Given the way he almost ran the country aground and his demystification in 2007 when he wanted to run for the highest office but failed, not a few people were shocked or felt insulted that one-time Nigerian leader, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB and Maradona for style, signified his intention to become president again in 2011. To be accepted by the people, IBB has been weaving a tapestry of lies, all of which cannot stand the test of logic. Of course, critics have been intercepting such falsehoods mid-air, smashing them into smithereens.
That, as Dare argued, is vintage IBB because only the man could annul an election and then celebrate it as the freest and fairest. And to prove that Nigerians are not suffering from collective amnesia, the academic repeated the reason IBB gave on 26 July 1993 for canceling that election.
IBB told Nigerians: “There were proofs as well as documented evidence of widespread use of money during the primaries as well as the presidential election… Evidence available to government put the total amount of money spent by the candidates at over N2.1 billion. There were cases of documented or confirmed conflict of interest between the government and both presidential aspirants which would compromise their positions and responsibilities were they to become president…”
The former leader further charged that there was a huge array of electoral malpractices virtually in all the states of the federation before actual voting began. IBB added that there were authenticated reports of electoral malpractices against party agents, officials of the National Electoral Commission and some electorate. “There were proofs of manipulation through offer and acceptance of money and other kinds of inducements against officials of the National Electoral Commission and members of the electorate…” he maintained. Apart from alleging evidence of conflict in the process of authentication and clearance of the credentials of the candidates, he said that the behaviour of the candidates and post-election responses continued to elicit signals “which the nation can only ignore at its peril”.
IBB has also been lying to certain political figures that he would make them his Vice-President if they support him. They are: Governors Adams Oshiomhole, Rotimi Amaechi, Gbenga Daniel of Edo, Rivers and Ogun states respectively. Others are former governors Peter Odili of Rivers, Orji Kalu of Abia and one-time Senate president, Ken Nnamani.
However, TheNEWS gathered that a few of these politicians and those close to them believed that IBB was trying to deceive them. And to other Nigerians, this promise has elicited a feeling of déjà vu.
In 1992, Babangida lured Adamu Ciroma, the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and Olu Falae, to contest for the presidency. TheNEWS gathered that IBB took Jakande on a tour of Aso Rock, telling him he would make him its next occupant. Then on 17 November 1992, IBB banned Ciroma who had won the National Republican Convention, NRC, presidential primaries and Yar’Adua, his peer in the Social Democratic Party, SDP. The former maximum ruler banned 21 other presidential aspirants, including Chief Arthur Nzeribe, Falae, Jakande and Umaru Shinkafi.
According to Naiwu Osahon, author, philosopher of science and social critic, “The trick was that Babangida was gradually narrowing the field of potential presidential materials to himself.” He added that IBB had promised Yar’Adua the presidency when he (Yar’Adua) helped to actualise the 1985 coup that brought Babangida to power. The ban, as Osahon argued, “did not go down well with the political elite in general and in particular with Yar’Adua who had assumed he would take over leadership from Babangida”.
As part of his lies, IBB turned the transition or his hand-over date to a yoyo. From October 1992, he shifted it to 5 December of that year. And after the presidential primaries, IBB fixed the date again to 3 January 1993 and later 27 August 1993 after he dissolved the executives of PDP and NRC. In the end, IBB annulled the 12 June 1993 election, won by Abiola, whom he had drawn out to contest the election upon promising that he would make him president.
Another lie IBB released to the public was that during his time, the economy was buoyant because, as he put it, the value of the nation’s currency was N22 to the dollar while fuel (petrol) was 10 kobo per litre. He added: “Today, we are talking of exactly 24 years, but SAP has not changed, they keep modifying it… if the economy was ruined, by now, we would have been history. The Nigerian economy was not ruined.”
