Turning eighty is more than coming of age, and for General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), who turns 80 next Tuesday, August 17, his enrolment in the class of octogenarians would deservedly, be celebrated by friends and family for the blessings of longevity; but for a nation still reeling from the streak of his authoritarian madness, IBB, Nigeria’s military dictator from 1985–1993, is an inglorious relic of a past better forgotten. Ahead of his birthday, IBB, the grand manipulator and self-styled “Maradona of Nigerian politics” granted an interview to Arise TV last Friday, during which he attempted to rewrite history and defend his legacy with asinine utterances on issues such as rotational presidency, socio-economic and security challenges; corruption and the controversial annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections, won by late Chief MKO Abiola.
IBB’s recipe for the woes of Nigeria was callous, insensitive, condescending, patronizing, self-righteous, pathetic, dishonest, arrogant, self-aggrandizing, revisionist, tenuous and largely unconvincing. The interview was an affront and insult on the collective sensibilities and intelligence of the Nigerian people; and should be so treated. In a nation of manifest stagnation and looming anarchy, why should Nigerians listen to a man who symbolizes the national failure? To that extent, his lame excuses and refusal to take responsibility for his actions, is a pathetic self-indictment and hypocrisy that stinks to the high Heavens. Nigerian democracy has been debased enough and IBB has neither the leadership pedigree nor moral compass to offer any lessons on democracy, human rights, good governance and the rule of law. He should respect his old age and just shut up!
Perhaps, IBB must have realized and correctly too, that the best legacy he can bequeath to the country is to tell the nation the naked truth about itself. By some outlandish intuition, IBB thinks zoning or rotational presidency is a bad idea, because it sacrifices merit and competence on the altar of political expediency and hamstrings the democratic process from producing a candidate of merit, regardless of his or her origin. His words: “Either we want to practice democracy the way it should be practiced, or we define democracy on our own whims and caprices…If we are going to do it the way it is done all over the world, you allow the process to continue. It is through the process that you will come up with a candidate that will rule the country. His beliefs and qualifications should be considered before he throws his hat into the ring, regardless of where he comes from.”
No doubt, today’s Nigeria exhibits all the features of a fragile state: a weak base with a mono-economy based on the export of crude oil dependent on the volatile global market; a deficient national character underlined by absence of common citizenship and accentuated by the presence of “community of sentiments” built around ethnic and primordial identities; contested legitimacy as the people perceive the state as one based on impunity and run by a rent-seeking elite. In addition to these are a cocktail of evils such as corruption in high places of immeasurable magnitude, poor infrastructure, human rights violations, stunted social development and inept leadership. But IBB’s references to the importance of democratic rule and the inviolability of the rule of law are at best ironic and at worst, revisionist in all ramifications. The fact that prominent northern and middle belt groups have come out to endorse IBB’s position on power rotation ignores the fact that there are Nigerians whose geographical zone has never produced a president and they are agitating for the presidency to be zoned to their area, in line with Sections 14(3) and 14(4) of the 1999 Constitution to allay perceived marginalization.
Many Nigerians would be forgiven for thinking that because it has become customary that power should rotate between the north and south; there are constitutional provisions to that effect, beyond the so-called “gentleman’s agreement” amongst the political elite. To which end, incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari, from the north would have done two four- year terms by 2023; hence power should revert to the south. Amid vocal agitations for an Igbo presidency in 2023, Southern governors elected on the platform of the ruling APC, issued the Asaba Declaration, calling for the presidency to return to the south after Buhari’s tenure. In fairness though, the north theoretically has the numbers to decide any presidential election, with 52% of registered voters in 19 out of 36 states, and the reality that voter turn-out is always higher in the north than the south. Practically, in its enlightened self-interest, the north is not monolithic and has used its numbers three times - in 1993, 2003 and 2011 - to support southerners against one of their own. It appears IBB was acting out a script with his attack on power rotation because both the ruling APC and the main opposition PDP, are playing a high stake egg-and-chicken game as to where they will zone their presidential tickets as the APC’s decision will inevitably influence the PDP’s choice.
To the extent that IBB’s comment is a renunciation of the widespread belief that the south is responsible for the woes of the north, or vice versa, it is an elixir for a peaceful coexistence of Nigerians. But no time is more auspicious for such comments than now, coming particularly from a man known as the “evil genius” owing to his “deft political maneuvers”; and at a time when national discourse is rooted in diatribe laced with ethnicity, accusations and counter accusations by ethnic jingoists, political mudslinging in the most inflammatory manner with the potentials of undermining the peace and unity of Nigeria. It is indeed a refreshing and pan Nigeria diagnosis of the situation away from the rather incendiary, albeit sectional analysis of the issues at stake in the 2023 general elections. But beyond a rigid application of democratic theory and practice, it stretches credulity that a country with a federal character principle in its constitution can think it is undemocratic to apply it to the presidency. Truth be told; zoning and power rotation enhances national integration given that a presidential candidate must have “national spread” by scoring at least 25% of votes cast in at least 24 states.
On corruption, IBB said corruption is worse today compared to the military era. “I think we are saints when compared to what is happening under a democratic dispensation. I sacked a governor for misappropriating less than N313,000,” he said. IBB may be right but this is a false equivalency because there was no accountability as military rule was shrouded in secrecy. The flagrant impunities and imperiousness that reign in governance in Nigeria under IBB was driven by a conquest mentality on the part of the junta leaders. Having seized power with the barrel of the gun, the people were conquered and IBB and his co-travelers were in office only for themselves.
In characteristic fashion, IBB took no responsibility but blamed “tyranny of the elite” and “disconnect between leadership and followership” for the challenges to national unity. The pathological liar looked straight into the camera and told Nigerians that the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) of 1986 was sound economic policy and that his administration has been vindicated; even though SAP set the nation on the course of perdition from which it has never recovered. The first fuel price hike in Nigeria was under SAP in 1988; the SAP riots of 1989 saw many students and unionists murdered in cold blood; the collapse of the education system and the gradual pauperization of the country happened under IBB.
Judging from the public reactions the raw emotions now trailing the IBB interview, have again shown that the scars of the IBB years are not only still deep, they have been dug further open. The “evil genius” is free, the victims are dead, and their families are nursing the scars. With a blood-thirsty monster like IBB using the freedom he deprived many others to rewrite history and defend his gory blood-stained legacy, Nigeria still bleeds from the assault of the IBB years. In place of a closure on those bestial years, the nation now deals with an open and nagging reminder of a mindless torture. And for many, the nightmare not only continues, Nigeria is trapped in bondage to a ghastly memory. It is indeed pathetic!
Source: Huhuonline Editorial
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