General Ibrahim Babangida, former military ruler and presidential aspirant, no doubt is in the menopause of his political life. Since the ex-martial ruler stepped aside from office in 1993, the ghost of his misadventure in Aso Rock Villa, the pinnacle of power, continues to haunt him. Wherever he goes, the people boo and jeer at him. His desperation to rule Nigeria again has more than ever before, pitted him against Nigerians and the international community.
Last month, Babangida’s presidential ambition suffered a setback in the United States Of America when his wife, Maryam visited that country to drum up support for IBB’s desperate quest to occupy Aso Rock Villa in 2007. In a separate meeting with select Nigerians and US government officials in Washington DC, Maryam reportedly urged her hosts to back her husband because, according to her, only IBB can keep the military boys in the barracks after the exit of President Olusegun Obasanjo. But the US officials reportedly distanced themselves from the IBB Project. They advised the self-styled evil-genius to apologise to Nigerians for annulling the June 12 Presidential election rather than warming up for the presidency. Some of the personalities at that parley were Mr. Herman Cohen, former American Assistant Secretary of State for Africa; James Addo of the African Development Foundation, ADF; Professor Omo Omoruyi, former Director-General, Centre for Democratic Studies, and a host of others.
Cohen, who is believed to be close to President George W. Bush of America, was saddled with the responsibility of running an international firm to shore-up the battered image of the gap-toothed Armoured General. But that also backfired, as Cohen reportedly turned down the offer on the grounds that IBB would be a hard sell in the United States. Before the October visit, Maryam was in US under the pretext of galvanising international support for her Better Life for Rural Women, BLRW programme, which she now calls Better Life for African Women, BLAW. But TheNEWS checks show that she was actually in that country to campaign for her husband. Our source said she even granted an interview to a TV station in the US, where she de-linked IBB’s ambition from her frequent visits to America. Her viewers were, however, not fooled by the deception of the Asaba-born former First Lady.
Tunde Odediran, former journalist and US-based pro-democracy activist, believes Maryam was calling a spade by other names. He told The Punch that Mrs Babangida’s shuttle ended in fiasco, as those she lobbied “were laughing behind her back.” While stressing that Maryam tried to no avail to make IBB acceptable to the US, Odediran said the civil society coalitions in the West are poised to truncate the IBB Project. To this end, againstbabangida.com, a website dedicated to mustering global public opinion against the ex-dictator, has been opened by Odediran.
The bad news from the US did not surprise IBB. Even as military president, he did not enjoy a chummy relationship with the “policeman of the world”. It is also on record that for the eight years that he held Nigeria spell-bound, the US authorities refused to grant him the request to pay a state visit to that country. In a March 1989 memo sent by the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Princeton Lyman to Washington DC, the diplomat put it bluntly: “I am sorry to say that we can no longer play low-key on Babangida’s desire for a visit, which I would have preferred to do. Septel reports a most eager request from Babangida himself in a meeting with Jeb Bush (now Governor of Florida) which frankly caught us off-guard.”
The US is not the only country that is averse to IBB. Some European and African countries have avoided him like the plague. TheNEWS gathered that British Prime Minister, Tony Blair is aghast at the possibility of IBB emerging as president. A source in Aso Rock told this magazine that Blair registered his disapproval of IBB when he visited Nigeria during the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2003. Blair’s position, TheNEWS gathered, was predicated on the perception that if voted into office, IBB may, as he did between 1985 and 1993, mismanage the nation’s resources. Besides, Blair allegedly warned President Obasanjo to frustrate IBB’s bid because, according to him, an IBB presidency may squander the country’s multi-billion foreign reserves. This position is shared by many religious leaders and economists alike. “IBB is not a good manager of resources. He is a deft politician famous for deception, but I don’t think he should be entrusted with the task of managing our common wealth. And above all, his ideas are moribund and antithetical to the common good of the common man,” Chris Okotie, Founding Pastor, Household of God Church told TheNEWS.
If Blair’s cold reception to the IBB Project is predicated on his poor management skills, President Thabo Mbeki’s opposition is hinged on the belief that IBB is an outsider in the Obasanjo administration. This magazine also learnt that until Vice-President Atiku Abubakar was enmeshed in the Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PTDF) scandal, he had enjoyed the support of Mbeki. Before the international community shunned IBB, President Obasanjo had disowned the gap-toothed General. In a meeting held behind closed doors at the Villa in May this year, Obasanjo was said to have disappointed his guest when he advised him to jettison his presidential ambition and join forces with him to shop for a younger candidate, preferably from the South-South geo-political zone. Though Obasanjo was silent on who the candidate could be, this magazine learnt that, of the lot angling for the plum job, Governor Donald Duke of Cross River is closest to Obasanjo’s heart. “Baba told IBB there is no vacancy for him in PDP, as the PDP leadership had fashioned its succession after the American political system where governors are usually positioned to succeed outgoing presidents,” a top source in the Presidency told TheNEWS.