But critics have proved Babangida wrong on that score. As an Action Congress, AC, top notcher, Olorunfunmi Bashorun, argued, during IBB’s eight-year reign, the economy of Nigeria went down. “His advisers in 1986 advised him not to devalue the naira. He went ahead…We are paying for it till today,” Bashorun explained. Osahon also argued: “Babangida (sapped) or totally wiped the middle class out of existence with the destruction of the naira, which he did by fiat in 1985, when he downgraded the naira exchange rate from about N2 to N18 to the dollar. By the time he was forced out of office in 1993, the naira was exchanging at N60 to the dollar. Society was now reduced to two classes of either the very poor or the rich rogues.”
Professor Biodun Jeyifo, an academic, also narrated how Babangida made Nigerians to debate whether or not the government should obtain an International Monetary Fund, IMF, loan. Nigerians rejected it. However, as Jeyifo put it, “Babangida formally and ceremoniously accepted the verdict, but not long after this, he went into business with the IMF and instituted the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP, that destroyed the economy, devastated millions of lives and massively corrupted politicians and public office holders.”
Moreover, IBB claimed that the allegation of corruption against him were lies, especially on the N12 billion Gulf War oil windfall.
But Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, asked him to tell that to the marines. Falana argued that there are unambiguous conclusions of the Okigbo report, which indicted the retired general. “First, the report said the approved budget for the federation did not reflect the receipts into the dedicated and other special accounts, that the balances kept in these accounts were not included in the federal account, a practice which violated the fundamental precepts of the federal fiscal relations in Nigeria, and that in a number of cases, there were significant variations between amounts approved for payment and the actual disbursements made, without further explanation from the documents supplied,” Falana argued.
He added that, in a large number of cases, “there were no indications in the letters written to the head of state seeking approval to make payments or seeking express approval as to which dedicated account was to be charged, either dedicated, sales or mining rights, signature bonus or stabilisation accounts. In such cases, it will be impossible on the basis of information available [to determine] whether or not the approvals were in respect of any of these special accounts.”
The report has it further: “The Central Bank of Nigeria was not able to establish that payments on behalf of the Ministry of Defence and the National Intelligence Agency were based on genuine and well established contracts or transactions.” It continues: “The operation of the accounts was not subject to the normal budgetary processes and therefore lacked transparency,” adding that there were many large “projects of doubtful viability and many more of clearly misplaced priority”.
The report showed expenses which could not be described as priority, such as $2.92 million to make a documentary film on Nigeria, $18.30 million to purchase TV/Video for the presidency, $23.98 million for staff welfare in the presidency, $99 million for travels of the first lady abroad, and $59.72 million for security. In the opinion of Falana, “no indictment can be greater than these conclusions from the Okigbo Report.”
Still on corruption, Jeffrey Robinson, an American writer, proves in his book, The Sink, that IBB is dirty. As Robinson writes: “Of the $120 billion siphoned out of Nigeria into offshore accounts by dishonest politicians, $20 billion is allegedly traceable to IBB directly as president from 1985 to 1993.”
As a bloody liar, IBB also reneged on his promise when he took over in 1985 that he would not lead a country “where individuals are under the fear of expressing themselves”. But Dr. Dare argued that IBB “spent his entire period in office, repudiating those vows…” Although the former head of state repealed Decree 4, he replaced it with Decree 2, leading to how, as Dare put it, politicians were banned, “only to be un-banned, re-banned and un-banned all over again”. Worse still, he banned many political associations and even the media.
IBB told the electorate that he wanted to be President because the younger generation is “not capable of leading the country”. But Nigerians believe that IBB was standing logic on its head.
Mobolaji Sanusi, a writer, in a piece, “IBB’s Affront On My Generation”, waved the retired general off as a clown whose generation enjoyed scholarships, employment and –– for soldiers among them –– free military education. Sanusi therefore asked: “Why are such privileges so rare these days? Why are the companies that offered older generation exciting career opportunities in the 1950s/60s/70s/ vanishing from the country’s landscape? The answer is simple. It is because of the very corrupt and inept leadership that rulers like IBB inflicted on the nation.”
It is for these and more reasons that Nigerians are kicking against the former military president.
