The visit caused ripples among Nigerians and US government officials.
Many said the visit was a covert but political diplomatic shuttle to lobby for support for IBB’s ambition to become Nigeria’s next civilian president in 2007.
Babangida’s wife is expected later this month or November.
Investigations stated that Maryam seemed to be operating under secret cover with the pretext that her visit to the US was only to promote her much talked about Better Life for Rural Women programme for which she actually won an international award several years ago, while Babangida was still in power.
Those who are very close to Maryam’s US movements said she was actually campaigning and lobbying for her husband in the US.
During Maryam’s visit last month, during the second week of September, his itinerary included a a meeting with officials of the US government agency African Development Foundation, ADF, on the official auspices of the Better Life for Rural Women programme.
Although ADF official James Addo said she was aware of a meeting in Washington D.C last month between ADF and Maryam’s Better Life for Rural Women, but said he was not aware that Babangida’s wife attended the meeting.
Maryam also held other meetings with few other American groups and some Nigerians. She even granted a TV interview with a new African-owned television station in Maryland, 360 Africa. In that interview Maryam was asked the purpose of her trip and she reportedly said it was to promote her Better Life programme. In that interview, IBB’s wife was also asked why, since IBB has declared that he would be running in 2007, is he not coming to the US like some other Nigerian presidential hopefuls have been doing recently. Maryam answered simply by saying his husband only goes to where he has business to do.
Commenting on last month’s visit of Maryam Babandiga, Tunde Odediran a Nigerian pro-democracy activist, who along with other Nigerians here in the US, runs the againstbabangida.com, a website dedicated to blocking IBB’s return to power in Nigeria said his group has been monitoring Maryam’s movements in the US and anywhere else in the western world.
According to him, Maryam last month’s visit was largely unsuccessful because many of those she met “where laughing behind her back.” Odediran himself a former journalist, added that “we know she is trying to make her husband look acceptable to the US government, but our position is that we shall block IBB from making any progress in the western world, we have stared the fight here and we shall take this fight home and Babangida will fail.
As part of the IBB’s bid to woo the Americans for his ambition, investigations also indicated that he had hired a former United States government official in charge of Africa as his lobbyist in the US.
Informed sources disclosed that Mr. Herman J. Cohen, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, who now runs an international consulting firm in Washington D.C, was Babangida’s lobbyist and promoter in the US for the purpose of preparing the ground for his possible return to power.
Cohen’s new business after he retired in 1994 from the American foreign service is being the president of President, Cohen and Woods International, Inc.
Cohen, who was also an ambassador served for 38 years as a career Foreign Service Officer; and his last assignment before retirement was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under Secretary of State James Baker, but he was appointed to the office under the previous Bush presidency.
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