Levi Obijiofor
No matter how Ibrahim Babangida tries to dress up his last minute retreat or forced exit from the People's Democratic Party (PDP) presidential nomination challenge, the fact is that the man was outwitted in his own game and in his own backyard. To expose the inconsistencies that have dogged Babangida's attempt to glorify his exit this week from the PDP presidential primaries, we must revisit his pronouncements in the months leading up to this week. In an interview he granted to a Thisday reporter in the third weekend of August this year, Babangida insisted that he would not be squeezed out of the 2007 presidential election contest. In fact, Babangida told the reporter that he would rather contest and lose the election than withdraw from the race. When the reporter asked whether there were issues that might force Babangida to "chicken out" of the presidential contest, Babangida snapped in archetypal style: "Chicken out? No, it is not in my character to chicken out. If nothing else, I like to be challenged."
Newspaper headlines this week were dominated by news of Babangida's shock withdrawal from the PDP presidential nomination contest. It is not so much the similarity in the headlines that should astonish any careful observer but the attempt by Babangida and his spin masters to create the impression that Babangida's exit was the hallmark of magnanimity from a man who would rather starve than allow his less privileged politicians to go hungry. Now, Babangida and his courtiers want us to believe that his withdrawal (or forced exit) was in the best interest of the party and the nation. In a letter he wrote to President Olusegun Obasanjo, which was read to journalists in Abuja by Ahmadu Ali, the PDP national chairman, Babangida said his decision not to contest was more altruistic than anything else. He said he couldn't withstand the emotion of competing against his two close friends -- Katsina State Governor Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, and Obasanjo's former national security adviser Aliyu Gusau.
Babangida's public explanation for withdrawing from the PDP presidential primary election flies in the face of the man's credentials as a selfish and egotistical person and against everything else that is associated with philanthropic gestures. Babangida's fall from grace came not only against the backdrop of his mediocre performance as a military dictator (1985-1993) but also from the diatribe he directed at Obasanjo's government at a lecture Babangida gave in Abuja on August 14, 2006, to mark his 65th birthday anniversary. In that lecture, Babangida the oppressor sounded like a defender of the oppressed.
In a speech directed against Obasanjo's government and its claims to supercilious achievements in office, Babangida identified areas where Obasanjo and his government had failed the nation. He said: "Issues that had long been presumed resolved have once again come to the fore with greater clarity and compelling stridency. Minority rights are being expressed with increased militancy. Primordial cleavages have resurfaced and sometimes threaten the foundations of national cohesion. Faith and creed long held as belonging in the realm of private experience have resurfaced to make public claims on the loyalty of citizens sometimes compete with loyalty to the state and constituted authority. Ideas and views long suppressed and even held as taboo are now being openly canvassed as previously silent section of the national community have found new voices and fresh impetus."
As if he was not yet done with hitting Obasanjo where it pained most, Babangida lifted his verbal hammer and struck it directly on Obasanjo's forehead. "I also see the pain of dashed hopes, the agony of thwarted dreams and the regrets of expectation not met. Therefore over and above the various prescriptive models for further leadership that are now being variously canvassed in the popular media, I would rather simply define the challenge of our immediate next national leadership as thus; to make whole again. To that I am committed." The moment Obasanjo read the speech delivered by Babangida, he concluded he would never be able to dine or do business freely and honestly with the man from Minna who likes to entertain himself by engaging in endless twaddle.
When Babangida started to nurse his covert ambition to return to the Aso Rock presidential mansion which he was forced to vacate in 1993 as a military dictator, it did not occur to him that Nigerians would draw on history to judge him as a competent or incompetent leader. Obviously, no one told Babangida that his attempt to re-package himself as a champion of democracy was not only imprudent and ill-advised but also a grim, almost impossible task. How could a nation forgive and forget a man who single-handedly wrecked his own political transition program and scuttled a free and fair presidential election in 1993? How could Babangida suddenly realise that it is judicious for him to participate in 2007 in the same political process that he demolished as a military tyrant in 1993? Babangida's born-again political ambition was as fake as it was a costly gamble built on his fictional assessment of the mood of the nation.
During his time as military president, Babangida made many enemies in the south, in the north and indeed across the country. This explains in part why his attempt to re-enter Nigeria's leadership tussle was received nationwide with so much anxiety by the public and with so many angry outbursts in the news media. Additionally, many Nigerians who experienced Babangida's nightmarish eight-year military dictatorship during which the economy, the local currency, and the so-called political transition program drifted in no particular direction, viewed Babangida's latest expedition into presidential politics as a huge joke on a nation that has been limping on crutches owing to the sheer corruption and visionless policies that marked Babangida's era.
Whether he was pushed out gently by the PDP leaders or whether he jumped out first, Babangida has remained an enigma in the political scene. Despite non-verbal and open signals from PDP kingmakers urging Babangida to extinguish the political fire that smouldered inside his tummy, Babangida refused to take advice or warning from his friends and from his enemies. Neither Obasanjo (the wily old politician) nor key members of the PDP could get Babangida to blink. Rather than sit quietly in his private residence in Minna and watch his political kite disappear into the horizon (no thanks to some PDP leaders who effectively thwarted Babangida's political ambition and ego), Babangida wants to be remembered as a modern day Good Samaritan. Within one week, for instance, Babangida has arguably converted his struggles and adversity into a virtue, even though a few people believe him and his reasons for quitting the PDP presidential primary.
There are many perplexing questions that Nigerians would like Babangida to answer. Rather than walking the streets with his servants and proclaiming his philanthropic streak, Babangida should spend the rest of the years pondering how to respond to certain questions that continue to discredit his name. Why was his childhood friend Mamman Vatsa executed? Was there sufficient evidence of his involvement in the alleged coup to justify the execution? Why did Babangida's government engage in sordid abuse of human rights of many Nigerians, including freedom of the press and freedom of expression? Why did Babangida refuse to appear before the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa panel to answer questions about those human rights abuses that were committed by his government? Above all, why has Babangida refused to explain his rude interference in the 1993 presidential election? On September 21 this year, Babangida admitted for the first time in a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) "Network Africa" program that he cancelled the 1993 presidential elections but insisted that he did not annul that election. What nonsense! Whether he cancelled or annulled the election is a moot point. Nigerians and the international community want him to explain his action.
Babangida acknowledges that these questions and many others haunt him wherever he goes. If he wants to give his conscience some rest in the next few years, if Babangida is concerned about how history would remember his regime or the kind of message that would appear on his epitaph, he must answer all these questions in a candid manner.
