Babangida as a Trojan Horse

Before now, Babangida had consistently adopted circumlocution to ward off questions by journalists about his political future.

It is interesting to listen to Babangida's shaky analysis of Nigeria's problems, including the problems of leadership. In his speech, Babangida criticised President Obasanjo's government and its claims to excellence in government. Babangida also made some astonishing claims about the achievements of his military government 13 years ago. His words: "In our own case, we defined for ourselves and confronted the futility of states' domination of economy. We posited instead the entrenchment of free market economy as the bedrock of political reform."

Having examined his crystal balls, Babangida liked what he saw and he told his listeners about his impressions. He said he was the only man with the foresight to lead the nation out of the current crises. A second coming to Aso Rock, Babangida reasoned, would offer him another chance to finish the unfinished business of government. As he spoke, Babangida did not realise that his analysis of Nigeria's problems and the role he assigned to himself in reviving a dying nation, portrayed him as someone suffering from some kind of hallucination - the false belief in one's ability to move mountains. President Obasanjo has been suffering from a similar ailment since he became a democratic president in 1999.

Many Nigerians who experienced eight years of Babangida's tyrannical reign as a military president would develop migraine to hear the man announce that he was preparing to return to Aso Rock. There are serious questions that Babangida must answer before voters can take him seriously. What did Babangida forget in office as far back as 1993 when he slipped out of office unceremoniously through the back doors of Aso Rock that he wants to retrieve in 2007? What policies did Babangida forget to implement as a head of state when he had all the powers that he could muster as a military dictator? Babangida had many golden opportunities to fix Nigeria's multifarious problems over a period of eight years but, like a prodigal military dictator, he blew those opportunities. Why was Babangida booed out of office in 1993? If he was so loved, if his policies had positive impact on the people, would the nation have jeered him?

Babangida's chances in next year's presidential elections must be considered against the backdrop of his record in office between 1985 and 1993. We must also keep in mind that Babangida was in power for eight uninterrupted years. For the period he reigned, Babangida's achievement record was dreadful. It was so bad you couldn't compare it with any previous government's record. During Babangida's time, the economy drifted and went into a long period of coma and it never recovered. At one point, Babangida admitted publicly that he had become despondent about the performance of the Nigerian economy because the economy had defied his disjointed responses to a national malaise. Rather than apply prudence in managing the economy and in checking inflation, Babangida, true to his military background, applied force to resuscitate the economy. But he quickly found out that the Nigerian economy was like a horse. You could drag it to the river but you couldn't possibly force the economy to gulp Babangida's military concoctions. The economy and military force are no bedfellows. It was to Babangida's discredit that the free fall of the naira in the foreign exchange market began in 1986, a consequence of his government's barren knowledge of basic economic principles.

On the political front, Babangida's successful coup that overthrew the harsh regime of Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon was celebrated on the streets because everyone believed that Babangida was god-sent, a saviour of sorts. But was he? The euphoria did not last long because no sooner did Babangida hoist himself on top of the nation than the dictatorial aspect of his character began to pop up. He tampered with basic human rights and abused press freedom. During Babangida's time, media organisations were shut and journalists were threatened or imprisoned because they published material which the government considered unflattering and unacceptable. But it was his trade mark inconsistencies that earned Babangida the popular sobriquet - Maradona - because he dribbled the nation and himself so many times that he ended up becoming an object of national ridicule.

For years Babangida announced that his government was committed to a program of political transition that would herald sustainable democracy in Nigeria. He announced dates for his political transition programs and he also changed those dates in an impulsive manner. Babangida also announced and changed dates for the final handover of power to elected politicians. On many occasions, he breached his own political program and promises. His government single-handedly selected two political parties and scribbled the manifesto of each of the two parties. But the joke was in the contents. In design and layout, no one could determine the difference between the political parties, particularly in terms of ideology. The difference in the two manifestoes turned out to be the colours on the covers of the documents. Babangida's government spent money to build local offices for the two political parties. But it was all in vain. With Babangida, what he said or promised was not what he implemented. While he created the impression in public that his government was determined to return the nation to a democratic system of government, evidence revealed that the man was indeed busy planning to transform himself to an emperor.

The sincerity of Babangida's political transition program was finally put to test in the presidential election of June 1993. Babangida failed that acid test because of the arrogant manner with which he terminated the results of the election. It was an election that would have changed the way the world viewed Nigeria and its commitment to democratic principles. As the nation waited for the final results to be announced, Babangida scuttled everyone's efforts and with it the nation's international image plunged. Babangida did not care about the consequences of his decision to cancel the results of the 1993 presidential election which would have seen Moshood Abiola elected as president. Thirteen years after that national disaster, Babangida has not quite been able to explain to the nation the genuine reasons that informed his decision to cancel the election results. Babangida's ill informed decision to terminate the 1993 presidential election results will remain an albatross that will forever haunt and hound him.

It is important to keep in mind Babangida's horrible track record whenever the man starts to talk about his leadership credentials as the basis for his quest to return to Aso Rock. The fact is that Babangida has no fantastic leadership track record to sing about. His volatile political transition programme was a failure, indeed a charade and a front which he used as a plank to launch his quest to remain in office for ever. The performance of the economy during his tenure was below par and indeed uninspiring. Babangida, the military president, abused press freedom and showed disregard for human rights. The best way to summarise Babangida's reign as military president is that it was an unparalleled disaster that the nation would not want to experience again. And this is the same man who wants to return to continue the national disaster where he stopped in 1993. As a military president, Babangida was accountable to no one. His government appointed and sacked magistrates and high court judges. Judicial pronouncements were not respected by Babangida's government. His government preferred to rule through military tribunals and decrees. Babangida as an elected president is a dreadful scenario that would cause many people to wet their pants. Do we want such a man to return to Aso Rock?