23/03/2025
IBB'S MEMOIR, HIS DISCIPLE AND THE REST OF US
By : Abdulrasheed Ibrahim
Since the public presentation of General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB)'s memoir, the former military leader’s book has continued to generate one reaction or the other. I also joined in the reactions with what I called: “IBB: A Critiques of A Journey in Service” expressing disagreement on some of the narratives contained in the memoir. Mr Adam Adedimeji, the incumbent Chairman of the Lawyers in the Media (LIM) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), who happens to be a very good friend of mine thereafter sent me a link to the rebuttal written by Mr Kassim Afegbua titled : “ Babangida, His Memoir, And His Critics” which I read with keen interest . I must confess I admire Mr Afegbua for being a very loyal disciple of IBB and the defence he has put forward on behalf of his boss. Any leader whether in or out of power needs the like of Mr Afegbua. He is not the type that will flee when his boss finds himself in a very difficult situation. His arguments in defence of his boss are very power and revealing. This my rejoinder becomes necessary to ask questions on some of the issues raised by him in defence of IBB. Mr Afegbua said this about IBB which I do not have any issue with:
“Indeed, what is written in his 420-page memoirs are snippets of who IBB truly is , what he actually represents, and the totality of his roles in the leadership of Nigeria, dictated by his career in the military throughout his military presidency of Nigeria for eight years. Babangida is a colossus; an encyclopaedia of idea and knowledge; and he applied these, when he called the shots.”
The brilliance of IBB when in power was not in doubt but the fact still remains that it is one thing to be brilliant and it is another thing to be honest and sincere. IBB was opportune to work with great and wonderful Nigerians who were among the best in their respective professions who offered to serve under IBB as Ministers and advisers without knowing that the transition program piloted by IBB would end up in a mess .When you cast back your mind into history and check IBB’s list of those he assigned responsibilities during his reign, you will not fail to see the likes of Prince Bola Ajibola who was once put in charge of the Ministry of Justice; Dr Olukoye Ramsome Kuti in charge of Health ;Professor Babatunde Fafunwa in charge of Education not even to talk about the likes of Professors Omo Omoruyi and Humphery Nwosu. Let us add Hon. Justice A.N. Aniagolu as Chairman of the Constituent Assembly who later wrote a book titled: “ The Making of the 1989 Constitution of Nigeria” under the prolonged IBB’s transition program. But what did we have at the end of that long eight year? I read somewhere long time ago that the late Professor Fafunwa later expressed regret serving under the IBB.
Mr Afegbua has stated in his defence that he was : “ amused by the claims of one Mr Femi Falana who boasted of seeking legal redress for the noisy recognition ,saying that he remains an actor for the civil society groups. We are still waiting for his litigation”. This is unfortunately the kind of response you get in this part of the world where leaders are not made to be accountable for their misdeeds when in office and this is more the reason why most leaders misbehave when in offices. For those of us that may not be interested in going to the court of law to ventilate our grievances, we will prefer to stay in the court of public opinion to continue expressing our views for the sake of history. Pen, they say is mightier than the gun or sword! One of the blunders of history I discovered in Mr Afegbua’s defence of IBB was where he stated that :
“IBB ran a military government after a successful coup on 27 August 1985. Late Abacha was his accomplice during the operation .Late M.K.O Abiola was one of the sponsors of the coup and was also the one who reportedly told his friend King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia to extend an invitation to General Tunde Idiagbon and his eleven year old son to come for Holy Pilgrimage as his personal guests. That was how they got Idiagbon out of the scene, making it easy to remove General Muhammadu Buhari as Head of State, in a bloodless manner. Earlier, M.K.O. Abiola had gotten involved in the 1983 coup that ousted President Shehu Shagari”
While one may not again doubt the brilliance of IBB in the art of coup planning as depicted in the above conspiracy, one fact that the IBB’s disciple got wrong was that as at the time Idiagbon left the country for Saudi Arabia in 1985, King Fahd was the King of Saudi Arabia and Abdallah did not become King of Saudi Arabia until 2005 and that was about 20 years thereafter. Another irony in the above assertion is that both Abiola and Idiagbon are today dead men that cannot speak to defend themselves from their respective graves. I remember reading it in the Newswatch Magazine during the 20 months detention of Buhari and Idiagbon after the overthrow of their government that Idiagbon then was writing a book (probably his autobiography) which no one now may be able to say anything about what eventually became of the book manuscripts excerpt members of Idiagbon’s his family.
