I had wanted to return with, the IBB book launch, from my long hiatus from this space, on account of a killing schedule that has denied me time to partake in social commentary, but the same schedule bestrode my space like a colossus. The book launch was being consigned to staleness with the rapidity of events in the nation topped by the sexual harassment saga at the Senate but the Abacha family resuscitated the IBB book launch with its official rebuttal of a comment by IBB at his book launch at Abuja recently. The family said former military head of State, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida was being economical with the truth when he said the annulment of the 1993 election should be blamed on their patriarch, late General Sani Abacha .
I seem to have jumped the gun. Let me put the foreging in a fair historical context. General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, was military head of state from 1985 to 1993 after a resemblance of a palace coup which saw the exit of General Muhammadu Buhari in 1985. Babangida issued a press statement where he said the people should refer to him as President. In the presentation of his book, in which he largely chronicled his activities in power and his own side of the story, IBB showed that he still has a following 32 years after he stepped aside from the column of power.
But for the Nigerian civil war, 1993, for me, was the most turbulent year in Nigeria’s political life. After a long struggle to get the military to relinquish power, and pressure from the international community, which IBB once described as the policemen for democracy, he agreed to cede power to civilians. After several postponements, he finally hired late Humprey Nwosu, a professor of Political Science from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, to head the National Electoral Commission (NEC), as it was then known to conduct an election where a president would be elected to take charge of the country. What he probably did not know was that his colleagues in Khaki were not tired of being in power.
While on the beat, power-hungry colleagues wanted to oust him. The first was his best friend who was soldier and poet, Mamman Vasta, who was in Babangida’s cabinet wanted to unseat him. They were close friends but the soldier-poet wanted power. General Babangida and his ruling council executed Mamman Vasta and his cohorts a day after Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and J.P Clarke, Vasta’s fellow wordsmiths visited IBB in Dodan Barracks to plead for their colleague’s life. IBB said his hands were tied on the matter. He had no choice than to execute the soldier-poet because that’s the penalty for planning to topple a government. The Vatsa coup in 1986 was not the only attempt to shoot Babangida out of power. In the book, A journey in Service-An autobiography, he is said to have noted that Gideon Okar, also wanted to shoot him out of power. He survived out those attempts to oust him from power.
He owed the nation and posterity to record his own side of the story. I have not read the book, which is why my commentary would be based on what I have heard or read from those who have had the privilege of reading the biography. Two things stand out for me in what has been revealed in the book. But those revelations are not strange. Those are things the people already know and he only confirmed same. First is that Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola won the 1993 presidential elections. Some of us may not have known that he scored over eight million votes against Bashir Tofa’s five million votes. That election has remained the freest and fairest elections in Nigeria. The irony is that technology has not improved elections in our land. Expectations would have been that things would get better with time but not in the country’s electoral system. Elections have rather increasingly become a charade such that voters have continued to lose confidence in the system. I can bet that voter apathy in the next elections would be glaring because the system has consistently turned their joy into ashes in the mouth. We know that Abiola won the elections and former President Muhammadu Buhari had recognized him as such. What we did not know was that General Babangida did not annul the election. It was his Chief of Army Staff, General Sani Abacha who did. In fact, Babangida regrets that the election was annulled.
It was at this point that the former head of state lost me. The pill is rather hard to swallow. The uneasy head that wears the crown is that of a leader who is man enough to take responsibility. Undoubtedly that annulment is probably the greatest error of his career and to seek to pass that buck to a subordinate is rather cowardly. I do not see IBB as a fledgling and groveling coward who would not stand up to his responsibility as the leader. The buck stops at the President’s table. it can go nowhere else. He had the courage to order the execution of his close friend in implementation of the decision of the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFCR) as the body was then known but would pass the buck of election cancellation to a subordinate who has passed away is rather unkind.
Sani Abacha’s family has debunked IBB’s unkind cut on a dead man. I also find it strange that David Mark, whose name has consistently been a recurring decimal in the June 12 saga has rather maintained an undignified silence on this matter. IBB probably intended to use a dead man to shield bullets that have continued to aim at him on the matter. It was enough that he regretted to incident which is an admission of error but to pass the buck on that matter is an anticlimax for a man whose regime recorded many firsts. That nearly 20 billion naira was raised at the book launch in support of a presidential library is a testament that the business men and politicians who benefitted from his famed benevolence still hold him in high esteem. There was absolutely no reason to shirk on the responsibility of that annulment. It has remained the biggest blemish on the enigma called IBB. He should have the courage to live with it. No human being is infallible. But he remains one of the greatest leaders to come out of Nigeria’s shores.
Another glaring truth which IBB reiterated was that the 1966 coup was not an Igbo coup. That coup changed the political trajectory of Nigeria. It was good he put it in black and white. He would not be that first to say so but the weight behind his confirmation is that he is a witness to history. Such records are for posterity.