Another IBB Comprehensive Interview
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Another IBB Comprehensive Interview
....this guy keeps planning whilst pro-democracy activist are busy sleeping and slumbering...I hope we won't come back to regret our inaction when the next election got stolen again....
From This Day
National Conference Should Have No-Go-Areas -- IBB
Interview Intro:
It was certainly not one of those things you had contemplated that Wednesday morning. But that phone call from a facilitator for an interview with former military president, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, changed my itinerary, as I took the next taxi to Minna, Niger State. Although he has been out of office for eleven years, an encounter with the enigma dubbed Maradona, after the legendary Argentine footballer, presents great possibilities. But any illusions that the interview with IBB was signed, sealed and delivered vanished, as the wait began soon after arriving Minna, where the former head of state has made a home since leaving office in 1993. "I am sorry, but the General will see you within the hour," was the last words I heard from my facilitator before I surrendered myself to the inevitable arrest of sleep. I was to wake up about 12 midnight worried that I may have missed this opportunity to tackle him on a wide range of issues. By 1a.m., however, one of his aides was on the telephone pleading his boss' regrets at not being able to keep the interview date, but with an assurance to honour a 2p.m. appointment the next day.
That assurance was a welcome lullaby as you finally retired for the day. You arrived the Hill Top home of IBB at about 1.30p.m., early enough for the 2p.m. appointment, and were ushered into a waiting room. But that was before taking in the picturesque environment. Ostriches, as if in a welcome dance regale you with dainty moves showing off their plumage, while pelicans and guinea fowls roamed the premises without hindrance. And to underscore that they had as much rights as the occupants of the house, these birds' litters dotted a good portion of the house, which outside is made out in predominant cream colour. By 2.45p.m you were ushered into Babangida's private office. And here the waiting continued with intermittent apologies from his aide. And why the waiting continued you take time to explore the office, which has a pristine setting.
The walls are of white colour, the shelves deep grey and the curtains adorned in light matching grey. The settee is a shade of green with couch pillows bearing a blend of light green, ash and grey. The table also bears grey colour while the rug bears a semblance of woven sack with symmetrical green lines running around it to form perfect squares. On the table is a photograph of the retired General's family. To the extreme left of the table, on one of the shelves is a smiling portrait of Maryam, his wife. Directly behind is a group picture of IBB, Obasanjo and Clinton. Two black and white pictures also jostle for space: one is a photo of IBB and the late Kere Ahmed, the other a group photo of the 'sports winning team at Bida College in 1960' as the inscription on it gleefully announced.
The bookshelf also boasts some price collections: Nelson Mandela's 'Long Walk to Freedom'; HRH Gen Khalid Bin Sutan's 'Desert Warrior'; Robert Greene's 'The 48 Laws of Power' and Margaret Thatcher's 'The Downing Street Years.' The collection also includes 'Transition to Democracy in Nigeria 1985-1993,' 'For their Tomorrow We Gave Our Today,' selected speeches of IBB; 'Crises of Democratisation in Nigeria' by Oyovbaire and Olagunju; 'Each Man, His Time' by Prince Tony Momoh and Ibrahim Ayagi's 'Trapped Economy.' Others are 'A Code of The Teachings of A-Qu'ran' by Muhammad Sharif Chaudry, 'Don't Be Sad' by 'Amidth ibn Abdullah al-Qarnee, 'Shi'ite Islam by Richard and 'Encyclopaedia of Seerah' by Afzalur Rahman. After what seemed like an endless wait IBB, soldier, ex-head of state and lately politician walked in. He wore a white simple brocade with a cap to match. He looked tired, as he had just seen off one of several groups that have made this Hill Top a Mecca.
He beamed his famous gap toothed smile, expressed his apologies for turning up late, removed his cap and wiped his brow, kicked off his slippers and took questions for the next one and half hours from PAUL IBE and Newswatch's Bala Dan Abu on the state of the nation, his perceived presidential ambition, the June 12, 1993 election presumed to have been won by late M.K.O Abiola, the economy and sovereign national conference, among others.
Can we safely say that you are now a politician?
I can only say that every human being is a politician.
You admitted recently that you are a card-carrying member of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)?
Yes I did. I am a member of a political party and it is perhaps the only platform anybody has that he or she can use to bring about the realisation of certain ideals within the society...you don't have to be a card carrying member, but those who are not, will always like to push these ideals through politicians.
With your card, what ideals do you want to pursue?
Quite frankly, looking back, I think there are lots of what in the past we refer to things that are settled; settled issues in the Nigerian polity. There are other issues that perhaps we have not been able to settle. Of course, once there is a block, a building has been established. When I talk of settled issues for example, I am talking of a united Nigeria. I don't think there is a dispute about this country remaining a united country; I don't think there is a dispute that this country is going to be a democratic country; there is no dispute about its republican status and so on. But there are other issues that I think we need to pursue so as to make this country stronger and I will give you an example. We have a lot of things to solve about revenue allocation for example, the relationship between the states and federal government, the issue of resource control, whatever you call it, the issue of ethnic nationality, the relationship between the state and the local governments and any other thing that brings about friction within the society. These are things that we need to look at and unless you are able, like we did in the others, unless you we are able to look at these areas and then try to see if we could find a lasting solution in some of these issues.
From all indications, you appear to be a later day convert of the Sovereign National Conference. Don't you think that a number of these issues for resolution are encapsulated in the so-called national question?
I am a later convert to this national question, because after leaving office, getting to 11 years now, some of these problems keep on happening and I now believe that there is no way we could resolve them, until we sit down and talk about them and accept the line that we are going to pursue when people talk of true federalism, for example. A young journalist asked me, he said: "you are a new convert, what do you mean true federalism"?, so I jokingly asked him, (he is a young man, he lives here in Minna, he said he is from Kogi), I said basically, you will understand what I mean in the next 10, 20 years, when nothing stops you contesting as a Governor of Niger State, even though you are from Kogi. And we made an effort when we were in office, that once you stay in a place, automatically it qualifies you to contest. These are the sort of things I, really, will like us as a country to start addressing. (The) question of settler, non-indigene, name them, should not be in our vocabulary because we are a united nation.
Is that part of your recipe for peace in Nigeria?
I think there are a lot of things that bring about these frictions. I suspect the answer is yes.
It may be a settled fact that Nigeria remains one entity, but there are those who think that the upheavals in the country such as we are now experiencing in Plateau and elsewhere, bring to question the state of the federation, that we seem to be further apart than we were in 1966.
This is because we did not address them and if the National Conference could address issues like these, I mean people who are aggrieved are still open to dialogue with the other people, just to find accommodation with one another. I think we really need to look at this. If you look back to 1959 for example, we had a Sokoto man who was a Mayor in Enugu. Later, we had a Kanuri man who was representing a constituency in Benue. Now, heaven didn't fall, people accepted them. That is the sort of thing I have always given. If you go to the US, two brothers, one is a governor in Texas, and the other one is a governor in Florida because they are Americans. We should be talking as Nigerians.
What is your reaction to the declaration of a state of emergency in Plateau State?
...I think the president acted within the law, so I support his position.
Some others think that the emergency rule should have been extended to Kano that limiting it to Plateau State meant taking sides.
Quite frankly, I don't share that view because what happened in Plateau State had unintended consequence and those consequences were what happened in Kano - refugees moving, relatives maybe moving dead bodies from one place to the other. I think it is the after effect of that sort of action that brought about tension in other parts of the state.
Will enforcing peace in Plateau State address the fundamental issues of the crisis?
I think the question you should ask (is why is it that), a community that has lived together or they have been in an environment for the last 100 years, 125 years, work together, maybe inter-marry, why should they have this problem. It is not that they came in 3 months ago or something. They have been at peace. Something must have gone wrong that needs to be looked at again, so as not to repeat whatever happened. They still want to go back to where they know best, somebody who has been away for 100 years, if you ask him where are you from, he will say Minna... I think the problem is more inward.
But how do you reconcile the mandate of the elected government officials such as the president and members of the National Assembly with that of a sovereign national confab?
If they want to convoke a national conference, they need the concurrence of the existing government because it was democratically elected...the government I think can set parameters. I have no problem about national conference, provided you are going to guarantee that such conferences, (you can put a no-go-area), should not discuss anything about breaking up this country for example, that is a no go area. This conference should not talk about certain settled issues. Now, if we are agree on that, the conference could go on and then after the deliberations, they will come out with a blueprint, a document on how we are going to live...fortunately, we have a law making body in the country, so those things that require legislation can be put before the National Assembly to make a law to reflect these recommendations by the National Conference.
If that is the formula you prescribe, it means we may not even have it, because those who have been agitating for this do not share this formula. They believe that there shouldn't be any no-go-area and that it should not be supervised by officialdom... (cuts in)
No, no, nobody will supervise them. It is like whomever wants to call the national conference must have a leader...
How can such a leader, as you envisage, emerge?
Those who are calling for it should be able to stand, I know there are eminent Nigerians, they will say okay, this is whom we want and he is the leader and then they talk to government, and government says okay fine, no problem. This is a democratic environment, but in the interest of this country, your conference should not go about breaking the country, should not go and talk about changing the type of government that Nigeria and Nigerians will be ready to settle for.
In August 1990, Alao Aka-Bashorun led the convocation of such a conference in Lagos, but your administration stopped it.
At that time, if you observed in the entire continent of Africa, whichever country held a national conference had one problem or the other. It was either broken up or law and order were denied that society and a lot of the countries, up till now, haven't resolved that problem. If we can't learn by what others have gone through, then we have no business in leadership.
If you keep postponing, the fact that people say they want to sit down and talk about how they relate to one another, don't you think that we will actually be postponing the evil day.
No! I see what I consider a very healthy, (in my own opinion), development. Two or three days ago, I read, one of the prominent politicians in the North for instance, saying look, by all means, let's go and have this (sovereign national conference)...there has been an inherent fear in us, you will find that when the time of Alao Aka-Bashorun, the country was divided on how this thing should be done; the north doesn't necessary agree with the south about this convocation of national conference, but because we had not done enough to educate the people on what really the whole thing was about, however, people are now taking interest to read to find out what it is about, are now saying look, if it is all in the interest of this country, let it be.
Don't you think that the resolution of some of these conflicts lie in the archives, cobweb of several white papers on several crisis and issues in this country and that is the inability of government to generate the political will to deal with some of these things that have engendered these crises?