Another critic of IBB’s memoir, Dr. Nelson Ogbemudia, a son of the late Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia, a former military governor of Midwest State, also in his critique expressed disappointment on the IBB’s memoir when he said: “ I have been very curious to see some secret documents coming out to light during the book launch , but I got really disappointed by Gen. IBB. What is IBB afraid of, death or what? You are at the twilight of your days on earth. Nigeria is in a Blackpool, there are international conspiracies that must be shared or revealed to enlighten this generation of future leaders. If not, the need to unearth and put the facts out to the public is sacrosanct. Some secret should not die with these men”. I became baffled when Dr. Ogbemudia went further to say :
“From what I read; Karma caught up with Abiola who facilitated the meeting of Col. S**a Buka Dimka . Who met with the CIA and British Intelligence, in London to mastermind and facilitate the assassination of Murtala Muhammad in 1976, because both nations interest were being undermined and side lined by General Murtala.”
But the question I asked myself when I came across the above assertion was that then: why did Dimka refuse to mention Abiola in his confession where he indicted the likes of Bisalla and General Gowon who was stripped of his rank and all his entitlements because of that indictment?
It was IBB that during his reign that restored General Gowon’s full rank and paid all his entitlements. From the IBB’s story of Dimka coup on the Pages 99- 103 of his memoir , no reference was made to Abiola. The only civilian said indicted and executed for the coup was one Abdulkarim Zakari. Brigadier Samuel Ogbemudia and Moses Gowon who were also tried for the coup were acquitted. Was there any cover up or any attempt to blackmail the dead?
I observed there are different narratives about Abiola including being said to be a serial sponsor of coups with a view to discourage any sympathy for him on the annulment of the June 12 by IBB who once proclaimed during his reign that : “ We don’t know who will succeed us but we know those who will not succeed us ”. If IBB truly knew that Abiola was in the list of those he would not want to succeed him, why did he allow him to take part in the June 12 election in the first place? It is on the record that Abiola contacted IBB earlier to know whether he was committed to the returning the country to the civil rule before he joined the electoral race.IBB during his transition program employed to a great extent his power to ban and unban politicians under the impression that he wanted to allow only newbreed politicians into the political system rather than those they called old breed politicians.
Abacha family was taken to the dry cleaner's laundry by Mr. Afegbua for daring to call IBB a liar and weakling .He assisted the public with enough information about Abacha regime particularly on the atrocities he committed against the Nigerian people and his looting of the country’s treasury. If a spade must be called by its true name, the reality was that Abacha happened to Nigeria for about another five years because IBB refused to do the right thing for the country as he promised for the good eight years because he said he found himself between the devil and the deep blue sea. This was what IBB told the nation on 26th June 1993 :
“It is true that the presidential election was generally seen to be free, fair and peaceful. However , there was in fact a huge array of electoral malpractice virtually in all states of the federation before the actual voting began .About 2.1 billion naira was spent by both presidential candidates. We have authenticated reports of electoral malpractice against party agents, NEC officials and the electorates, who were manipulated through offer and acceptance of money and other forms of inducement…The conduct of the election , the behaviour of the candidates and post- election responses continued to elicit signals which the nation can only ignore at its peril…To proclaim and swear in a president who has encouraged a campaign of divide and rule amongst our various ethnic groups would have been detrimental to the survival of the third republic.”
But ironically about 32 years after we are now being told different things of apology and taking responsibility as if that will remedy the unjust atrocities that had been perpetrated against innocent Nigerians during that dark period of IBB and Abacha regimes .I concur with Dr. Nelson Ogbemudia when he said : “Your Book launch was a camouflage, distortion, half-baked truth ,misleading ,deceptive and unfortunate .We are not idiots”. But Mr Afegbua, wants the world to believe that IBB was the best thing that ever happened to the country. I completely disagree with him. Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar in an interview with the Weekend Concord of 27th April 1996 had this to say:
“The history of this country will be written one day ; it would not be written on the pages of newspapers. Some people will write books in the future and you will get to know who did what. You will even get to know that IBB himself was a victim. But to just annul the election, hand over to a civilian and go back to Minna , there must be something to it .I advised researchers to find out, who took him hostage? Who advised him to annul the election and what was the role of the individual members of the National Defence and Security Council in the annulment?”
