Daniel Kanu
Last Sunday, online reports surfaced with the rumour that former military President; General Ibrahim Babangida had passed on.
Even though there was no substantive proof to the claims the news was so strong that former Senate President, David Mark and Tunde Ogbeha, die-hard IBB-loyalists, had to personally visit Babangida at his Hill Top residence in Minna, Niger State for an on the spot verification.
It was not until IBB’s Spokesman, Kassim Afegbua refuted the rumour of his principal’s death through a statement that many believed the rumour was fake news.
This was not the first time that rumours about the former military Head of State would be trending.
Afegbua said that the recent death rumour of Babangida was about the third for the year 2019.
“It has become consistent fake news for quite some time now wishing our own IBB, the one we easily refer to as “the last don” of Nigerian politics, dead. IBB is very much alive and bubbling. The fake news bill would be a suitable response to this category of fake news carrier,” Afegbua said in the statement.
Afegbua said that the rumours lacked any element of truth as Babangida received some friends and associates who visited him at his Minna Hilltop mansion, the day the rumour was trending in the social media.
According to Afegbua, “death, as the irrevocable end of all creation, will surely come to everyone someday” while urging the sponsors of the rumours not to take humanity to a ‘bizzare level’ by wishing Babangida death.
Brady Chijioke Nwosu, an avowed IBB-mania and committed backer of the man who once described himself as “the evil genius” told Sunday Sun that it was sad that some people would want to get out false news on the death of another individual just to attract “traffic” on their website.
He told the rumour-mongers to look for another personality as IBB remains a special creation that God created for a purpose, stressing that he is yet to fulfill his assignment before he will be flying to the great world beyond.
“They should better put their searchlight on another personality because IBB is a special creation and God has not finished with the assignment He wants him to do. The likes of IBB are deities, principalities, and avatars and they can’t and don’t die anyhow.
“It’s only God that takes them and that’s when the creator wants them to transit, most times, at the end of their missions on Earth,” Nwosu counseled.
Babangida has not been known from his medical records to suffer any serious ailment that is a terminal one.
It was in 2009 that it was reported that he “sneaked” out of the country to a hospital in Paris where he underwent surgery to remove a tumor from one of his hands.
At 78, it is not unusual for one to sometimes be down with age-related health case and that is, what perhaps, maybe the fate of IBB, but because he is a newsmaker, he’s most times overstretched for news value.
It is said that his charisma can make his gun-totting adversary drift or do a U-turn.
All through the years IBB was president, the cost of oil never went beyond $50 per barrel per month on the average.
It was Babangida who moved the seat of government from Lagos to Abuja in 1991.
In Lagos IBB left a legacy of infrastructure, the most spectacular of which remains the Third Mainland Bridge, and carried out a comprehensive rehabilitation of the Eko Bridge.
The Supreme Court Complex; the Federal Secretariat; Apo Legislators Quarters; ECOWAS Secretariat Headquarters Abuja; the International Conference Centre, Abuja; Abuja International Airport Phases 1 and 11, Central Bank and the NNPC Headquarters Abuja; Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Company (The Mint) complex Abuja were all built in the IBB years.
Although IBB left some good infrastructural legacies, his critics say he ran a kleptocracy that saw Nigeria lost $12 billion in Gulf war oil windfall in 1991 alone.
Most Nigerians believe that his greatest sin was his cancelation of the June 12 election of 1993.
The annulment of that election was the reason he was forced out of power in 1993, as the election was perceived as the freest and fairest election, which was won by the late businessman, Moshood Abiola.
During the eight years he served as Nigeria’s military president, it is believed that his government did much in the nation’s march toward democratization as he nearly succeeded in entrenching democracy in the nation’s polity, but for the hiccup caused by the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election.
General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd) GCFR was born on August 17, 1941.
From 1950 to 1956, Babangida attended primary school. From 1957 to 1962 he was educated at the Government College Bida, Niger State.
He joined the Nigerian Army on December 10, 1962 for his military career, when he attended the Nigerian Military Training College (NMTC) in Kaduna. Babangida received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant as a regular combatant officer in the Royal Nigerian Army (a month before it became the Nigerian Army) with the personal army number N/438 from the Indian Military Academy on September 26, 1963.
He is a retired Nigerian Army General who was President of Nigeria from August 27, 1985 to August 26, 1993. He previously served as the Chief of Army Staff from January 1984 to August 1985. Babangida was a key player in most of the military coups in Nigeria (July 1966, February 1976, December 1983, August 1985, December 1985 and April 1990).
It is to his credit that 11 states were created during his regime.
On September 23, 1987, Babangida created two states: Akwa Ibom and Katsina, while on August 27, 1991, he created nine more states: Abia, Enugu, Delta, Jigawa, Kebbi, Osun, Kogi, Taraba, and Yobe.