Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says late Moshood Abiola, his former secondary school mate, would have been Nigeria’s president but “bad belle” robbed Mr Abiola of his mandate.

Bad belle, in the Nigerian pidgin parlance means unwholesome envy or jealousy. 

Mr Obasanjo did not specifically mention those responsible for the scuttling of Mr Abiola’s presidential mandate. The 1993 presidential election result was annulled by then-military dictator Ibrahim Babangida. After staging a coup, Gen Sani Abacha arrested and jailed Mr Abiola. The presidential winner later died in the gulag.

“If not for Nigerian bad belle, MKO Abiola would have been president, and with me as president, we would have needed one more old student of BBHS to be president for us to permanently locate it in BBHS after three times. And that is a challenge for the up-and-coming generations of old boys,”Mr Obasanjo said.

The former president stated this at an event organised by the Old Boys Association of the Baptist Boys High School, in Abeokuta to mark the school’s centenary anniversary.

Mr Obasanjo listed Mr Abiola and first premier of the then-Western Nigeria, Obafemi Awolowo, among products of the 100-year old school, adding that “without BBHS, I would not be who I am.”

He added, “What all these great products of BBHS have in common is godly virtue inculcated in them by the school. That was education plus.”