I had a visit on the last Constitutional Conference of 1994 or 95, I don't know for sure, but it happened during Abacha's time...I told them you don't need anybody to talk to you about this. There were 17 qualified eminent Nigerians, who for one year went round the entire length and breadth of this country and came out with volumes of documentation, and those documentation virtually address every issue about this country, about government, about devolution of power, about the place of women in the society, about the government that we need to have, about the type of government. We made an effort; at least we looked at it and agreed with some of the decisions that they came out (with), others we didn't agree with. For example, we didn't agree that we will declare a Socialist Nigerian Republic or whatever it is called. We removed that word socialist and kept the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They also talked about party system, we accepted the concept. If the essence of politics is to have a choice, two will give you a choice, even if you don't like the two, you still have the right to vote, so you have what it takes. In fairness to government then, they made effort and maybe people did not realise that the timing, the implications of what they were trying to do and...what the consequences were. So, there was an apparent fear of the unknown that did not allow us to jump into some of these things that we believed in.
Retired generals seem to have found comfortable place in politics, they no longer retire to the farm. Do you think that their involvement has been beneficial to the country in terms of stability or whatever?
My answer is yes, quite frankly. As far as I see, nothing stops them from going into politics because they are Nigerians. Unless we remove that toga off them. If they are not Nigerians, then we have a problem, but as long as they are like any other Nigerian, and because they (were) in the military doesn't mean that they have added some more rights and privileges than they have. Our constitution paves the way for those of us who were in this profession that nobody likes that everybody dreads. But, we are grateful to God that the constitution recognises us...
But the military tradition appears to be in conflict with established democratic ethos and principles.
We know this in the military. We initiated, apart from 1948, 1952 and I think 1960, the constitution. The subsequent constitutions designed for this country were all done under military regimes of 1979, 1989, 1999, all were done under military administrations, so, I don't think the knowledge or the commitment is the exclusive preserve of civilians.
Apart from PDP, which other parties do you belong to?
My friends belong to a lot of parties and I still relate to my friends. I don't grudge any of them who have sympathy to other parties that I don't share their ideals.
You may talk like a democrat with is enamour of democratic principles, yet you annulled an election in 1993, arguably a process that may have launched us as a nation on the road to progress and development. You have recently taken full responsibility for the action, but you have never told Nigerians why you annulled that historic election.
I think there are two issues. Like I said, we conducted an election, which you have adjudged the best, the freest election that has ever been conducted in this country. Then of course, the other aspect of it is that we annulled that election, which you rightly said I accepted full responsibility. We had a situation where we had to take the decision and the situation was such that you have to weigh the consequences of what we did versus the unintended consequences of what could be as a result of what we did. And so we decided then that the best thing was to annul the election.
What was the real issue that informed that decision to annul the June 12, 1993 election?
The issue at stake at that time was more to do with national security and public order.
Don't you think that several years down the line, some of these things should have been made public.
They were classified, there is no doubt about it and to the best of my knowledge, they haven't been declassified yet. I quite frankly think very passionately that as the time goes, people will get to understand. It think not much has been said about it, so as to allow tempers within the society to cool down, for people to get to accept the realities of the situation and then forge together and move forward. There will be a lot of writings on it and I assure you I will also contribute to the writings.
Before the final annulment of June 12, 1993 there were others like the disqualification of 23 political aspirants and the two, who emerged as aspirants on the platform of NRC and SDP. You have been accused of annulling those primaries to pave way for your friends.
I am glad you mentioned it. The 23 aspirants emerged. The whole process was going on for the purposes of bringing out flag bearers for the NRC and SDP. Anybody who lived in this country at that time knew that that system threw up some very serious challenges to us. We knew there had been a clamour for a change of leadership in this country. We knew there were people who felt very passionate that this part of the country (the North), had continued to dominate the political environment of this country. We also knew that there were moves because those two political parties were going to throw up two northern candidates again...so, we saw a real threat, apart from some of the problems that preceded the voting. We weighed the problem from the consequences. Already, the country has been charged and quite frankly, eminently supported too by some very important people, by even some sections of the media that this north has continued to dominate the political environment. We would have been silly not to listen to these cries and the rest of them. Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and Ciroma (Adamu) a, all Hausa-Fulani candidates...and then all the consequences of what they did before they got to where they got, nobody liked it. I have some editorials written by the media about all the anomaly, all the riggings of whatever that were inherent in those system of what we've done and when we annulled that, I also knew that the media in their own wisdom also praised us for taking those bold decisions for doing what we did. We still have some of these cuttings.
We tried it in another way and then this threw up two candidates, Bashir Tofa and the late Moshood Abiola. Again, we knew that there were subterranean problems also as a result of the two candidates. Abiola was Babangida's friend, so was Bashir Tofa. Abiola had a Muslim/Muslim ticket, and Bashir Tofa had a Muslim/Christian ticket...when we talked with members of the Armed Forces Ruling Council about these problems, we said no, if we try to annul this elections, people will believe that we didn't want to vacate this office and quite honestly, we allowed the whole process, because they repeated the same thing that the 23 did...but we looked the other side, we said okay, because we are very wary of public opinion, the public perception about this, and went through the whole process. This is the beginning of what we now call power shift. That idea came from us in the military. We knew that there was going to be an obvious problem with Abiola and Bashir Tofa at that time, and so we annulled that election.
But then anybody who was following Nigeria would have come to one conclusion, how did you come about this cry of power shift?
It is just to make sure that we live in peace with one another. One of the plans we had is that if the two parties had remained, we would have gotten the two parties, one to nominate an Igbo candidate, the other to nominate a Yoruba candidate and we were almost convincing the entire northern states to play the free states, to vote anywhere they like and quite frankly, that was just because we wanted to preserve the polity.
Prior to the annulment, was there really a threat to national security and public order considering the fact that Abiola had a Muslim/Muslim ticket. I am aware that on the Sunday preceding that particular election day, a lot of campaigns were done from the pulpits where clerics exhorted their congregation to vote the Muslim/Muslim, Abiola/Kingibe ticket. The question is if the Christians supported a Muslim/Muslim ticket wherein laid the threat you talked about?
If you observe everything in this country, the problem is not the ordinary person. He had never been a problem to anybody. Today, you can go to Baga near the border up in the north around Maiduguri, you will find Kanuris, Yorubas, Efik, every tribe you name it, they are at peace with each other. If you come here even in Niger...people just say I was born here, I was brought up here...the problem we had were people who have read, people who are educated, people who think they can tell us the ordinary people how to run the country, how to move the country; it is the elites today that brought about the concept of whatever you do in this country, if you want ministers, you should make sure you balance up. If you succeed in balancing that geographically then the next question is the religion. If you succeed in balancing the religion, if you are very good in a balancing act, then the next, question will be how you relate to those around you...to start a war, to start a crisis anywhere in the world, you don't need the whole people, all you need is a handful of manipulators, who will make it look like the whole world is coming to an end and we are very good in this country in creating that. I had friends who couldn't come to our country because of what they read, or what they hear or what they have been told, only to come to find out that well it is tolerable, we can live in it. I think we should reflect and look at all these.
I will give you an experience that I will never forget. I visited a traditional ruler, I was pleading with him to please help us to make sure everybody lives in peace, because he is an influential man, he is highly respected. It was a private visit I paid him when I was president...He said to me look, the problem is not hard, the problem is you and your elite. And I said how? He had 52 children only four had mothers that are from his own tribe, the remaining 48 children, had mothers from the other communities. He used that household to demonstrate this. But he said in the state, if a governor is from this local government or that zone, then the deputy governor must come from the other zone. Who becomes the governor? The elite. Who becomes deputy governor? Again, the elite. And then the secretary to government must come from another area and the commissioner from this zone. I looked at that old man, I analysed the situation, then I was convinced that there was a barrier between us, the elites, and them that we profess we are doing it for and the only way we could go about this is to break that wall and let's all get in.
In other words, that was the most fundamental flaw with the June 12, 1993 election?
It was capable of bringing harder problems that we did not envisage for this country and people complained.
Who?
When I say people, you and I, representatives of the people, we were complaining.
Was the elite among the civil populace or the military top brass?
The civil populace, somebody engineered them to create problem. They don't do it by themselves, there must always be a leader, there must be somebody who is the arrowhead of the campaign. The consequence is different, but it is the leader that leads them and the leaders are just one million for example in this country out of 100 million.
Can you still narrow it down? Maybe the people that complained were Christians?
No!
But I knew a lot of people who didn't complain?
In everything in this country, and I mean everything ask, anybody who is in the position of leadership, a governor, a president, a local government chairman, just ask them, every action he or she takes, must be given an interpretation of one thing or the other. You may get the best brain, the most qualified person, but you will still not go a hundred percent, so I was sensitive to this and I knew how they could capitalise on it to take advantage of the situation in the country.
Was that why you went for Obasanjo?
Well, I told people that at the time we were, the situation in which we found ourselves in this country, we required somebody like him. Nobody and honestly it comes from my heart, nobody could have done it except him.
What is so special about him? What were the considerations then?
First, no matter who you are, you cannot talk to Obasanjo about, the breaking up of either this country or any other part of this country. If you tell him, if he knows this is what you want, he wouldn't even talk to you. We knew him. There were people who urged him to lead a secession and he told them not to come to him again. He is a passionate believer in the cause of this country, he had the military background, he fought a war and knew what it was to keep the country united...secondly, is that he is capable of taking a position that he believes for the country irrespective of whoever it is. ... thirdly, we need somebody who has or have had a lot of experience about management, about governance of the people of this country and fourthly I added jokingly, but I meant it, one man that cannot be intimidated either by the press or by other interest groups.
Cannot be intimidated?
Oh yes, if you get intimidated you abandon force, but he is not going to abandon force.
I understand that when you proposed him, a lot of people accepted him, but the same people have come back to complain that they are disappointed.
No, these same people knew my position and I repeated the same position and even as at last week, I said we've made the right decision.
And they left convinced?
No, it is my conviction. I am convinced that this is the right thing, some of them agreed with me.
You are probably not feeling the pains that a majority of the people feel as a result of government policies. A lot of these people believe that you have brought this suffering on them by your support of Obasanjo
Look, Nigerians will complain about anything and everything. But let's be fair that we at least have a leader who simply believes in this country.
You may be convinced as to why you gave your support to Obasanjo. Some of us are not convinced as to why you have to maintain an uncanny silence of not criticising or even appraising this government. There are those who are beginning to wonder if you don't have an accord with him, especially as it concerns your own perceived presidential ambition?
