I admire Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, IBB, the gap-toothed General from Niger State. He is affable, disarming, and bold. Who else could have dared to shove aside the other gap-toothed General from Daura. IBB’s dangerous charm did that effortlessly. Before the steel General knew it, he was already back home with his 20 cows.
Good for him; unlike IBB, few Nigerians were aware of his gap tooth. He believed that a severe appearance defined manhood and deemed it machine not to showcase his lovely dentures, as if gworo had caused them some harm.
But not IBB. The self-confessed evil genius could charm anyone and anything. He even won to his bed the most delectable ebony-skinned woman to come out of Nigeria, our own dear Maryam. No First Lady has been like her and I’m still very angry with death for plucking her so untimely when IBB and all of us lovers of good things needed her most. Any day I see death, I intend to settle scores with him for that daredevilry robbery.
Another reason IBB is my man is that, despite the hopes and efforts of some desperate Awilo girls, he declined to replace Maryam’s memory. No woman can compare to or fill that void.
I admire IBB and if you have issues with that, that is your cup of tea; drink it. I also admire the tenacity of the devil. Really? Yes; if we are all as determined as the devil in doing good, not easily letting down our guards, and taking our sticky fingers away from the national till, Nigeria would be a better place today. If men (in power) were as disciplined to zip up, they would never dare to aim their noxious guns at another man’s tank, and dragging their hapless wives into already lost battles. The current scandal must take some heads down; you watch.
Back to IBB. This was a despot, who was very much at home with bloody civilians. His evil ingenuity trapped even the most unlikely Nigerian except the evergreen luminary, Gani Fawehinmi. IBB ‘Maradonaed’ every other critic to his side; they know themselves. The one that got me the most was when IBB stripped avant-garde Tai Solarin of his traditional comrade khaki shorts and top, and adorned him in ankara. Wow! Solarin began dancing around town, singing a people’s bank that came with many ripples. The rest is history.
Now, IBB has done it again o!
Though after all these years out of power, he still manages to play court to many at his famous Hilltop Mansion in Minna, this time he did it with a bang and calmly plucked a whopping N17 billion into his still bludgeoning coffers ostensibly for a library project when everyone knows that books are now more digitalised and have little or no need of a gigantic structure worth that amount. I smell a rat.
Anyway, this piece is not about the launch of his book, ‘A Journey in Service’; but the shameless journey in disservice contained therein.
Babangida’s book attempts to portray his years in power as a selfless mission to advance Nigeria. However, it falls short of addressing historical grievances, policy failures, and the deep scars left by his administration. While Babangida presents himself as a pragmatic leader who balances national interests, his legacy tells a different story.
One of the most glaring omissions in Babangida’s memoir is a nuanced sidestepping of the fact that the Igbo, decades after the Nigerian civil war, remained economically and politically marginalised under his leadership despite now pretentiously defending the Igbo in the coup saga that triggered the pogrom.
Babangida’s book positions him as a leader who sought national unity, but his actions speak otherwise. His annulment of the June 12, 1993, election, which would have redirected Nigeria’s trajectory for the better, undermined faith in the democratic process and reinforced the perception that the military elite had little regard for the political aspirations of non-Northern groups. By failing to ensure a transparent transition to democracy, Babangida effectively prolonged the emergence of a new Nigeria, and also further deepened the political alienation they had suffered since the war.
Moreover, his book glosses over his role in reinforcing Northern hegemony in governance. While he acknowledged power struggles within the military, he did not critically reflect on how his policies sustained an imbalance that left the Igbo politically stranded. His attempts to defend his administration’s appointments as merit-based fail to account for the glaring underrepresentation of Southeastern voices in key positions is laughable.
Ultimately, A Journey in Service reads as an exercise in self-preservation rather than a genuine reflection on leadership. Babangida has attempted to paint himself as a leader who acted in Nigeria’s best interest, but for many Nigerians, his tenure represents another chapter in a long history of marginalisation. His economic policies widened disparities, his political maneuvers alienated potential allies, and his unwillingness to confront the deeper injustices of his era leaves his book feeling more like a justification than a reckoning.
For a leader who once held the most powerful position in Nigeria, Babangida had an opportunity to offer an honest appraisal of his legacy. Instead, his book evades the most pressing questions about his role in perpetuating systemic inequalities, leaving the Igbo, and many other Nigerians, without their deserved dues.
The Igbo are a confirmed marked species of other Nigerians meant for extermination or decimation. No wonder a predominantly Yoruba-dominated coup of 1966 was wickedly dubbed an Igbo coup and used as an excuse to kill over three million Igbo. That IBB admitted that the coup, long used to justify the killings and subsequent marginalisation, but still continued the scorching exclusion of the Igbo is abhorrent.
Now that the truth is out, the pressing question is: What next for the Igbo and Nigeria?
The pedestrian demand of a miserly N10 trillion compensation, which I hope is merely symbolic, by the apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, having endured genocide, economic devastation, political exclusion, undeserved injustice, and survived, the Igbo, should let Nigeria go to hell and move on with their lives.
That seems to be what Obi Nwakanma seemed to be telling Ndigbo in a lifesaving article I stumbled onto recently. It was a message so poignant and contemporaneous, and an ennobling quest for Aku ruo ulo.
Nwakanma (God bless him) wrote: “From 1970- 1979, the generation of the Igbo who had fought and funded the war, were not talking of marginalization. They took on the task of restoration. I remember the story the late Mbazulike Amaechi told me when I once visited him in Ukpor. At the end of the war, the Igbo business elite who had been in PH, and whose property had been forcibly acquired by the new government in Rivers state went to Asika to intervene. Asika sat with them and urged them to seek the intervention of the courts and make this a seminal case on the defense of Igbo property rights in Nigeria. He did not want to seem to put undue pressure in a very sensitive time on the government of Rivers State.
“The Igbo were being harassed and stopped from work and resuming their life in Port Harcourt. Asika encouraged them to seek the legal benefits of Awolowo who was the most powerful politician in government at the time. These Igbo businessmen met Awo, in Lagos, and after he heard them, Awo demanded that they go and pay one million pounds into his Chamber’s account before he would could take on their plea. The Igbo businessmen asked Awo where he thought they could get one million pounds, having just come out of a devastating war. He said it was their business and dismissed them.
“The men later met in ZC Obi’s home, and after rounds and rounds of discussions, they agreed at ZC Obi’s urging, that they would no longer pursue the matter. ZC Obi said, “Let us go back to work. Let us send our young men back to work. We shall build Aba until it gets into Port Harcourt, and no one will know the difference.” To be continued.