By Vincent Egunyanga
Mrs Hajiya Maryam Sani Abacha has debunked the claim in some quarters that her late husband, Gen Sani Abacha, was part of the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election.
The June 12 presidential election, won by the late Chief MKO Abiola, was annulled by the military government of President Ibrahim Babangida.
Answering questions in an interview on TVC news monitored in Abuja, Maryam Abacha blamed other actors in government at the time for making the decision.
According to her, attributing such a defining national decision to Abacha unnecessarily bloated Abacha’s authority to unrealistic levels.
She expressed regret that Nigerians easily fall hook, line, and sinker to lies being spun by people in government.
Such other lie, she said, is the “looting script.”
“I pray for Nigerians. I pray for all of us. I pray that we should have goodness in our hearts. We should stop telling lies and blaming people.
Maryam out rightly dismissed allegations levelled against her late husband of looting the Nigerian treasury while in power.
According to her, the financial controversies surrounding her husband were misunderstood, as she insisted that no money was embezzled during his administration.
Funds, popularly referred to as the “Abacha loot,” have been recovered from Switzerland, the United States, and the United Kingdom and used for various social investment programs.
Maryam Abacha insisted that no evidence has ever been presented over a period in which her husband was in charge of the country’s affairs to substantiate charges of financial impropriety.
She challenged the credibility of publicly mentioned witnesses and documents.
“Who is the witness of the monies that were being stashed? Did you see the signature or the evidence of any monies stashed abroad? And the money that my husband kept for Nigeria, in a few months, the monies vanished. People are not talking about that.”
She said that charges against her husband might be a result of more profound social cleavages, including ethnic as well as religious biases.
“Why are we so bad towards each other? Because somebody is a northerner or a southerner, somebody is a Muslim or a Christian, or somebody is nice or… It’s not fair.”
