Former secretary to the Government of the Federation, chief Olu Falae, has said he won the 1999 presidential election.
He said he defeated his kinsman, Olusegun Obasanjo, in the election that ushered in Nigeria’s fourth republic.
The former managing director of the Nigerian Merchant Bank made the disclosure in an interview with Daily Trust.
Olu Falae was the candidate of Alliance for democracy (AD) while former president, Obasanjo, ran on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
However, Falae said he was confident he won the election but the military wanted one of their own to be president so they rigged the election in favour of Obasanjo.
He added that even before the election the military hierarchy was already giving preferential treatment to Obasanjo, an action that showed what the outcome of the election would likely be.
“The military felt safer in the hands of a fellow military man as their successor. 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.” He said
Falae also said the misgivings of the military over handing over to him or any civilian for that matter stemmed from the fact that he would likely go after them once he had power.
“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. 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.” he said