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
- 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.
|
# 
Your Comments
Please make The Square an enjoyable experience for everyone by refraining from gratuitous ad-hominem contributions, defamatory comments and off-topic posting. Such posts will be removed.