Ogbonna Nwuke
At  last, the suspense has eased and the endless speculation put to rest. For real, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida is now in the running for the PDP presidential ticket.

Although in several ways, the entry into the roped square of the man that loves to be referred to as the evil genius was more like an anti-climax, given the hype, and the usual dribbles that earned him the sobriquet "Maradona", the press has gone agog with accounts of how the infamous leader whose bloody reign claimed several beautiful lives including that of General Mamman Vatsa, picked the forms that say he is a presidential hopeful on the platform of the PDP.
Against the backdrop of the searchlight beamed on him by the media, IBB is regrettably the subject of discussion in political circles; with many already imagining what impact his entry would have on the political process, not just of the PDP but the entire nation that he once led.
That is of course the hallmark of the press, and it demonstrates the media's responsiveness to topical issues of the moment, its ability to weave tales of the unusual and sometimes absurd, and its historic capacity for setting the agenda at all times, for better for worse.
IBB is a copy seller's delight all right. He is witty and gifted with an infectious mannerism and his admirers insist, there is no better man in the land that nature has invested with so much native intelligence.
So, if the press is playing up the coming of this popular but unpredictable personae who took this country on an endless transition programme that gulped billions of naira and eventually led nowhere, it is understandable.
If Nigerians for the lack of any better thing to do have found a new pastime in discussing the attributes of this expired ruler, I can only say good luck and go on to wonder what kind of memory runs through our veins.
I must confess I am not amused by it all. I cannot but wonder why men would determine our lot as a nation whose ideas have gone out of fashion. And I still cannot reconcile why the Nigerian people would reject new blood, new ideas and new ways of doing things by clinging dangerously to a recycled leadership plan that would only mortgage the future of this generation and generations of unborn Nigerians, and open the floodgate for tyrannical leaders who have no regard for democratic principles.
Look at the disaster that President Olusegun Obasanjo has turned. Imagine for once the resolve that OBJ as he is now called has displayed and continues to display, in attempting to hang unto power, especially against the background of the botched third tenure attempt that the Nigerian people wholesomely rejected. Then look at IBB and his antecedents before he forcefully stepped aside from the corridors of power. Do you see any connection?
For eight years IBB as he is fondly called ruled Nigeria with an iron fist and did several things that the Nigerian people never wanted. Take the issue of the IMF prescription for Nigeria, for instance. The Nigerian people who were benefactors of the talk shows that IBB so craftily put together had said through their spokesmen and representatives they would have none of it.
They kicked against the deregulation of the Naira. They kicked against the idea of recklessly allowing market forces to determine the future of business transactions between Nigeria and the industrialized world.
They spoke volumes about why the IBB government should prefer a stronger currency to a weaker one and drew his attention to what had happened to other African countries that had preferred to listen to the IMF.
IBB pretended he heard their outcries and still went ahead to accept the dose of IMF prescriptions that the nation is yet to recover from. Then came the Structural Adjustment Programme, which sparked off a national protest.
Not many, I still believe, can forget how the animal in the ever smiling Machiavellian suppressed the popular and nationalistic yearning of the same people whom he claimed to represent as military president. Does any one remember the tanks that rolled out of Bonny camp to crush defenseless civilians who dared to confront the military bear?
In other to stay on in power and continue the domination of the rest of us, IBB had brilliant and enterprising soldiers shot in cold blood under the guise of coups that never got off the ground. And when the real coupists came calling the strategist who had tricked Dimka into making a mistake when he planned his ran away from State House in Lagos like a frightened rabbit.
For once during the reign of the one called IBB, Nigerians thought they had got it right. The two-party structure adopted after what looked like a national plebiscite took place at different forums motivated by the IBB administration was simply what Nigeria needed. On account of this IBB build symbols of democracy - the party houses that dotted the political landscape - and propounded what came to be known as the Equal joiners, equal owner concept.
Overnight, because of his unending schemes, IBB brought down the roof on everybody and everything else and sent billions of naira down the thrash can. The same man had a beautiful opportunity of unburdening himself and endearing himself to the Nigerian people when we decided to have our own version of the truth commission.
