He never hesperer’it! How OBJ robbed me of victory in 1999 elections – Falae opens up

by Isi Esene
Former presidential aspirant, Olu Falae, in an interview with ThisDay Newspapers on Sunday, described former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s victory in the 1999 presidential elections as “the greatest shock” he has ever received in his lifetime.
Falae, who is a former Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF) and one time Finance Minister, said he was essentially robbed of victory in the elections organised by the Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar administration.
In his words, Falae, who was the flag-bearer of the APP/AD Alliance said: “Well, it was perhaps the greatest shock I’ve ever received in my lifetime up to that time because I knew I won the election, most Nigerians knew I won the election, the international community knew I won the election.”
When probed further on what he means by such declarative statements Falae added:

“Yes, I was a candidate and I set up a system for sending in the results from all the counting stations from the various states and I was leading from the various results that were sent to me  across the country before
I went to bed about 2 o’clock in the morning. By the time I woke, the table had turned. Let me give you an example, in Imo State, Imo had that time had 22 local governments, Imo had declared results in 16 local governments, all of which I won by a very wide margin by a ratio of 3 to 1, not close at all. By the time I woke up the following morning, Obasanjo had won Imo, he got more votes from the remaining six and later I got all the results from all over Nigeria. They are in my study.
In Akwa Ibom, the same person wrote all the results for all the local governments, the same green ink, the same handwriting, the same person wrote all the results. And in most of the states, in many local governments, Obasanjo got more votes than the total number of registered voters. So it’s so clear.
My lawyer, Late GOK Ajayi was a ble to establish in court that if the court accepted his plea that all those dubious …should be ignored, to be disqualified, that I won the election by over one million votes. He tabulated the thing, called a press conference and presented it, but of course the government had made up their minds to hand over to Obasanjo.”