Chief Olu Falae, a former secretary to the federal government (SGF) and presidential contender, claims to have won the 1999 presidential election.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, then with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), beat Falae, who ran on a combined platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All Peoples Party, according to Anaedoonline.ng (APP).
Falae stated in an interview with Newsmen that the then-military manipulated election results in Obasanjo’s favor while he was sleeping.
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According to him, the military government believed that under the leadership of Obasanjo, a former army general, they would be safer.
“I didn’t lose. In fact, I won the election. The military felt safer in the hands of a fellow military man as their successor,” Falae said.
“Yes, I worked with them; they knew what I could do, they knew my integrity, but I was not a soldier. One of them later said ‘you could trust a sergeant more than a graduate’. Before the election, the government was already giving the presidential plane to him to go round Africa. I saw that, it showed their preference, but I won the election.
“I was able to serve the point of view that it was time for real change in Nigeria. But when the results came, it was very funny. I will give you an illustration. Imo state had 22 local government areas. The results for the first 18 came out and I won with a ratio of 4 to 1, which was not close. I was sure I had won Imo state, so I went to bed.
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“The result from the remaining four local governments came out when I was asleep and completely overturned the results I had in the 18 local governments. It was very clear that they gave it to Obasanjo, there’s no argument about that.
“They thought that was the best thing for them to do. They also thought that as a civilian I would go after them, but I had made it plain that it would be stupid of me to undermine a government I was part of. It would be suicidal.”
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