I am one of the very few privileged persons in this country, by virtue of the position I held as the military president of this country and having been in that office, I know the problem of that office. I know the problems that the man who occupies that chair faces and we put it upon ourselves that whenever we feel very strongly (about some issues) we try to seek an appointment to go and see him, to talk to him. Now, this may have something to do with our training in the military, you don't rebuke junior officers publicly...what you do is ask him to come to your office and you wash him down, he salutes you, and goes back. I can assure you whenever I feel strongly (about an issue) or anyone of us, or collectively, we do go to him and he gives us audience, we talk, and he explains. You don't have to go public, because we don't need to be seen as fighting...
Sir, Can we take you back some years (interjects)
No, you can not (laughs...)
Once upon a time, Obasanjo criticised some of your policies, especially SAP. We ordinary Nigerians, didn't know that there was a tradition in the military that you don't rebuke your junior publicly and we thought that he had access to you. How did you feel?
To be fair to him, despite all that, we kept on getting together, we kept on talking. I used to drive to his farm, myself driving when I was the president. When you reach certain position in life, there are ways people react to different situations. I knew that he meant no harm, maybe as a result of pressures and so on, but he was also in the position to understand one thing or the other. I belief very passionately that if somebody has given you access or something to talk to him, then you don't go back. You can fight inside and then present yourself in the public as if nothing has happened.
Do you see any resemblance in the economic policies of this administration and the Structural Adjustment Programme of your administration?
At the risk of being abused by those who might be reading you later, when you look at what we did and what is happening now, the only conclusion is that we were ahead of our time. I believe in that our programmes more so on the platform on which we based the Structural Adjustment Programme, are being pursued today, be it deregulation, market economy, whatever you call it, privatisation, the taking off of a lot of burden from federal, state and local government. What we did, they tried to do..
How will you then assess the economic reform programme and where do you think it is going to lead the nation?
I think it will lead to self reliance. But as long as we continue to fiddle with it in one way or the other. Because if it affects you negatively, then it is bad, then others join the chorus and then there is pressure that this policy is bad. I think it is the consistency that we need to introduce. Nobody has ever come out with some perfect solution to a problem, but you can come out with a suggestion to solve a problem and people will be able to look at it again and say it is alright, we could do this better or we don't need this at all.
If you have the opportunity of providing leadership for this country again, what kind of things would you like to see in our economic direction?
...I believe that what we have done well so far, when I say we, it includes the present government, is enough platform that we can use to bounce this country into an economically strong nation. Everything that needs to be done or everything that needs to be said has been said, so what we need now is the implementation since the framework has been provided. It may not be easy going, it is going to be tough...but I think if you stick to the objective..and push on, later, people will get to understand.
Looking back at SAP now, is there any aspect of it you would have loved to do differently if you have the opportunity to do it all over again?
If you look at the platform, you are talking about self reliance, talking about giving the farmer the opportunity to take care of his products, whatever he produces, he can reach out to the buyers directly without a middleman, you are talking about fiscal and monetary, you are talking about exchange rate regime, allowing it to float and all that...except we need to keep on moderating it because most of these requests are unintended and one has to look at them and try to make them as less painful to the ordinary man as possible.
What is your reaction to recent statements credited to the president that the oil windfall money was mismanaged by your adm
From This Day
National Conference Should Have No-Go-Areas -- IBB
Interview Intro:
It was certainly not one of those things you had contemplated that Wednesday morning. But that phone call from a facilitator for an interview with former military president, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, changed my itinerary, as I took the next taxi to Minna, Niger State. Although he has been out of office for eleven years, an encounter with the enigma dubbed Maradona, after the legendary Argentine footballer, presents great possibilities. But any illusions that the interview with IBB was signed, sealed and delivered vanished, as the wait began soon after arriving Minna, where the former head of state has made a home since leaving office in 1993. "I am sorry, but the General will see you within the hour," was the last words I heard from my facilitator before I surrendered myself to the inevitable arrest of sleep. I was to wake up about 12 midnight worried that I may have missed this opportunity to tackle him on a wide range of issues. By 1a.m., however, one of his aides was on the telephone pleading his boss' regrets at not being able to keep the interview date, but with an assurance to honour a 2p.m. appointment the next day.
That assurance was a welcome lullaby as you finally retired for the day. You arrived the Hill Top home of IBB at about 1.30p.m., early enough for the 2p.m. appointment, and were ushered into a waiting room. But that was before taking in the picturesque environment. Ostriches, as if in a welcome dance regale you with dainty moves showing off their plumage, while pelicans and guinea fowls roamed the premises without hindrance. And to underscore that they had as much rights as the occupants of the house, these birds' litters dotted a good portion of the house, which outside is made out in predominant cream colour. By 2.45p.m you were ushered into Babangida's private office. And here the waiting continued with intermittent apologies from his aide. And why the waiting continued you take time to explore the office, which has a pristine setting.
The walls are of white colour, the shelves deep grey and the curtains adorned in light matching grey. The settee is a shade of green with couch pillows bearing a blend of light green, ash and grey. The table also bears grey colour while the rug bears a semblance of woven sack with symmetrical green lines running around it to form perfect squares. On the table is a photograph of the retired General's family. To the extreme left of the table, on one of the shelves is a smiling portrait of Maryam, his wife. Directly behind is a group picture of IBB, Obasanjo and Clinton. Two black and white pictures also jostle for space: one is a photo of IBB and the late Kere Ahmed, the other a group photo of the 'sports winning team at Bida College in 1960' as the inscription on it gleefully announced.
The bookshelf also boasts some price collections: Nelson Mandela's 'Long Walk to Freedom'; HRH Gen Khalid Bin Sutan's 'Desert Warrior'; Robert Greene's 'The 48 Laws of Power' and Margaret Thatcher's 'The Downing Street Years.' The collection also includes 'Transition to Democracy in Nigeria 1985-1993,' 'For their Tomorrow We Gave Our Today,' selected speeches of IBB; 'Crises of Democratisation in Nigeria' by Oyovbaire and Olagunju; 'Each Man, His Time' by Prince Tony Momoh and Ibrahim Ayagi's 'Trapped Economy.' Others are 'A Code of The Teachings of A-Qu'ran' by Muhammad Sharif Chaudry, 'Don't Be Sad' by 'Amidth ibn Abdullah al-Qarnee, 'Shi'ite Islam by Richard and 'Encyclopaedia of Seerah' by Afzalur Rahman. After what seemed like an endless wait IBB, soldier, ex-head of state and lately politician walked in. He wore a white simple brocade with a cap to match. He looked tired, as he had just seen off one of several groups that have made this Hill Top a Mecca.
He beamed his famous gap toothed smile, expressed his apologies for turning up late, removed his cap and wiped his brow, kicked off his slippers and took questions for the next one and half hours from PAUL IBE and Newswatch's Bala Dan Abu on the state of the nation, his perceived presidential ambition, the June 12, 1993 election presumed to have been won by late M.K.O Abiola, the economy and sovereign national conference, among others.
Can we safely say that you are now a politician?
I can only say that every human being is a politician.
You admitted recently that you are a card-carrying member of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)?
Yes I did. I am a member of a political party and it is perhaps the only platform anybody has that he or she can use to bring about the realisation of certain ideals within the society...you don't have to be a card carrying member, but those who are not, will always like to push these ideals through politicians.
With your card, what ideals do you want to pursue?
Quite frankly, looking back, I think there are lots of what in the past we refer to things that are settled; settled issues in the Nigerian polity. There are other issues that perhaps we have not been able to settle. Of course, once there is a block, a building has been established. When I talk of settled issues for example, I am talking of a united Nigeria. I don't think there is a dispute about this country remaining a united country; I don't think there is a dispute that this country is going to be a democratic country; there is no dispute about its republican status and so on. But there are other issues that I think we need to pursue so as to make this country stronger and I will give you an example. We have a lot of things to solve about revenue allocation for example, the relationship between the states and federal government, the issue of resource control, whatever you call it, the issue of ethnic nationality, the relationship between the state and the local governments and any other thing that brings about friction within the society. These are things that we need to look at and unless you are able, like we did in the others, unless you we are able to look at these areas and then try to see if we could find a lasting solution in some of these issues.
From all indications, you appear to be a later day convert of the Sovereign National Conference. Don't you think that a number of these issues for resolution are encapsulated in the so-called national question?
I am a later convert to this national question, because after leaving office, getting to 11 years now, some of these problems keep on happening and I now believe that there is no way we could resolve them, until we sit down and talk about them and accept the line that we are going to pursue when people talk of true federalism, for example. A young journalist asked me, he said: "you are a new convert, what do you mean true federalism"?, so I jokingly asked him, (he is a young man, he lives here in Minna, he said he is from Kogi), I said basically, you will understand what I mean in the next 10, 20 years, when nothing stops you contesting as a Governor of Niger State, even though you are from Kogi. And we made an effort when we were in office, that once you stay in a place, automatically it qualifies you to contest. These are the sort of things I, really, will like us as a country to start addressing. (The) question of settler, non-indigene, name them, should not be in our vocabulary because we are a united nation.
Is that part of your recipe for peace in Nigeria?
I think there are a lot of things that bring about these frictions. I suspect the answer is yes.
It may be a settled fact that Nigeria remains one entity, but there are those who think that the upheavals in the country such as we are now experiencing in Plateau and elsewhere, bring to question the state of the federation, that we seem to be further apart than we were in 1966.
This is because we did not address them and if the National Conference could address issues like these, I mean people who are aggrieved are still open to dialogue with the other people, just to find accommodation with one another. I think we really need to look at this. If you look back to 1959 for example, we had a Sokoto man who was a Mayor in Enugu. Later, we had a Kanuri man who was representing a constituency in Benue. Now, heaven didn't fall, people accepted them. That is the sort of thing I have always given. If you go to the US, two brothers, one is a governor in Texas, and the other one is a governor in Florida because they are Americans. We should be talking as Nigerians.
What is your reaction to the declaration of a state of emergency in Plateau State?
...I think the president acted within the law, so I support his position.
Some others think that the emergency rule should have been extended to Kano that limiting it to Plateau State meant taking sides.
Quite frankly, I don't share that view because what happened in Plateau State had unintended consequence and those consequences were what happened in Kano - refugees moving, relatives maybe moving dead bodies from one place to the other. I think it is the after effect of that sort of action that brought about tension in other parts of the state.
Will enforcing peace in Plateau State address the fundamental issues of the crisis?
I think the question you should ask (is why is it that), a community that has lived together or they have been in an environment for the last 100 years, 125 years, work together, maybe inter-marry, why should they have this problem. It is not that they came in 3 months ago or something. They have been at peace. Something must have gone wrong that needs to be looked at again, so as not to repeat whatever happened. They still want to go back to where they know best, somebody who has been away for 100 years, if you ask him where are you from, he will say Minna... I think the problem is more inward.