Obasanjo’s bluntness irritated IBB, who vowed to contest in the forthcoming primaries of the PDP. But events in the past few months suggest that he might have defected to another party, at least secretly. Those who believe this wonder why he has not picked the PDP nomination form for the primary election slated for December. “The forms have been on sale for over two weeks, yet IBB has not signified interest to buy it. It is either he has buried his dream or defected from PDP,” one analyst submitted.
Dr. Chidi Amuta, the author of a biography entitled Ibrahim Babangida, Prince of the Niger, however, said IBB is still in PDP and would pick the form shortly after the Ramadan fast. Yet another school of thought says IBB may not contest at all for two reasons. First, it is believed that since the permutations in the ruling party do not favour him, IBB may have jettisoned his ambition. And IBB would not like to contest election and lose for fear of being reduced to an opposition leader in Nigeria. “The name Babangida inspires awe in this country. If he runs in the 2007 polls and loses, he will be demystified. So it is better for IBB not to run because if he tries it, he will crumble,” said Shehu Sani, a human rights activist.
The second possible reason why he has not purchased the nomination form may not be unconnected with the Electoral Act and its provision on parties’ conduct of primaries. The Act states that politicians who lose primary elections on a party platform will automatically be disqualified from standing election on another political party platform. Whichever way the pendulum swings, Babangida, watchers say, has the unresolved murder of Dele Giwa, founding Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch magazine, hanging on his neck like the sword of Damocles. Twenty years after, the murder remains a mystery, defying all attempts to track down Giwa’s killers. But Lagos lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi believes General Babangida and his ex-security chiefs, Brigadier-General Halilu Akilu (former Director of Military Intelligence) and Colonel A.K. Togun (Director, State Security Service) have questions to answer over the brutal elimination of the journalist. And as the 2007 elections draw nearer, Giwa has become an issue. Gani told TheNEWS that he has fresh facts on the Giwa case to nail Babangida. But former Lagos State Police Commissioner, Abubakar Tsav absolved the ex-martial ruler of complicity. “I was serving in Force CID, Alagbon Close, Lagos when Dele Giwa was brutally murdered. I personally investigated and even made some arrests. It was malicious to link Gloria Okon, IBB or Mrs. Babangida with the Giwa case.. Honestly, the murder of Giwa has been overtaken by events,” Tsav said.
If IBB cannot be held for Giwa’s murder, observers say he certainly has questions to answer for annulling the June 12 presidential election, said to be the freest and fairest in the political history of Nigeria. Won by the late philanthropist and business mogul, MKO Abiola, IBB’s political enemies believe a man who annulled a rancour-free election shouldn’t be entrusted with the mandate of the people. But the Maradona in IBB will not stop dribbling Nigerians. In an interview with BBC, IBB said he didn’t annul the election but cancelled it. He added that an election is annulled only when it did not hold at all. But the June 12 election held before IBB’s government cancelled it. “...It was not annulled, it was rather cancelled. We gave reasons. We told Nigerians that we cancelled the election because of the prevailing circumstances,” said IBB. His listeners were however not deceived because the former dictator, in a broadcast to the nation in July 1993 actually said: “Due to the prevailing circumstances in the country, the June 12 election is hereby annulled.”
A US-based Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics, Niyi Akinnaso, however said IBB shot himself in the foot while attempting to play with words. Stressing that there is no difference between “annul and cancel” in electoral matters, Akinnaso likened IBB’s semantic shift and duplicity to an assassin who prefers to tell the world that he only kills and does not assassinate. “Babangida’s insistence on this word recalls the words of an assassin to the relatives of the victim of his action. The assassin told them: I didn’t assassinate your man. I only killed him. Some of the relatives shouted, Killer! while others shouted, Murderer! The assassin responded:Actually I did not kill or murder your man. I only beheaded him,” Akinnaso argued.