IBB who now wants to govern Nigeria spurn the nation, refused to appear even after he had been duly invited. That is the arrogance of the powerful one and his disdain for order, and the same man who could do this, when he ascends to power, would want me to subject myself to what he perceives as the rule of law
IBB must hear this. All of those who fell fighting to defend democracy after he fled to Minna either in the hands of Abacha or Abubakar and that includes Chief Moshood Kashiwole Abiola died because IBB pressed the self-destruct button.
Where I come from there is a proverbial saying about the antelope. It is said that the world of antelopes hold the view that it is not the hunter that kills them that they blame. It is the one that tells the hunter, "here is the antelope, don't let it escape."
In this instance, IBB qualifies to be the hunter's adviser with an insatiable appetite for antelope meat. The worst in my opinion was the plot to exterminate a generation of brilliant soldiers through the authorization of a flight of a rickety airplane that went down at Ojigbo at the outskirts of Lagos. Many of us had loved ones in that ill-fated craft that had no business doing that last voyage.
My elder brother, Major Kingdom Nwuke (blessed be is soul) was one of them. I remember his last letter to members of the Nwuke clan. He had described Jaji as the Mecca of the military when he failed to make a meeting that he set in motion and expressed the hope that after his decoration as a Lt. Colonel, he would quit the army to pursue a new career with Motorola which was in love with a software he had been able to come up with, or go lecturing at Ife.
Kingdom never made it back to us. He was killed as a result of what many military historians of Nigerian extraction are beginning to see as the fight for supremacy and control of the Armed Forces between IBB and his shadowy Chief of Army Staff, General Sani Abacha.
In death, Kingdom and his fellow martyrs were treated as national heroes, draped in national colours Green-White-Green. There were promises too by the toothy dictator. Houses were supposed to be erected in their home states for the family they left behind in active service. To this day, no house was ever built either by the Federal Government or his home government in honour and in evergreen memory of the fallen soldier with a clear academic and communication-oriented mind..
It is our loss, but it is Nigeria's loss as well and the reason reasonable Nigerians should say no to men with a capacity for causing great pain, a capacity for ignoring the basic right of individuals, the right to be free and the right to express themselves.
It should force us all to say nay to men with a murderous fury that knows no bounds, men who have very little regard for the value and sanctity of human life, and men who seem to think it is their birth right to dominate others.
The blood of those who are gone, the blood of the Dele Giwas, the Moshood Abiolas, the Mamman Vatsas and the Kingdom Nwukes call for justice. They cry for divine intervention and the intervention of their fellow countrymen.
I have tried so hard to find something positive to say about IBB. I have found none. I have tried to give him a fair chance, yet there is no reason why such a man who is living off the lucre of the land that he plundered should be walking free.
I have asked myself what IBB is coming to do this time around. Still I have found no justifiable reason. IBB might be an achiever, but he is not better than other achievers and great statesmen like Bill Clinton.
Clinton is content to lead a quiet life after walking the corridors of power. Clinton is not alone. There are great American presidents like Thomas Jefferson and Eisenhower. They were satisfied with what fate and providence gave them.
They could have had the magic wands that the American society of their day allowed, but they were content with sticking to the rules of the game, and doing only those things that would edify them and their society within the tenure prescribed by the system at play in their time.
It is difficult to appreciate this comeback syndrome. In a country of 130 million people, there are eggheads and practical politicians that we have not tried. They are scattered all over the country and all over the world.
Me think it is time to try a new set of people; a new set of norms and mores and time to find fresh persons who genuinely can be entrusted with the task of working for the good of this great country
Babangida should simply get the message and quit now. The new Nigeria that men of my generation desire have no place for men like him. He has nothing new to offer, nothing new to sell as a salesman
Men like Babangida disgust me. They either believe Nigeria belongs to them, or reason they are the only ones imbued with the wisdom to govern our beloved country.
The only way Babangida's infamous entry into the PDP presidential race would satisfy me, is that it provides room for a repetition of history, this time for IBB to perceive he is on the way to victory and later be denied the chance to govern Nigeria as a democratically elected president just as he did to Abiola.
Let him drink of his own poison, let him taste of the bitterness of taking the brunt of power, let him gnash his teeth like the rest of us who have tasted it on account of the actions or inactions of an administration that he presided over for several years.


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