But how do you reconcile the mandate of the elected government officials such as the president and members of the National Assembly with that of a sovereign national confab?
If they want to convoke a national conference, they need the concurrence of the existing government because it was democratically elected...the government I think can set parameters. I have no problem about national conference, provided you are going to guarantee that such conferences, (you can put a no-go-area), should not discuss anything about breaking up this country for example, that is a no go area. This conference should not talk about certain settled issues. Now, if we are agree on that, the conference could go on and then after the deliberations, they will come out with a blueprint, a document on how we are going to live...fortunately, we have a law making body in the country, so those things that require legislation can be put before the National Assembly to make a law to reflect these recommendations by the National Conference.
If that is the formula you prescribe, it means we may not even have it, because those who have been agitating for this do not share this formula. They believe that there shouldn't be any no-go-area and that it should not be supervised by officialdom... (cuts in)
No, no, nobody will supervise them. It is like whomever wants to call the national conference must have a leader...
How can such a leader, as you envisage, emerge?
Those who are calling for it should be able to stand, I know there are eminent Nigerians, they will say okay, this is whom we want and he is the leader and then they talk to government, and government says okay fine, no problem. This is a democratic environment, but in the interest of this country, your conference should not go about breaking the country, should not go and talk about changing the type of government that Nigeria and Nigerians will be ready to settle for.
In August 1990, Alao Aka-Bashorun led the convocation of such a conference in Lagos, but your administration stopped it.
At that time, if you observed in the entire continent of Africa, whichever country held a national conference had one problem or the other. It was either broken up or law and order were denied that society and a lot of the countries, up till now, haven't resolved that problem. If we can't learn by what others have gone through, then we have no business in leadership.
If you keep postponing, the fact that people say they want to sit down and talk about how they relate to one another, don't you think that we will actually be postponing the evil day.
No! I see what I consider a very healthy, (in my own opinion), development. Two or three days ago, I read, one of the prominent politicians in the North for instance, saying look, by all means, let's go and have this (sovereign national conference)...there has been an inherent fear in us, you will find that when the time of Alao Aka-Bashorun, the country was divided on how this thing should be done; the north doesn't necessary agree with the south about this convocation of national conference, but because we had not done enough to educate the people on what really the whole thing was about, however, people are now taking interest to read to find out what it is about, are now saying look, if it is all in the interest of this country, let it be.
Don't you think that the resolution of some of these conflicts lie in the archives, cobweb of several white papers on several crisis and issues in this country and that is the inability of government to generate the political will to deal with some of these things that have engendered these crises?
I had a visit on the last Constitutional Conference of 1994 or 95, I don't know for sure, but it happened during Abacha's time...I told them you don't need anybody to talk to you about this. There were 17 qualified eminent Nigerians, who for one year went round the entire length and breadth of this country and came out with volumes of documentation, and those documentation virtually address every issue about this country, about government, about devolution of power, about the place of women in the society, about the government that we need to have, about the type of government. We made an effort; at least we looked at it and agreed with some of the decisions that they came out (with), others we didn't agree with. For example, we didn't agree that we will declare a Socialist Nigerian Republic or whatever it is called. We removed that word socialist and kept the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They also talked about party system, we accepted the concept. If the essence of politics is to have a choice, two will give you a choice, even if you don't like the two, you still have the right to vote, so you have what it takes. In fairness to government then, they made effort and maybe people did not realise that the timing, the implications of what they were trying to do and...what the consequences were. So, there was an apparent fear of the unknown that did not allow us to jump into some of these things that we believed in.
Retired generals seem to have found comfortable place in politics, they no longer retire to the farm. Do you think that their involvement has been beneficial to the country in terms of stability or whatever?
My answer is yes, quite frankly. As far as I see, nothing stops them from going into politics because they are Nigerians. Unless we remove that toga off them. If they are not Nigerians, then we have a problem, but as long as they are like any other Nigerian, and because they (were) in the military doesn't mean that they have added some more rights and privileges than they have. Our constitution paves the way for those of us who were in this profession that nobody likes that everybody dreads. But, we are grateful to God that the constitution recognises us...
But the military tradition appears to be in conflict with established democratic ethos and principles.
We know this in the military. We initiated, apart from 1948, 1952 and I think 1960, the constitution. The subsequent constitutions designed for this country were all done under military regimes of 1979, 1989, 1999, all were done under military administrations, so, I don't think the knowledge or the commitment is the exclusive preserve of civilians.
Apart from PDP, which other parties do you belong to?
My friends belong to a lot of parties and I still relate to my friends. I don't grudge any of them who have sympathy to other parties that I don't share their ideals.
You may talk like a democrat with is enamour of democratic principles, yet you annulled an election in 1993, arguably a process that may have launched us as a nation on the road to progress and development. You have recently taken full responsibility for the action, but you have never told Nigerians why you annulled that historic election.
I think there are two issues. Like I said, we conducted an election, which you have adjudged the best, the freest election that has ever been conducted in this country. Then of course, the other aspect of it is that we annulled that election, which you rightly said I accepted full responsibility. We had a situation where we had to take the decision and the situation was such that you have to weigh the consequences of what we did versus the unintended consequences of what could be as a result of what we did. And so we decided then that the best thing was to annul the election.
What was the real issue that informed that decision to annul the June 12, 1993 election?
The issue at stake at that time was more to do with national security and public order.
Don't you think that several years down the line, some of these things should have been made public.
They were classified, there is no doubt about it and to the best of my knowledge, they haven't been declassified yet. I quite frankly think very passionately that as the time goes, people will get to understand. It think not much has been said about it, so as to allow tempers within the society to cool down, for people to get to accept the realities of the situation and then forge together and move forward. There will be a lot of writings on it and I assure you I will also contribute to the writings.
Before the final annulment of June 12, 1993 there were others like the disqualification of 23 political aspirants and the two, who emerged as aspirants on the platform of NRC and SDP. You have been accused of annulling those primaries to pave way for your friends.
I am glad you mentioned it. The 23 aspirants emerged. The whole process was going on for the purposes of bringing out flag bearers for the NRC and SDP. Anybody who lived in this country at that time knew that that system threw up some very serious challenges to us. We knew there had been a clamour for a change of leadership in this country. We knew there were people who felt very passionate that this part of the country (the North), had continued to dominate the political environment of this country. We also knew that there were moves because those two political parties were going to throw up two northern candidates again...so, we saw a real threat, apart from some of the problems that preceded the voting. We weighed the problem from the consequences. Already, the country has been charged and quite frankly, eminently supported too by some very important people, by even some sections of the media that this north has continued to dominate the political environment. We would have been silly not to listen to these cries and the rest of them. Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and Ciroma (Adamu) a, all Hausa-Fulani candidates...and then all the consequences of what they did before they got to where they got, nobody liked it. I have some editorials written by the media about all the anomaly, all the riggings of whatever that were inherent in those system of what we've done and when we annulled that, I also knew that the media in their own wisdom also praised us for taking those bold decisions for doing what we did. We still have some of these cuttings.
We tried it in another way and then this threw up two candidates, Bashir Tofa and the late Moshood Abiola. Again, we knew that there were subterranean problems also as a result of the two candidates. Abiola was Babangida's friend, so was Bashir Tofa. Abiola had a Muslim/Muslim ticket, and Bashir Tofa had a Muslim/Christian ticket...when we talked with members of the Armed Forces Ruling Council about these problems, we said no, if we try to annul this elections, people will believe that we didn't want to vacate this office and quite honestly, we allowed the whole process, because they repeated the same thing that the 23 did...but we looked the other side, we said okay, because we are very wary of public opinion, the public perception about this, and went through the whole process. This is the beginning of what we now call power shift. That idea came from us in the military. We knew that there was going to be an obvious problem with Abiola and Bashir Tofa at that time, and so we annulled that election.
But then anybody who was following Nigeria would have come to one conclusion, how did you come about this cry of power shift?
It is just to make sure that we live in peace with one another. One of the plans we had is that if the two parties had remained, we would have gotten the two parties, one to nominate an Igbo candidate, the other to nominate a Yoruba candidate and we were almost convincing the entire northern states to play the free states, to vote anywhere they like and quite frankly, that was just because we wanted to preserve the polity.
Prior to the annulment, was there really a threat to national security and public order considering the fact that Abiola had a Muslim/Muslim ticket. I am aware that on the Sunday preceding that particular election day, a lot of campaigns were done from the pulpits where clerics exhorted their congregation to vote the Muslim/Muslim, Abiola/Kingibe ticket. The question is if the Christians supported a Muslim/Muslim ticket wherein laid the threat you talked about?
If you observe everything in this country, the problem is not the ordinary person. He had never been a problem to anybody. Today, you can go to Baga near the border up in the north around Maiduguri, you will find Kanuris, Yorubas, Efik, every tribe you name it, they are at peace with each other. If you come here even in Niger...people just say I was born here, I was brought up here...the problem we had were people who have read, people who are educated, people who think they can tell us the ordinary people how to run the country, how to move the country; it is the elites today that brought about the concept of whatever you do in this country, if you want ministers, you should make sure you balance up. If you succeed in balancing that geographically then the next question is the religion. If you succeed in balancing the religion, if you are very good in a balancing act, then the next, question will be how you relate to those around you...to start a war, to start a crisis anywhere in the world, you don't need the whole people, all you need is a handful of manipulators, who will make it look like the whole world is coming to an end and we are very good in this country in creating that. I had friends who couldn't come to our country because of what they read, or what they hear or what they have been told, only to come to find out that well it is tolerable, we can live in it. I think we should reflect and look at all these.
I will give you an experience that I will never forget. I visited a traditional ruler, I was pleading with him to please help us to make sure everybody lives in peace, because he is an influential man, he is highly respected. It was a private visit I paid him when I was president...He said to me look, the problem is not hard, the problem is you and your elite. And I said how? He had 52 children only four had mothers that are from his own tribe, the remaining 48 children, had mothers from the other communities. He used that household to demonstrate this. But he said in the state, if a governor is from this local government or that zone, then the deputy governor must come from the other zone. Who becomes the governor? The elite. Who becomes deputy governor? Again, the elite. And then the secretary to government must come from another area and the commissioner from this zone. I looked at that old man, I analysed the situation, then I was convinced that there was a barrier between us, the elites, and them that we profess we are doing it for and the only way we could go about this is to break that wall and let's all get in.
In other words, that was the most fundamental flaw with the June 12, 1993 election?
It was capable of bringing harder problems that we did not envisage for this country and people complained.
