The Ogun State Murderers' Conference

It is perhaps no surprise after all that the immensely brutal former military dictator, General Ibrahim Banbangida, would try to start the rehabilitation of his political career in Ogun State. The state has since the governorship of Mr. Gbenga Daniel become the most frightful state for politicians in the country.

The evil genius, whose last attempt at returning to the Aso Rock presidential residence failed, had announced he was politically dead because of his old age. He succumbed to the grinding political opposition from former president, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who the dictator had sponsored to power. Babangida tried to save his face from the humiliation of an impending loss of his seriously craved PDP ticket by declaring that President Umaru Yar'Adua, who was his opponent, was a brother he could not contest against.

While IBB has not made any public statement about the ailment of President Yar'Adua, he is now one of those trying to capitalize on the physical predicament of the President by quickly spreading his financially-induced tentacles across the political landscape to launch a presidential bid as soon as possible.

Babangida was the chairman of the public lecture marking the 54th birthday of the Ogun State Governor. Respected politicians, even unrespected ones, had shunned Daniel's birthday lecture, which became Babangida's first political pulpit.

Obviously, IBB is one of the few politicians who admire Daniel. Speaking during the lecture, Babangida said, “people have not stopped asking me the motive behind my close relationship with Daniel.”

He said the reasons were no more that the unique attributes Daniel possesses, among which were his visionary leadership, his dominating presence, his rare capacity to choose the best people to work with, his ability to easily carry people along and his leading role among the younger generation.

He stated: “When I got back to Minna after visiting Daniel at his country home, in Sagamu, sometime ago, I got a lot of calls from people asking me for what was coming up. They said it seemed there was an established romance between me and Daniel. They said I couldn’t have left Minna to visit him in Sagamu for nothing.

“Daniel sees far beyond the present. Daniel’s tomorrow is not April 2, it is not even 2011, but 20111. I see in him a man who has a vision. He also has a dominating presence and easily dominates his environment. Also, he has a rare capacity to choose the people with whom he will work with and this reflects across every level of appointments, from commissioners to advisers and others. And I like that because I will go down in history as the man who put together the best cabinet in this country.

“He has a way of carrying people along in whatever he wants to do and I also see in him the hope of the younger generation. We are proud of leaving people like you (Daniel) behind. We are confident we are leaving Nigeria in good hands.”

Oh yeah - Daniel carries people along. He probably carries them along quicker to the grave. Oh yeah - Daniel has vision. He has the vision of an owl, which is why Ogun State has not achieved anything special since his seven years of rule.

Babangida should be reminded that not only has Daniel publicly watched his political thugs attack his opponents at the state television station without flinching, he has supervised large-scale theft of treasury and was, in fact, being probed by the EFCC for corruption.

Daniel is neither a visionary governor nor a figure that Nigerians admire. The fact that Babangida would pick this kind of man to associate with, praise and lift up shows what kind of leadership Nigerians should expect, should IBB's presidential ambition mature.