KOLA ABIOLA BACK TO SQUARE ONE

Barely a year after Kola Abiola, the eldest son of the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, went public with his plan to contest the highest office in Nigeria, he has withdrawn into his shell after failing to impress in the presidential election.

The recluse, who has been somewhat out of circulation for as long as anyone can remember, had kept himself busy running what is left of his father's investments and squabbling with his half-siblings. Perhaps in a bid to actualise his late father’s unfulfilled dreams, Kola had hoped in delusion that Nigerians would rise up in unison and support him, just as they supported his father, and elected him president. Alas, he got no support, not even from his immediate family, let alone from Nigerians, when he contested on the platform of the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP.

First, Kola’s half-sister, Hafsat

Abiola-Costello, who knew early on that he stood no chance, had pitched her tent with Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State, a former presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress as his campaign director. Then a month to the election, the Abiola family and members of the MKO Abiola’s Mandate Group collapsed their structure to endorse Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

One of Kola’s half-brothers, Olalekan, whose mother was late Mrs Kudirat Abiola, alongside the Director-General of the Abiola Mandate Group, reiterated his endorsement of Tinubu for President because, according to both men, Tinubu represents the progressive tendencies that the late MKO stood and died for. The fact that Tinubu tagged his