Who?
When I say people, you and I, representatives of the people, we were complaining.
Was the elite among the civil populace or the military top brass?
The civil populace, somebody engineered them to create problem. They don't do it by themselves, there must always be a leader, there must be somebody who is the arrowhead of the campaign. The consequence is different, but it is the leader that leads them and the leaders are just one million for example in this country out of 100 million.
Can you still narrow it down? Maybe the people that complained were Christians?
No!
But I knew a lot of people who didn't complain?
In everything in this country, and I mean everything ask, anybody who is in the position of leadership, a governor, a president, a local government chairman, just ask them, every action he or she takes, must be given an interpretation of one thing or the other. You may get the best brain, the most qualified person, but you will still not go a hundred percent, so I was sensitive to this and I knew how they could capitalise on it to take advantage of the situation in the country.
Was that why you went for Obasanjo?
Well, I told people that at the time we were, the situation in which we found ourselves in this country, we required somebody like him. Nobody and honestly it comes from my heart, nobody could have done it except him.
What is so special about him? What were the considerations then?
First, no matter who you are, you cannot talk to Obasanjo about, the breaking up of either this country or any other part of this country. If you tell him, if he knows this is what you want, he wouldn't even talk to you. We knew him. There were people who urged him to lead a secession and he told them not to come to him again. He is a passionate believer in the cause of this country, he had the military background, he fought a war and knew what it was to keep the country united...secondly, is that he is capable of taking a position that he believes for the country irrespective of whoever it is. ... thirdly, we need somebody who has or have had a lot of experience about management, about governance of the people of this country and fourthly I added jokingly, but I meant it, one man that cannot be intimidated either by the press or by other interest groups.
Cannot be intimidated?
Oh yes, if you get intimidated you abandon force, but he is not going to abandon force.
I understand that when you proposed him, a lot of people accepted him, but the same people have come back to complain that they are disappointed.
No, these same people knew my position and I repeated the same position and even as at last week, I said we've made the right decision.
And they left convinced?
No, it is my conviction. I am convinced that this is the right thing, some of them agreed with me.
You are probably not feeling the pains that a majority of the people feel as a result of government policies. A lot of these people believe that you have brought this suffering on them by your support of Obasanjo
Look, Nigerians will complain about anything and everything. But let's be fair that we at least have a leader who simply believes in this country.
You may be convinced as to why you gave your support to Obasanjo. Some of us are not convinced as to why you have to maintain an uncanny silence of not criticising or even appraising this government. There are those who are beginning to wonder if you don't have an accord with him, especially as it concerns your own perceived presidential ambition?
I am one of the very few privileged persons in this country, by virtue of the position I held as the military president of this country and having been in that office, I know the problem of that office. I know the problems that the man who occupies that chair faces and we put it upon ourselves that whenever we feel very strongly (about some issues) we try to seek an appointment to go and see him, to talk to him. Now, this may have something to do with our training in the military, you don't rebuke junior officers publicly...what you do is ask him to come to your office and you wash him down, he salutes you, and goes back. I can assure you whenever I feel strongly (about an issue) or anyone of us, or collectively, we do go to him and he gives us audience, we talk, and he explains. You don't have to go public, because we don't need to be seen as fighting...
Sir, Can we take you back some years (interjects)
No, you can not (laughs...)
Once upon a time, Obasanjo criticised some of your policies, especially SAP. We ordinary Nigerians, didn't know that there was a tradition in the military that you don't rebuke your junior publicly and we thought that he had access to you. How did you feel?
To be fair to him, despite all that, we kept on getting together, we kept on talking. I used to drive to his farm, myself driving when I was the president. When you reach certain position in life, there are ways people react to different situations. I knew that he meant no harm, maybe as a result of pressures and so on, but he was also in the position to understand one thing or the other. I belief very passionately that if somebody has given you access or something to talk to him, then you don't go back. You can fight inside and then present yourself in the public as if nothing has happened.
Do you see any resemblance in the economic policies of this administration and the Structural Adjustment Programme of your administration?
At the risk of being abused by those who might be reading you later, when you look at what we did and what is happening now, the only conclusion is that we were ahead of our time. I believe in that our programmes more so on the platform on which we based the Structural Adjustment Programme, are being pursued today, be it deregulation, market economy, whatever you call it, privatisation, the taking off of a lot of burden from federal, state and local government. What we did, they tried to do..
How will you then assess the economic reform programme and where do you think it is going to lead the nation?
I think it will lead to self reliance. But as long as we continue to fiddle with it in one way or the other. Because if it affects you negatively, then it is bad, then others join the chorus and then there is pressure that this policy is bad. I think it is the consistency that we need to introduce. Nobody has ever come out with some perfect solution to a problem, but you can come out with a suggestion to solve a problem and people will be able to look at it again and say it is alright, we could do this better or we don't need this at all.
If you have the opportunity of providing leadership for this country again, what kind of things would you like to see in our economic direction?
...I believe that what we have done well so far, when I say we, it includes the present government, is enough platform that we can use to bounce this country into an economically strong nation. Everything that needs to be done or everything that needs to be said has been said, so what we need now is the implementation since the framework has been provided. It may not be easy going, it is going to be tough...but I think if you stick to the objective..and push on, later, people will get to understand.
Looking back at SAP now, is there any aspect of it you would have loved to do differently if you have the opportunity to do it all over again?
If you look at the platform, you are talking about self reliance, talking about giving the farmer the opportunity to take care of his products, whatever he produces, he can reach out to the buyers directly without a middleman, you are talking about fiscal and monetary, you are talking about exchange rate regime, allowing it to float and all that...except we need to keep on moderating it because most of these requests are unintended and one has to look at them and try to make them as less painful to the ordinary man as possible.
What is your reaction to recent statements credited to the president that the oil windfall money was mismanaged by your adm
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furiously frank
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Bell
MORALLY & INTELLECTUALLY, I'D NEVER ACCEPT BABANGIDA AS PREZ, BUT...
...I agree with his position that Nigerians should be able to participate fully, under given conditions, in the land where they have sojourned over a long period. I have said it myself.
On the Sov. Nat. Conf., we had a thread here a few days ago wherein I suggested that it shouldn't require govt. to take off. And we seem to converge when he stated that recommendations of the Conference can be legislatively handled. I'm happy he, like many Nigerians, belives in a united country, but that topic, or any other, should not be off the table. The conference must be unfettered. In fact, maybe it should not even be govt-funded so they can be truly independent.
Babangida seems to lack trust in the goodness of Nigerians hence his suggestion of all kinds of balancing in public offices along ethnic and religious lines. Such balancing acts and zoning would deepen and perpetuate those divisions and put off forever the prospects of Nigerians seeing themselves as one nation.
Bell
...I agree with his position that Nigerians should be able to participate fully, under given conditions, in the land where they have sojourned over a long period. I have said it myself.
On the Sov. Nat. Conf., we had a thread here a few days ago wherein I suggested that it shouldn't require govt. to take off. And we seem to converge when he stated that recommendations of the Conference can be legislatively handled. I'm happy he, like many Nigerians, belives in a united country, but that topic, or any other, should not be off the table. The conference must be unfettered. In fact, maybe it should not even be govt-funded so they can be truly independent.
Babangida seems to lack trust in the goodness of Nigerians hence his suggestion of all kinds of balancing in public offices along ethnic and religious lines. Such balancing acts and zoning would deepen and perpetuate those divisions and put off forever the prospects of Nigerians seeing themselves as one nation.
Bell
The thing that strike me very clearly in this interview is that IBB and his cohorts put Obasanjo in Aso Rock. Anyone wondering whether or not Obasanjo, in turn is going to hand over to IBB in three years? Not me!
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"Some see things as they are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not?"
-- Senator Edward Kennedy @ Robert F. Kennedy's Funeral on 6/6/68
"Some see things as they are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not?"
-- Senator Edward Kennedy @ Robert F. Kennedy's Funeral on 6/6/68
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From Guardian
Babangida's ambition
By Reuben Abati
Former President Ibrahim Babangida, Nigeria's maximum ruler between 1985 and 1993 has been going around lately (Channels TV, City People, ThisDay and Newswatch) granting interviews in which he is repeatedly asked the same question about whether or not he is going to run for the office of President in 2007. He offers evasive answers, mouthing some sentences about following due process and not wanting to appear as if he wants to impose himself on anyone. How smart and clever he is. In the meantime, all over the country, a Babangida for President movement is being orchestrated. Offices and units are being launched here and there, with the likes of General Abdukalreem Adisa weeping more than the bereaved, behaving like a child with a piece of candy.
I had been tempted to treat the idea of a Babangida Presidency as an impossible joke. But the joke is becoming too serious. A lie repeated too often could begin to sound like the truth. If the Babangida strategists are flying a kite, sowing the seed of an idea in the minds of the public, they have done a good job of doing so, beginning with that ridiculous conference they had in Jos a few years ago at which they sought to revise Nigerian history and Babangida's place in it. But they and their candidate should not be allowed to get away with the lie at the heart of their ambition. If this were a law-abiding country, General Babangida would be in jail. If this were a nation with conscience, he would not have the confidence to raise his head in public. If this were a land where justice and equity reign supreme, Ibrahim Babangida would not dream of returning to office as President of Nigeria.
In 2004, the idea of a Babangida Presidency in 2007 can only be based on three flawed assumptions. The first is the nonsense routinely mouthed by Babangida's supporters that he is a grossly misunderstood man to whom the Nigerian people have been most unfair. They believe that the man was a good leader and a benevolent military ruler, and they are quick to point to certain present policies as part of his legacy, who was pushed onto the wrong side of history by the annulment of the election of June 12, 1993. They think that IBB as he is otherwise known deserves a second chance. The thinking is that if he were allowed another shot at the Presidency, he would be able to correct the errors of the past, do a lot more for the Nigerian people, and take them to the Promised Land.
It is added that for Nigerians to get out of the hardships imposed on them by the Obasanjo government, they need a man like IBB. The man is compassionate, we are told. He would at least listen to the people, and treat them with greater respect. The least that can be said of all this is that it is an indecent proposal, and those who are behind it should know that they are enemies of the people. It is criminal to ask Nigerians to vote for a man simply to allow him settle his own psychological problems. The verdict of history on IBB was out a long time ago. Revisionism is inadvisable. He had eight years of opportunity as Nigeria's leader, he messed it up. To ask that he should be given another chance, despite his bad record does no credit to the collective intelligence of the Nigerian people.
