So while Babangida changed the usual style adopted by preceding military leaders from Head of State to president, he will continue to postpone presidential elections and eventually annul the ultimate one held on 12 June 1993.
MKO Abiola, a wealthy Yoruba businessman, won a decisive victory in the presidential elections on the SDP platform,[6] defeating Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention.
But he still believes he did the right thing, he said, because he had specific information about plans to overthrow the Abiola government and it seemed pointless to turn the country over to civilian rule if there would be a military coup within months.
He acknowledged the irony of the Sani Abacha coup in the light of this claim but maintained that the military overthrow of the civilian government that succeeded him was precisely the outcome he had been trying to avoid.
Informal sources alleged that while General Babangida wanted a legislature to give the government the facade of a representative democracy, he never intended to cede power to a democratically elected president and so while he continued to postpone the presidential election, he lobbied the National Assembly to recognise him as the country's legitimate president while keeping their jobs or risk the entire collapse of the Third Republic which was inevitable after all.
[10] Anyanwu will herself later become a two term Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2007–2015) representing Imo East senatorial constituency.
The list as consistent with the 1989 constitution, is based on 30 states as was obtainable under the presidency of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.
"Many Yoruba have long resented the domination of Nigeria's political life by the mostly northern Hausa-Fulani ethnic group, and were ecstatic when one of their own, Mr. Abiola, appeared to have won the recent balloting", commented the New York Times.
Shonekan's caretaker government was quietly removed from office by Minister of Defence, General Sani Abacha on 17 November 1993.
Following the protests and unrest of 12 June 1993 election annulment, the internment of MKO Abiola, and his eventual demise in 1998 (same year of Abacha's death) the political landscape of the Nigerian nation has never been the same.
When Abacha suddenly died, General Abdulsalami Abubakar from Niger State in North-Central Nigeria took over the reins of power.
On the 29 of May 1999, former Head of State and President-elect General Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn into office ushering in the Fourth Nigerian Republic.
On 29 May 2023 just 14 days short of three decades after 12 June, Bola Ahmed Tinubu a protégé of Abiola took office as the 16th president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria after a very closely fought election.