Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola , also known as M. K. O. Abiola (24 August 1937 – 7 July 1998) was a Nigerian businessman, publisher, and politician. He was the Aare Ona Kankafo XIV of Yorubaland and an aristocrat of the Egba clan. M.K.O. Abiola ran for the presidency in 1993, for which the election results were annulled by then military president Ibrahim Babangida because of allegations that they were corrupt and unfair. Abiola was awarded the National honour Grand Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (GCFR), an honour awarded to only Nigerian heads of state, posthumously on 6 June 2018 by President Muhammadu Buhari and Nigeria's democracy day was changed to June 12. Abiola was a personal friend of Ibrahim Babangida and he is believed to have supported Babangida's coming to power. Abiola's support in the June 1993 presidential election cut across all geo-political zones and religious divisions, among a few politicians to accomplish such a spread during his time. By the time of his death, he had become an unexpected symbol of democracy. Early life M. K. O. Abiola was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State to the family of Salawu and Suliat Wuraola Abiola. His father was a produce trader who primarily traded cocoa, and his mother traded in kola nuts. His name, Kashimawo, means "Let us wait and see". Moshood Abiola was his father's twenty-third child, but the first of them to survive infancy, hence the name 'Kashimawo'. It was not until he was fifteen that he was properly named Moshood by his parents. Abiola attended African Central School, Abeokuta for his primary education. As a young boy, he assisted his father in the cocoa trade, but by the end of 1946, his father's business venture was failing precipitated by the destruction of a cocoa consignment declared by a produce inspector to be of poor quality grade and unworthy for export and to be destroyed immediately. At the age of nine, he started his first business selling firewood gathered in the forest at dawn before school, to support his father and siblings. Abiola founded a band at the age of fifteen and would perform at various ceremonies in exchange for food. Abiola was eventually able to require payment for his performances, and used the money to support his family and his secondary education at the Baptist Boys High School Abeokuta. Abiola was the editor of the