The second assumption behind IBB's 2007 project is that Nigeria is a country where memory is a problem. The people tend to forget very easily. This is why criminals are elected into public offices and thieves are honoured with national appointments. If this is true, then Nigerians may not remember whatever it was that Babangida did in 1993. There may be a few noisemakers who have access to the media and can raise queries, but so the reasoning goes, the majority of the people are not likely to be bothered. Could this be true? If it is, then it is a sign of the underdevelopment of our politics. The people ought to remember. And if they have forgotten, the rest of civil society has an obligation to prod the memory of the public and shout from the rooftops that the man known as Ibrahim Babangida is not a fit and proper person to be President of Nigeria in 2007. Concerned citizens should mobilize support for this opinion and promote its truthfulness. Already Joe Igbokwe and Claver Oparah have written a book in which they have documented the failures and atrocities of the Babangida years. More voices should be added to theirs.
The third assumption is that the Nigerian people do not in any case determine the outcome of elections. In other words, if IBB wants to be President in 2007, there is nothing the electorate can do about it. Nigerian elections are not determined at the polling booths but by a privileged elite exercising a veto power over the future of the country. If Babangida is the choice of this cabal, then he is bound to become President whether the people like it or not. It is sad that the people who are insisting on this line of thought are otherwise enlightened persons. What it means is that Nigeria's democratic process lacks integrity. It can produce any results including the absurd. A democracy in which the people's will counts for nothing is no longer a democracy but fascism by other means. This is why the biggest challenge facing Nigerians is how to rescue democracy from the fascists. Babangida's emergence even as a Presidential candidate would mean the triumph of fascism.
I have been told that the man is a citizen and that he has every right to contest election. That is sophistry. I do not know whether IBB watched the proceedings of the burial of President Ronald Reagan on television during the week that just ended. Did he see how an appreciative nation buried a kind and efficient leader? Did he listen to the kind words that ordinary people had to say about Reagan? In Nigeria, today, there are at least five former Presidents or Heads of State that are still alive. I do not know of anyone of them that can receive the kind of honour bestowed on Reagan. In death, they are likely to be abused and the failures of their government highlighted for the world to remember. Reagan spent eight years in power like IBB. He is being remembered as a symbol of all that is truly American. Eleven years out of power, IBB and his supporters are looking for ways to make amends. Tell them, it is too late. IBB and his supporters (it is his money they are after!) should be told that they are suffering from grand illusions.
In his interview with ThisDay for example, IBB's attempt at revisionism was less than honest. It began with his response to a question about the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. He was asked: "What was the real issue that informed that decision to annul the June 12, 1993 election?" He said: "The issue at stake at that time was more to do with national security and public order." Then the follow-up question: "Don't you think that several years down the line, some of these things should have been made public?" Answer: "They were classified, there is no doubt about it and to the best of my knowledge they have not been de-classified yet. I quite frankly think very passionately that as the time goes, people will get to understand. I think not much has been said about it, so as to allow tempers within the society to cool down, for people to get to accept the realities of the situation and then forge together and move forward. There will be a lot of writings on it and I assure you I will also contribute to the writings." He would later add that June 12 was "capable of bringing harder problems that we did not envisage for this country and people complained".
Candidly, if IBB has nothing more original to say about June 12, he should remain silent. How could an election that was adjudged free and fair have brought "harder problems" to the nation? Could anything have been worse than the crisis that the annulment produced? Apart from the civil war; the annulment of that election is the single most important incident in Nigerian history. The country nearly went with it. And today, 11 years later, IBB is seeking to benefit form the same democratic process that he opposed. He says the secret about June 12 is classified. He says there will be a lot of writings. The truth is that there are a lot of writings already, except if IBB has not been reading, and in all the writings, including the book by Igbokwe and Oparah which I think he should read, Babangida is presented as the enemy of the Nigerian people, as the source of many of the problems that have turned this into a difficult country. He may feel hurt that this is being said about him, but the best service that he owes himself is to know the truth about himself. He wants to write. By all means, let him do so. He would not be the one to define his place in history, nor would it be his paid historians, that task belongs to the people.
In the same interview, he was told that his government institutionalised corruption. He immediately feigned ignorance and made light of the question: "...I throw a challenge today, something I have never done...I want any Nigerian, businessman in Nigeria or outside Nigeria who will come and look at me in the face and tell me that he bribed me or he bribed any of my ministers, I also throw that challenge and honestly I am not bluffing, I mean what I said. Maybe in the next 10 years somebody will come..." Of course, Babangida is not bluffing. Sure, he means what he said. But tell me, who will dare look at a man who has been accused of murdering Dele Giwa by Gani Fawehinmi in the face? Who would dare look at this man in the face who bluffed the Oputa panel and got away with it? Who would look at a man who at a time in his lifetime shut down media houses, detained persons, and was in charge of law and order? Who in this country would dare look a self-confessed coup plotter in the face?
When IBB says he is throwing a challenge, it is an unfair deal. Who would take up that challenge? Even the state, which has access to all the things that have been classified, is afraid to take him on. In the interview under review, Babangida did not fail to point out that he was the one who decided that Obasanjo should be Nigeria's President in 1999. He even lists the qualities that he found in him, one of which is that Obasanjo is "one man that cannot be intimidated either by the press or by other interest groups...oh yes, if you get intimidated you abandon force, but he is not going to abandon force." Really? So, what can ordinary persons do?
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Those who are promoting a Babangida Presidency in 2007 are unfair to Nigerians. They are asking us to deny ourselves. They are asking the people to spit on the graves of over 250 men and women who lost their lives in the cause of the struggle for democracy. They are trying to steal the people's victory and hand it over to swines. May their road be rough.
Babangida's ambition
By Reuben Abati
Former President Ibrahim Babangida, Nigeria's maximum ruler between 1985 and 1993 has been going around lately (Channels TV, City People, ThisDay and Newswatch) granting interviews in which he is repeatedly asked the same question about whether or not he is going to run for the office of President in 2007. He offers evasive answers, mouthing some sentences about following due process and not wanting to appear as if he wants to impose himself on anyone. How smart and clever he is. In the meantime, all over the country, a Babangida for President movement is being orchestrated. Offices and units are being launched here and there, with the likes of General Abdukalreem Adisa weeping more than the bereaved, behaving like a child with a piece of candy.
I had been tempted to treat the idea of a Babangida Presidency as an impossible joke. But the joke is becoming too serious. A lie repeated too often could begin to sound like the truth. If the Babangida strategists are flying a kite, sowing the seed of an idea in the minds of the public, they have done a good job of doing so, beginning with that ridiculous conference they had in Jos a few years ago at which they sought to revise Nigerian history and Babangida's place in it. But they and their candidate should not be allowed to get away with the lie at the heart of their ambition. If this were a law-abiding country, General Babangida would be in jail. If this were a nation with conscience, he would not have the confidence to raise his head in public. If this were a land where justice and equity reign supreme, Ibrahim Babangida would not dream of returning to office as President of Nigeria.
In 2004, the idea of a Babangida Presidency in 2007 can only be based on three flawed assumptions. The first is the nonsense routinely mouthed by Babangida's supporters that he is a grossly misunderstood man to whom the Nigerian people have been most unfair. They believe that the man was a good leader and a benevolent military ruler, and they are quick to point to certain present policies as part of his legacy, who was pushed onto the wrong side of history by the annulment of the election of June 12, 1993. They think that IBB as he is otherwise known deserves a second chance. The thinking is that if he were allowed another shot at the Presidency, he would be able to correct the errors of the past, do a lot more for the Nigerian people, and take them to the Promised Land.
It is added that for Nigerians to get out of the hardships imposed on them by the Obasanjo government, they need a man like IBB. The man is compassionate, we are told. He would at least listen to the people, and treat them with greater respect. The least that can be said of all this is that it is an indecent proposal, and those who are behind it should know that they are enemies of the people. It is criminal to ask Nigerians to vote for a man simply to allow him settle his own psychological problems. The verdict of history on IBB was out a long time ago. Revisionism is inadvisable. He had eight years of opportunity as Nigeria's leader, he messed it up. To ask that he should be given another chance, despite his bad record does no credit to the collective intelligence of the Nigerian people.
The second assumption behind IBB's 2007 project is that Nigeria is a country where memory is a problem. The people tend to forget very easily. This is why criminals are elected into public offices and thieves are honoured with national appointments. If this is true, then Nigerians may not remember whatever it was that Babangida did in 1993. There may be a few noisemakers who have access to the media and can raise queries, but so the reasoning goes, the majority of the people are not likely to be bothered. Could this be true? If it is, then it is a sign of the underdevelopment of our politics. The people ought to remember. And if they have forgotten, the rest of civil society has an obligation to prod the memory of the public and shout from the rooftops that the man known as Ibrahim Babangida is not a fit and proper person to be President of Nigeria in 2007. Concerned citizens should mobilize support for this opinion and promote its truthfulness. Already Joe Igbokwe and Claver Oparah have written a book in which they have documented the failures and atrocities of the Babangida years. More voices should be added to theirs.
The third assumption is that the Nigerian people do not in any case determine the outcome of elections. In other words, if IBB wants to be President in 2007, there is nothing the electorate can do about it. Nigerian elections are not determined at the polling booths but by a privileged elite exercising a veto power over the future of the country. If Babangida is the choice of this cabal, then he is bound to become President whether the people like it or not. It is sad that the people who are insisting on this line of thought are otherwise enlightened persons. What it means is that Nigeria's democratic process lacks integrity. It can produce any results including the absurd. A democracy in which the people's will counts for nothing is no longer a democracy but fascism by other means. This is why the biggest challenge facing Nigerians is how to rescue democracy from the fascists. Babangida's emergence even as a Presidential candidate would mean the triumph of fascism.
I have been told that the man is a citizen and that he has every right to contest election. That is sophistry. I do not know whether IBB watched the proceedings of the burial of President Ronald Reagan on television during the week that just ended. Did he see how an appreciative nation buried a kind and efficient leader? Did he listen to the kind words that ordinary people had to say about Reagan? In Nigeria, today, there are at least five former Presidents or Heads of State that are still alive. I do not know of anyone of them that can receive the kind of honour bestowed on Reagan. In death, they are likely to be abused and the failures of their government highlighted for the world to remember. Reagan spent eight years in power like IBB. He is being remembered as a symbol of all that is truly American. Eleven years out of power, IBB and his supporters are looking for ways to make amends. Tell them, it is too late. IBB and his supporters (it is his money they are after!) should be told that they are suffering from grand illusions.