Babangida will also have Gulf War oil windfall scam to contend with if he throws his hat into the ring. In October 1994, Pius Okigbo, an economist now deceased, chaired a panel set up by the late despot, Sani Abacha, to strengthen the Central Bank of Nigeria. Okigbo’s findings showed among other things that $12.2 billion of the $12.4 that Nigeria realised from the sale of excess crude oil was wasted by the IBB junta. Even the $206 million that was seen was, according to Okigbo, frittered “on what could neither be adjudged genuine projects or truly regenerative investments.” A breakdown of the projects shows that the Nigerian High Commission in London was allocated $18.2 million; Nigeria Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, $14.99 million; Iran, $2.76 million; Niger Republic, $3.8 million; Pakistan, $3.8 million; Israel, $13.67 million; Liberia, $1million, and Ghana had $0.5 million. Curiously too, IBB and his wife, according to the report, spent $9.94 million on frivolous trips while a whopping $23.98 million was expended on Dodan Barracks and Aso Rock Villa. And according to the report, a documentary entitled Nigeria’s Journey to Nationhood gulped $2.92 million of the windfall. “With the clandestine and frivolous disbursement that IBB institutionalised, no right thinking Nigerian will vote for him in 2007 because any attempt to bring him back to office will once again bloat the nation’s external debt,” one analyst posited.
Even the North, IBB’s primary constituency, is not enamoured with the ambitious ex-soldier. Last year, IBB was hounded from Kano by the talakawas (masses) shortly after he arrived Kano for the wedding fatiha of the children of one of his former military aides. The ex-officers were Halilu Akilu, who was giving out his daughter, and Colonel Yakubu Bako, former military administrator of Akwa Ibom State, whose son was taking a wife. As a proud IBB beamed with smiles at the Umar-Bin Khatab Juma’at Mosque, venue of the wedding, little did he know that politics was thick in the air. The talakawas suddenly went gaga, mobilised youths in their thousands and stormed the mosque, shouting anti-IBB slogans: “Bam u a son IBB” (We don’t want IBB); IBB baba barawo (Big thief) and so on. His famed infectious smile was wiped off and he was forced to slip out of Kano.
Abdulkarim Daiyabu, President of the Movement of Justice In Nigeria (MOJIN), said IBB will continue to be humiliated anywhere he goes in the North until he dumps his presidential bid. While blaming IBB for the multifarious calamities facing the nation, the MOJIN chieftain said Kano is reputed for stoning bad leaders. “Babangida and Abacha created the problems we are facicng, so he should not think Nigerians have forgotten so soon. I was not surprised by what happened to Babangida because if he could be stoned in Zaria, how much more Kano, the home of Northern radicalism?” argued Daiyabu. He continued: “You remember our people in Kano have stoned Governor Kwakwanso and his father. They also pelted the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and even President Obasanjo for supporting Governor Kwakwanso.”
It was, therefore, not surprising that many prominent Nigerians shunned Babangida’s 65th birthday lecture at the Ladi Kwali Hall of Abuja Sheraton. The lecture, held on Tuesday 15 August, also saw the absence of the President, the VP, Senate President Ken Nnamani, the Speaker, House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Masari, and the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Alfa Belgore, even though their names were on the programme.
Babangida, however, pretended not to be disappointed as he mounted the rostrum to deliver his address. IBB took his listeners on an historical excursion aimed at self-pontification. He argued that his government was popular for laying the foundation for a free market economy. Noting that every government is known for priority areas, IBB praised General Yakubu Gowon’s administration for building Nigeria through the 3RS – reconciliation, rehabilitation and reconstruction. IBB said the Murtala/Obasanjo junta was known for restoring the dignity of the black race, while the Buhari/Idagbon government was remarkable for reconstructing social order.
And as he progressed in his well delivered speech, the morality sermon turned to what pundits called a requiem mass for his 2007 dream. It appeared as if the ghost of his misdeeds in office were haunting him as he lamented: “Issues that had long been presumed resolved have once again come to the fore with greater clarity and compelling stridency.” Though he failed to mention what those issues are, critics say they are not unconnected with the annulment of June 12 election, the mismanagement of the Gulf Oil windfall, the assassination of Dele Giwa, the execution of Major-General Mamman Vatsa who was implicated for planning to topple the Babangida government, and many more.
Sam Omatseye, a columnist with The Nation newspaper, in his 11 September 2006 piece said he believes these issues will continue to be a clog in the wheel of IBB’s campaign train. “IBB organised the elections with a deliberate ploy to make them fail. He thought the politicians would always fall into his traps. But June 12 surprised him, so his true intentions were exposed. He annulled it and with it, he reached his wits’ end and his regime’s apotheosis and capitulation,” he wrote.
There are tell-tale signs things are not looking up for the IBB Campaign group. The one story building in 15, Colorado Street, off Alvan Ikoku Road, Maitama, Abuja is not distinct from other houses in the mostly residential, posh neighbourhood but for one thing: It is the headquarters of General Ibrahim Babangida, IBB Campaign Organization. But a first time visitor will have to get past the huge black gates that keep prying eyes away to know this. Perhaps, in deference to strict town planning and environmental controls in the capital city, there are no huge billboards and wall – defacing posters common to similar offices to indicate what goes on inside the building. But immediately you step into the living room your doubts about what goes on in the building disappears as you are greeted by indiscriminately pasted posters touting IBB’s 2007 presidential ambition.