I believe IBB by his memoir has answered some of these questions. I do not want to agree that IBB was a victim of someone but rather a victim of his own personal ambition that he would one day become an unelected President of this country as revealed by General Abubakar Abdulsalami during the book launch that a soothsayer once predicted that to them. No wonder that Lasisi Olagunju , a columnist and another critic of IBB’s memoir was trying to spot the difference between Shakespearean Macbeth and the IBB when he said : “Like Macbeth , IBB joined the army and rose to become a General .Again, like Macbeth , the Thane of Cawdor prophecy came true for Babangida and he became Chief of Army Staff .Finally ,like Macbeth, he became king and pronounced himself president and proceeded to do as Macbeth did until he left almost the Macbeth way. If you had been wondering why the amiable General from Minna chose ‘president’ as his official title, now you know it was in fulfilment of a prophecy.”
As a student of history, my findings from the study of IBB was that he had the ambition and would have been more comfortable becoming a life President in power rather than being a mere president. If such experiment was successful in countries like Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea for instance among some other African countries where the dictators have had their ways, then why not in Nigeria? This was probably where friction set in between IBB and his co-travellers particularly Abacha in the ship of purported transition program to civil rule that was not really meant to be. We live in the country where everybody is interested in power to lead the country.
If you disagree with this my thought or theory, please answer these questions: IBB having blamed Gowon for breaking his promise to return the country to the civil rule, why did IBB himself follow the same path? IBB having blamed Obasanjo for organizing a hasty transition to civil rule, why did IBB in eight years not able to organize a successful transition to civil rule? IBB specifically referred to these two incidents in his memoir and said he would try to avoid those mistakes , then why did he fail to do that ? I hope Mr. Kassim Afegbua, the disciple will assist us with convincing and cogent answers!
In all honesty, unlike many Nigerians, there was a great political sage in the country then who had seen it all coming and refused to get excited. In 1986, IBB inaugurated what has come to be known in history as Professor Samuel Cookey Political Bureau to fashion out a new political order for Nigeria. Remember I mentioned Hon. Justice A.N. Aniagolu earlier who later served as Chairman of the Constituent Assembly put together by IBB. In Professor Cookey’s wisdom, he extended an invitation to the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who in his reply stated as follows:
“…I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honor of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is therefore neat and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. FOR SOMETHING WITHIN ME TELLS ME, LOUD AND CLEAR, THAT WE HAVE EMBARKED ON A FRUITLESS SEARCH.AT THE END OF THE DAY, WHEN IMAGINE THAT THE NEW ORDER IS HERE, WE WOULD BE TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTED. In other words , at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that , as long as Nigerians remains what they are, nothing clean , principles , ethical , and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are , unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and sectors of our political , business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised and indeed they will be firmly entrenched ,unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce ,make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society , to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is of course , an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. In the premises, I beg to decline your invitation”.
Who says Awo who died the following year, 1987 was not great? In 1986, he talked about “for something within me tells me ,loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day ,when imagine that the new order is here ,we would be TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTED”. About 7 years later, IBB came to the air to prove the late Sage right when he said to the Nigerians :
“I address you today with deep sense of world history and particularly of the history of our great country. In the aftermath of the recently annulled President election, I feel, as I believe you yourself feel , a profound sense of DISAPPOINTMENT at the outcome of our efforts at laying the foundation of a viable democratic system of government in Nigeria. I therefore wish, on behalf of myself and members of the National Defence and Security Council and indeed of my entire administration, to feel with my fellow countrymen and women for the cancellation of the election. It was a rather DISAPPOINTING EXPERIENCE in the course of carrying through the last election of the transition to the civil rule programme.”
The IBB’s memoir is not without great lesson in leadership. The actions of leaders will surely be judged by their intentions. In Leadership, there must be sincerity of purpose which must not be about oneself but about what is good for the entire nation. There may not be anything bad in aspiring for leadership but such must be guided with true spirit of service to the people rather than desperation to be selfish. It is not the number of years spent in power that matters but the positive and enduring legacies that leaders are able to leave behind with which they will continue to live positively in the hearts of the people even when the leaders are no longer alive. In leadership , brilliance is one thing ,honesty and sincerity is another. Leaders in whatever position must be ready to learn from history as those who refuse to learn from history will surely become victims of history. God bless Nigeria!
NOTE: Anyone is at liberty to disagree with my above submissions as I will surely appreciate a balanced, fair and objective rebuttal.
08055476823, 0816468375
[email protected]
23rd March 2025