In his interview with ThisDay for example, IBB's attempt at revisionism was less than honest. It began with his response to a question about the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. He was asked: "What was the real issue that informed that decision to annul the June 12, 1993 election?" He said: "The issue at stake at that time was more to do with national security and public order." Then the follow-up question: "Don't you think that several years down the line, some of these things should have been made public?" Answer: "They were classified, there is no doubt about it and to the best of my knowledge they have not been de-classified yet. I quite frankly think very passionately that as the time goes, people will get to understand. I think not much has been said about it, so as to allow tempers within the society to cool down, for people to get to accept the realities of the situation and then forge together and move forward. There will be a lot of writings on it and I assure you I will also contribute to the writings." He would later add that June 12 was "capable of bringing harder problems that we did not envisage for this country and people complained".
Candidly, if IBB has nothing more original to say about June 12, he should remain silent. How could an election that was adjudged free and fair have brought "harder problems" to the nation? Could anything have been worse than the crisis that the annulment produced? Apart from the civil war; the annulment of that election is the single most important incident in Nigerian history. The country nearly went with it. And today, 11 years later, IBB is seeking to benefit form the same democratic process that he opposed. He says the secret about June 12 is classified. He says there will be a lot of writings. The truth is that there are a lot of writings already, except if IBB has not been reading, and in all the writings, including the book by Igbokwe and Oparah which I think he should read, Babangida is presented as the enemy of the Nigerian people, as the source of many of the problems that have turned this into a difficult country. He may feel hurt that this is being said about him, but the best service that he owes himself is to know the truth about himself. He wants to write. By all means, let him do so. He would not be the one to define his place in history, nor would it be his paid historians, that task belongs to the people.
In the same interview, he was told that his government institutionalised corruption. He immediately feigned ignorance and made light of the question: "...I throw a challenge today, something I have never done...I want any Nigerian, businessman in Nigeria or outside Nigeria who will come and look at me in the face and tell me that he bribed me or he bribed any of my ministers, I also throw that challenge and honestly I am not bluffing, I mean what I said. Maybe in the next 10 years somebody will come..." Of course, Babangida is not bluffing. Sure, he means what he said. But tell me, who will dare look at a man who has been accused of murdering Dele Giwa by Gani Fawehinmi in the face? Who would dare look at this man in the face who bluffed the Oputa panel and got away with it? Who would look at a man who at a time in his lifetime shut down media houses, detained persons, and was in charge of law and order? Who in this country would dare look a self-confessed coup plotter in the face?
When IBB says he is throwing a challenge, it is an unfair deal. Who would take up that challenge? Even the state, which has access to all the things that have been classified, is afraid to take him on. In the interview under review, Babangida did not fail to point out that he was the one who decided that Obasanjo should be Nigeria's President in 1999. He even lists the qualities that he found in him, one of which is that Obasanjo is "one man that cannot be intimidated either by the press or by other interest groups...oh yes, if you get intimidated you abandon force, but he is not going to abandon force." Really? So, what can ordinary persons do?
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Those who are promoting a Babangida Presidency in 2007 are unfair to Nigerians. They are asking us to deny ourselves. They are asking the people to spit on the graves of over 250 men and women who lost their lives in the cause of the struggle for democracy. They are trying to steal the people's victory and hand it over to swines. May their road be rough.
"That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we blacks are wise.
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes."
Langston Hughes, 1923
Is a thing to which we blacks are wise.
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes."
Langston Hughes, 1923
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furiously frank
- Eaglet
- Posts: 13087
- Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 7:18 pm
From This day
The Man Wants to Be President Again
In what looks like an affront on the collective memory of Nigerians, General Ibrahim Babangida launches another foray into politics. Shaka Momodu dissects the man who, in the words of writer Ike Okonta, "democratised corruption and corrupted democracy
Once again the orchestra has begun. The drummers have been long in coming. except for a sprinkle of new faces on the train, they are the same men of yester-years (the men who told Nigerians that Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, often called IBB, was the best thing to happen to them). The dancers have been waiting for the big gap-toothed masquerade to make his move. But for anyone who understands body language, the answer has been long in the air.
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The spectators - the Nigerian people, have been indifferent, or so it seemed, to the rhythms of the orchestra. But in the vast laboratory theatre, where he experimented for eight-years, court jesters and palace guards have again taken positions, and hired historians have dusted their shelves, set to assault the people's sensibility with the Babangida version of history. And the new mission - to right all wrongs. Some even ridicule us by telling us he has learnt his lessons.
But it is exactly 11 years today since June 12, 1993 election took place, the results of which were annulled by former military President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the man who now wants to be president again. There is still no credible or even convincing explanation from him why he annulled the results of that election, which he personally admitted was largely free and fair.
In one of his interviews after his humiliating departure from office on August 26, 1993, he blamed the judiciary for his ill advised decision to annul the June 12 election results. Again, he said it was to save the judiciary from ridicule. He has said so many other incomprehensible things afterwards but he's yet to explain why he annulled an election won by his supposed good friend, Chief MKO Abiola. An election described by local and international observers as the freest and fairest in the nation's history. Even his most vociferous campaigners have been unable to provide any plausible reason for the annulment. His second in command then, Vice Admiral Aikhomu even said that MKO was not acceptable to the military. And as such the election results had to be annulled to please the military. Indecent you might say, but it was given to the Nigerian public as reason enough to annul a mandate they freely gave Abiola.
The campaign to get Babangida back to Aso Rock come 2007, started some five years ago, precisely after the inauguration of the Obasanjo presidency in May 1999.
It started in whispers, then a few incoherent murmurs and now a loud noise has rent the airwaves. Soon it will assume a frenzy of sort and engulf the nation. "The IBB Project 2007." Many thought then "it was a joke taken too far" and ignored it. But the campaigners have been fiercely relentless. And Nigerians are waking up to the reality and possibility of being saddled yet again, with a man who led them and their country from relative economic stability (prosperity compared to today) down the valley of socio-political and economic ruin. The result of eight years of misadventure, mis-governance, mismanagement, unprecedented corruption - culminating in economic and political ruin - a legacy of settlement that continues to haunt the nation and even threatening to overwhelm her.
The people watched with bemused bewilderment as their beleaguered nation was wrested from them and thrown at a cabal of loyalists as spoils of war. It is still with them and efforts to retrieve it has so far yielded little.
Babangida, the man who wants to lead Nigeria again in 2007 was the one who set the nation on the path of decline and the people on the path of poverty that currently ravages the land. In a rare admittance of failure, Babangida in an interview he granted in the twilight of his rein wondered why the nation's economy had not collapsed despite the massive dislocation his regime had caused. He watched as the nation bled to coma, paralyzed with policy failures and summersaults, while his cronies and business partners made huge money at our collective expense. Surprisingly, he had the audacity to tell the people then that for their tomorrow he was giving his today. But the truth really, inspite of what his historians say, is that he and his co-travellers mortgaged the people's tomorrow for their today then. The effect of that is what we still suffer today.
He re-defined national values, turning vice to virtues and virtues to vice. The present generation of our youths stand naked unable to differentiate between good and evil. They seem incapable of carrying the banner of hope for the nation. They are more at home being cult members, fraudsters, credit card racketeers in Europe and America, security guards, dish washers in hotels around the world because Babangida would not provide the environment for them to be moulded as future leaders of Africa's greatest hope.
That is the Babangida legacy.
The better part of Babangida's 8-year tenure witnessed an unprecedented closure of the nation's schools, particularly the universities and polytechnics due to one form of protest or the other. Strikes by lecturers became more frequent, sometimes lasting for seven to nine months at a stretch. Students spent the better part of school years at home, idle. And crime rate surged spirally. While many youths took to crime, many more migrated en masse to seek green pastures in foreign lands.
There was even a time Babangida threatened to close down some schools with radical lecturers opposed to his policies for two years if students in those schools took to the street to protest his government policies. The effect of Babangida's contempt for education is still clearly evident in the quarter-baked graduates that Nigeria is today saddled with. His successors have simply followed his footsteps, and the situation is only worsening. Let him visit the Universities today and see things for himself. They have gone under completely.
The nation's health sector was not spared. The hospitals were reduced to mere consulting clinics before his coming, but they became dilapidated morgues when he was forced out of office.
His forced exit from office was made possible by a broad coalition of civil and professional bodies such as the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, the Concerned Professionals, CP, National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, pro-democracy groups, civil societies, market women, traders unemployed graduates, and the poor people on the streets who told him he had become the greatest threat to the nation's survival.
His economic policy, the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP nearly structured Nigerians out of existence. The people are still struggling to recover from the effects of SAP. Incorporated in his SAP policy was devaluation of the Naira. The naira is still reeling under, desperately competing at the bottom of the ladder with CFA of the Republic of Benin.
That is the Babanguda legacy.
Now, if one may ask: What happened to Babangida's Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructure, DFFRI? Billions of naira were spent on that directorate. Which community can point at anything DFFRI did that is enduring? What happened to Babangida's National Directorate of Employment, NDE? How many people got employment through that directorate? What happened to Babangida's Peoples Bank? How many people were given credit facilities for small scale enterprises?
And lest we forget, what happened to the famous Pius Okigbo report and our $12.5 billion oil windfall? There is every deliberate attempt to obliterate our collective memory and make it look like these issues are mere chapters in fantasy books. But they are not.
Worse still, the nation is being shoved into intellectual amnesia and we wait to see the denounment of the convulsive drama especially as professionals are on the line up jostling to earn a living from the Babangida project.
Babangida's historians may well provide answers.
The present religious tension in the country is a direct consequence of Babangida's action. It was his decision to secretly take Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Countries, OIC that exacerbated the religious divide among Muslims and Christians and till date the country has known no peace.
The press was not spared Babangida's muscle. He roundly dealt with journalists, closing down media houses for performing their legitimate duties. Ironically, for his come-back bid, he is relying heavily on the press to pass his message across to the people.
Perhaps, one of Babangida's greatest legacy of waste that dots the length and breath of the country is the building of secretariats in every local government in the country for the two parties he created by fiat into existence - SDP and NRC.
What has happened to the secretariats today? Most of them are inhabited by cockroaches, reptiles and what not. But the fact is that they represent a symbol of waste and mismanagement - a monument of corruption.
And so suddenly the man who rendered the nation's judiciary impotent with ouster clauses during his infamous reign has found faith in the law courts. How ironic? He now runs to court ever so often to seek justice. The judiciary he showed little mercy in his locust years has become a haven of succour in his race with history.
The parcel bomb murder of Mr Dele Giwa resonated in the polity during the Oputa Panel sittings in Lagos and Abuja.
Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Newswatch Communication filed petition nos 416 and 537 before the Oputa Panel accusing Babangida, the then military President of having a hand in the murder of the late Editor-in-Chief on October 19, 1986. Two of his top security chiefs, Brig. Haliu Akilu and Kunle Togun were also accused of involvement.
Several times, the panel summoned him and several times Babangida ignored the panel's summons. He ran to court then to challenge the competence of the panel to summon him. The court granted his heart desires. But not a few saw the issue which had dragged on for almost two decades as beyond legal technicalities. Beyond the legality or otherwise were tall moral issues. Oputa's panel wasn't a court; that fact was well established at the outset. It was a panel established to reconcile the present with the past and become a redeeming feature for a nation and a people brutalised by terrorist military adventurers. A remedial of sort for a new nation to begin anew the process of nation building. Babangida was to help that process by telling what he knew about the death of Dele Giwa and put to rest once and for all, suspicions of involvement. But Babangida refused as he roundly shunned the panel.
The panel in making its recommendations had urged government to re-open unsolved cases particularly the assassination of Dele Giwa and the suspicious death of M K O Abiola.
But Babangida, apparently uncomfortable with the possible outcome of such a move, went to court once again to stop the implementation of the Oputa Panel's recommendation. The report is still hanging in the shelf at the presidency. The question really is, why is Babangida afraid to confront this ghost that is haunting him?
For his today and that of his cronies, he took away the people's joy, their happiness, their smiles, their warmth and laughter. Their family love, hopes and their values, their pride and prestige as a people, the whole essence of their tomorrow.
But there is something positive that Babangida also left behind, the Third Mainland Bridge. And perhaps his charm and charisma which he may be relying on to get get him back to power.
The Man Wants to Be President Again
In what looks like an affront on the collective memory of Nigerians, General Ibrahim Babangida launches another foray into politics. Shaka Momodu dissects the man who, in the words of writer Ike Okonta, "democratised corruption and corrupted democracy
Once again the orchestra has begun. The drummers have been long in coming. except for a sprinkle of new faces on the train, they are the same men of yester-years (the men who told Nigerians that Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, often called IBB, was the best thing to happen to them). The dancers have been waiting for the big gap-toothed masquerade to make his move. But for anyone who understands body language, the answer has been long in the air.
advertisement
The spectators - the Nigerian people, have been indifferent, or so it seemed, to the rhythms of the orchestra. But in the vast laboratory theatre, where he experimented for eight-years, court jesters and palace guards have again taken positions, and hired historians have dusted their shelves, set to assault the people's sensibility with the Babangida version of history. And the new mission - to right all wrongs. Some even ridicule us by telling us he has learnt his lessons.
But it is exactly 11 years today since June 12, 1993 election took place, the results of which were annulled by former military President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the man who now wants to be president again. There is still no credible or even convincing explanation from him why he annulled the results of that election, which he personally admitted was largely free and fair.
In one of his interviews after his humiliating departure from office on August 26, 1993, he blamed the judiciary for his ill advised decision to annul the June 12 election results. Again, he said it was to save the judiciary from ridicule. He has said so many other incomprehensible things afterwards but he's yet to explain why he annulled an election won by his supposed good friend, Chief MKO Abiola. An election described by local and international observers as the freest and fairest in the nation's history. Even his most vociferous campaigners have been unable to provide any plausible reason for the annulment. His second in command then, Vice Admiral Aikhomu even said that MKO was not acceptable to the military. And as such the election results had to be annulled to please the military. Indecent you might say, but it was given to the Nigerian public as reason enough to annul a mandate they freely gave Abiola.
The campaign to get Babangida back to Aso Rock come 2007, started some five years ago, precisely after the inauguration of the Obasanjo presidency in May 1999.
It started in whispers, then a few incoherent murmurs and now a loud noise has rent the airwaves. Soon it will assume a frenzy of sort and engulf the nation. "The IBB Project 2007." Many thought then "it was a joke taken too far" and ignored it. But the campaigners have been fiercely relentless. And Nigerians are waking up to the reality and possibility of being saddled yet again, with a man who led them and their country from relative economic stability (prosperity compared to today) down the valley of socio-political and economic ruin. The result of eight years of misadventure, mis-governance, mismanagement, unprecedented corruption - culminating in economic and political ruin - a legacy of settlement that continues to haunt the nation and even threatening to overwhelm her.
The people watched with bemused bewilderment as their beleaguered nation was wrested from them and thrown at a cabal of loyalists as spoils of war. It is still with them and efforts to retrieve it has so far yielded little.
Babangida, the man who wants to lead Nigeria again in 2007 was the one who set the nation on the path of decline and the people on the path of poverty that currently ravages the land. In a rare admittance of failure, Babangida in an interview he granted in the twilight of his rein wondered why the nation's economy had not collapsed despite the massive dislocation his regime had caused. He watched as the nation bled to coma, paralyzed with policy failures and summersaults, while his cronies and business partners made huge money at our collective expense. Surprisingly, he had the audacity to tell the people then that for their tomorrow he was giving his today. But the truth really, inspite of what his historians say, is that he and his co-travellers mortgaged the people's tomorrow for their today then. The effect of that is what we still suffer today.
He re-defined national values, turning vice to virtues and virtues to vice. The present generation of our youths stand naked unable to differentiate between good and evil. They seem incapable of carrying the banner of hope for the nation. They are more at home being cult members, fraudsters, credit card racketeers in Europe and America, security guards, dish washers in hotels around the world because Babangida would not provide the environment for them to be moulded as future leaders of Africa's greatest hope.
That is the Babangida legacy.
The better part of Babangida's 8-year tenure witnessed an unprecedented closure of the nation's schools, particularly the universities and polytechnics due to one form of protest or the other. Strikes by lecturers became more frequent, sometimes lasting for seven to nine months at a stretch. Students spent the better part of school years at home, idle. And crime rate surged spirally. While many youths took to crime, many more migrated en masse to seek green pastures in foreign lands.
There was even a time Babangida threatened to close down some schools with radical lecturers opposed to his policies for two years if students in those schools took to the street to protest his government policies. The effect of Babangida's contempt for education is still clearly evident in the quarter-baked graduates that Nigeria is today saddled with. His successors have simply followed his footsteps, and the situation is only worsening. Let him visit the Universities today and see things for himself. They have gone under completely.
The nation's health sector was not spared. The hospitals were reduced to mere consulting clinics before his coming, but they became dilapidated morgues when he was forced out of office.
His forced exit from office was made possible by a broad coalition of civil and professional bodies such as the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, the Concerned Professionals, CP, National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, pro-democracy groups, civil societies, market women, traders unemployed graduates, and the poor people on the streets who told him he had become the greatest threat to the nation's survival.
His economic policy, the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP nearly structured Nigerians out of existence. The people are still struggling to recover from the effects of SAP. Incorporated in his SAP policy was devaluation of the Naira. The naira is still reeling under, desperately competing at the bottom of the ladder with CFA of the Republic of Benin.
That is the Babanguda legacy.
Now, if one may ask: What happened to Babangida's Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructure, DFFRI? Billions of naira were spent on that directorate. Which community can point at anything DFFRI did that is enduring? What happened to Babangida's National Directorate of Employment, NDE? How many people got employment through that directorate? What happened to Babangida's Peoples Bank? How many people were given credit facilities for small scale enterprises?
And lest we forget, what happened to the famous Pius Okigbo report and our $12.5 billion oil windfall? There is every deliberate attempt to obliterate our collective memory and make it look like these issues are mere chapters in fantasy books. But they are not.
Worse still, the nation is being shoved into intellectual amnesia and we wait to see the denounment of the convulsive drama especially as professionals are on the line up jostling to earn a living from the Babangida project.
Babangida's historians may well provide answers.
The present religious tension in the country is a direct consequence of Babangida's action. It was his decision to secretly take Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Countries, OIC that exacerbated the religious divide among Muslims and Christians and till date the country has known no peace.
The press was not spared Babangida's muscle. He roundly dealt with journalists, closing down media houses for performing their legitimate duties. Ironically, for his come-back bid, he is relying heavily on the press to pass his message across to the people.
Perhaps, one of Babangida's greatest legacy of waste that dots the length and breath of the country is the building of secretariats in every local government in the country for the two parties he created by fiat into existence - SDP and NRC.
What has happened to the secretariats today? Most of them are inhabited by cockroaches, reptiles and what not. But the fact is that they represent a symbol of waste and mismanagement - a monument of corruption.
And so suddenly the man who rendered the nation's judiciary impotent with ouster clauses during his infamous reign has found faith in the law courts. How ironic? He now runs to court ever so often to seek justice. The judiciary he showed little mercy in his locust years has become a haven of succour in his race with history.
The parcel bomb murder of Mr Dele Giwa resonated in the polity during the Oputa Panel sittings in Lagos and Abuja.
Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Newswatch Communication filed petition nos 416 and 537 before the Oputa Panel accusing Babangida, the then military President of having a hand in the murder of the late Editor-in-Chief on October 19, 1986. Two of his top security chiefs, Brig. Haliu Akilu and Kunle Togun were also accused of involvement.
Several times, the panel summoned him and several times Babangida ignored the panel's summons. He ran to court then to challenge the competence of the panel to summon him. The court granted his heart desires. But not a few saw the issue which had dragged on for almost two decades as beyond legal technicalities. Beyond the legality or otherwise were tall moral issues. Oputa's panel wasn't a court; that fact was well established at the outset. It was a panel established to reconcile the present with the past and become a redeeming feature for a nation and a people brutalised by terrorist military adventurers. A remedial of sort for a new nation to begin anew the process of nation building. Babangida was to help that process by telling what he knew about the death of Dele Giwa and put to rest once and for all, suspicions of involvement. But Babangida refused as he roundly shunned the panel.
The panel in making its recommendations had urged government to re-open unsolved cases particularly the assassination of Dele Giwa and the suspicious death of M K O Abiola.
But Babangida, apparently uncomfortable with the possible outcome of such a move, went to court once again to stop the implementation of the Oputa Panel's recommendation. The report is still hanging in the shelf at the presidency. The question really is, why is Babangida afraid to confront this ghost that is haunting him?
For his today and that of his cronies, he took away the people's joy, their happiness, their smiles, their warmth and laughter. Their family love, hopes and their values, their pride and prestige as a people, the whole essence of their tomorrow.
But there is something positive that Babangida also left behind, the Third Mainland Bridge. And perhaps his charm and charisma which he may be relying on to get get him back to power.
"That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we blacks are wise.
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes."
Langston Hughes, 1923
Is a thing to which we blacks are wise.
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes."
Langston Hughes, 1923