In Abuja, his campaign office is largely deserted. It is actually supposed to be headed by a Director-General, but this magazine gathered that the post is vacant for now. But talk to any of the six Directors, and they will eagerly reassure you that the self-styled evil genius is still very much a contender, and is indeed, the leading candidate to succeed President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007. But not all IBB supporters are still so sure. It was gathered that one or two members of groups campaigning for IBB usually occasionally saunter into the campaign office to enquire if the “Principal or Oga” as they fondly call Babangida is still in the 2007 race. They usually go away with a positive answer. But their apprehension is understandable. Less than 21 days to the closing of the sale of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential nomination forms, the party on which platform the former military president said he will contest, there are no signs that IBB will soon join the coterie of presidential hopefuls who have already picked their own forms.
“He still has up to November 14 to pick up the form”, Malam Bibi Farouk, one of the Directors in the IBB Campaign Organization told TheNEWS on telephone last Wednesday. He was also unequivocal that the one time military president will run on the platform of PDP. But in what seems a reflection of the present confusion in the retired General’s Camp, one Kazim Afegbua, who claimed to be IBB’s Special Assistant on Media Matters, was on the same day addressing journalists in Kaduna. Contrary to assertion by Farouk, Kazim said IBB will actualise his ambition on the platform of a coalition to be formed by another party, the National Democratic Party. According to him, IBB will rather contest on the platform of a party in which he is the sole candidate rather than on the ticket of PDP where he will have to struggle with the other presidential contenders.
But TheNEWS gathered that contrary to Kazim’s assertions, IBB may have been re-thinking his presidential ambition strategies since PDP released its guidelines for presidential aspirants last August. The guidelines stipulated that a potential presidential candidate on the platform of PDP must have a consistent and verifiable means of likelihood, high level of integrity, respect for human rights, wholesome track record, and evidence of personal discipline among other requirements. “It was clear the guidelines were hurdles set in the way of IBB, especially who has several cases of violation of human rights and corruption hanging on his neck. Scaling those hurdles for IBB may well be likened to the biblical horse passing through the eyes of a needle,” a top member of the ruling party told TheNEWS last week.
This apart, it was also alleged that the presidency is actively encouraging and giving support to other presidential aspirants on the platform of PDP from Niger State, Babangida’s home state. For now, two aspirants, who are also former Minister, Professor Jerry Gana and Major-General Mamman Kontagora (retd) both from Niger State, have declared their presidential ambition. Professor Jerry Gana has indeed gone ahead to obtain the PDP presidential nomination form. The ultimate purpose is to deny the former military president the advantage of going to battle with a united home front, even if he chooses to remain in PDP. It was gathered that this aim is already being achieved in the state. IBB supporters in the state who perceive that the presidency is increasingly becoming far – fetched for him, it was gathered, are fast jumping on the train of the other aspirants.
There are also fears that IBB may not contest after all, a concern which has not be allayed by the General. This was acknowledged in a recent newspaper interview by Yahaya Emilugi, Special Adviser to Governor Kure on Political matters and a staunch advocate of IBB 2007 project: “We are aware of efforts being quietly put up by those opposing Babangida in the state and we know the idea is to split his campaign from his home state and consequently embarrass him with the possibility of loss of popularity during the forth-coming primaries. But I assure you, we are right on our guards and equal to the task ahead of us in ensuring success in 2007,” Emilugi said. IBB is certainly in a quandary as regards the PDP. Yet, the choice of political party to ride to power on is not the biggest obstacle.
After all, like the NDP being touted by Kazim, many of the registered over 45 political parties would gladly offer the former military president the opportunity of contesting on their platform. The biggest headache of the retired General which has forced him to recoil into his Minna Hilltop mansion is the continuous ceaseless call for a probe into events during his eight years as military president. The calls have become louder since IBB, in a series of press interviews, after his 65th birthday last August categorically came out that he is interested in the Nigerian Presidency.
But IBB, according to some of his die-hard supporters, has not given up on his ambition. According to Godwin Daboh, National Chairman, Concerned Nigerians for IBB, one of the 20 organisations founded to champion the cause of the former dictator, all is set for the formal declaration of IBB for the race. “Only God can stop IBB in 2007. IBB is a precious gold in tropical Africa whose name is an asset to any party. There are over 20 groupings that constitute project 2007. We have campaign offices in the 36 states of the federation working assiduously for the emergence of IBB,” boasted Daboh. But can IBB make it?
– Additional report: Desmond Utomwen and Tony Orilade/Abuja.
