called” research showing involvement of MKO in narcotics other than the false allegations in the 2015 Daily Beast article.