Former Nigerian Military Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd.), has explicitly dismissed decades of persistent conspiracy theories alleging that the late business mogul and democratic icon, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, was assassinated via toxic poisoning while in federal detention.
The explosive archival revelations are detailed extensively in Chapter 21 of Abubakar's newly released 264-page historical memoir, titled 'Call of Duty'.
The book was formally presented to the public at a star-studded state event marking his 84th birthday at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The launch was chaired by General Yakubu Gowon and attended by former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan.
Abubakar maintained that following Abiola's tragic passing on July 7, 1998, the federal military government immediately bowed to the direct request of the Abiola family by assembling an elite independent team of world-class pathologists from four sovereign nations—the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Nigeria.
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The collaborative international forensic autopsy concluded that the winner of the historic June 12, 1993 presidential election passed away entirely from natural medical causes, specifically rooted in severe, long-term hypertensive cardiac disease.
“I do not believe Abiola was poisoned," General Abdulsalami Abubakar wrote in his book. "The family requested an autopsy and we assembled American, British, Nigerian and Canadian pathologists to conduct it.
The autopsy report attributed his death to natural causes. As far back as 1994 when he was arrested by the Abacha Administration for declaring himself President, it was public knowledge that Abiola was managing certain medical conditions which could seriously affect the quality of life of any human being.”
The book references a historic radiological report compiled on September 28, 1994, by Colonel (Dr.) O. Awofeso, the Chief Consultant Radiologist at the Nigerian Army Defence Hospital in Sokoto, which diagnosed Abiola with an enlarged heart featuring a severe "right ventricular preponderance."
Abubakar's narrative matches the eyewitness testimonies published in the 2019 memoir 'Tough Love' by former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Susan Rice.
Rice and US Undersecretary Tom Pickering were in a high-level diplomatic meeting with Abiola when the politician began coughing wrackingly, complained of intense heat, and collapsed onto a couch.
Despite a local doctor arriving within ten minutes to rush him to the state clinic, resuscitative efforts failed, leaving the country in a state of political uncertainty that Abubakar ultimately resolved by executing an unyielding 11-month transition to democratic civilian rule.
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