Who wants IBB dead?

WITH a combination of philosophy and religion, former military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, better known as IBB, flattened the rumour mill. Reacting to yet another report of his ‘death’ last weekend, the 74-year-old retired Army General approached the subject of his mortality with customary bravado.

To newsmen at his Hilltop Mansion in Minna, the Niger State capital, IBB said: “The rumour does not shock me, neither does it bother me because I know I must go and meet God, my Creator. There is nothing really to worry about, my religion has told me. As a Muslim, I strongly believe everybody will die, everybody will die and everybody has to die. It could be now or in a hundred years’ time or two days to come but it doesn’t matter. Everybody must die.”

He might as well be the cat with nine lives. Reminiscent of frequent reports of medical trips to France in and immediately out of power, the two months he spent receiving treatment in Germany in 2014 also stirred vicious rumour. The ex-president’s condition went viral when he attended the valedictory dinner for Justice Fati Lami Abubakar, the former Niger State chief judge, and was helped out of the event before the end.

He often suffered a relapse of pain from injury received in his right leg as a result of piercing by a bullet during the Civil War, he explained afterwards. “When I was the president of the country, I had to travel to Germany where the sickness was diagnosed as Radiculopathy, which has troubled me since and, as such, relapses.”

Whether, by the latest episode, the gap-toothed ruler of legendary evasiveness (hence the moniker, ‘Maradona’) once more evaded his markers is hard to tell. It matters, though, that he promoted the fickleness of life as opposed to the insinuation that he might trouble cynics forever, for none has yet outmanoeuvred fate.

 

 

Born in 1941 in Minna, Niger State, Babangida joined the Nigerian Army on December 10, 1962, when he attended the Nigerian Military Training College (NMTC) in Kaduna. Officers’ courses at home and abroad subsequently shaped his path to the top.

He married Maryam (née King) Babangida, with whom he had four children, in 1969. Although she died from complications of ovarian cancer on December 27, 2009, her tenure as First Lady from 1985 to 1993 set exaggerated standards copied by successors since.

While Babangida participated in most of the military coups recorded in the country, he also survived various attempts to unseat him by coup d’état and was almost toppled by Major Gideon Orkar in the ill-fated coup of April 22, 1990. He promised at the August 27, 1985 inception of his administration to end human rights abuses by the previous government and hand over power to a civilian government by 1990, but allegedly committed the same infraction.

His famed manipulative streak was sharpened by a proclivity to open public debates on future policies only to launch programmes without recourse to popular opinion. Thus were suggestions by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank captured as the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in 1986.

Besides a long-running battle with the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU), Babangida courted controversy when he upgraded Nigeria’s role in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC, now the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation), from observer status to full-fledged membership. In 1989, he legalised the formation of political parties, and following the November 1991 census, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced on January 24, 1992 that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later in the year.

A process of voting adopted and referred to as Option A4 stipulated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption from the local level to any height of governance. Babangida banned all political parties and unilaterally formed two political parties, the SDP (Social Democratic Party) and NRC (National Republican Convention) and urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties.

Critics, however, labelled the two-party contraption as self-serving. The late Chief Gani Fawehinmi branded the parties “The Babangida Babes,” while the late Chief Bola Ige remarked that “You do not plant peanuts and reap coconut. Never”, which was why he decided to “Siddon look” and have nothing to do with the transition programme. Nobel Literature Laureate, Wole Soyinka, in an interview, described the program as “voodoo politics”.

On June 12, 1993, the presidential election held successfully, by most accounts. Instead of the announcement of results, however, Babangida annulled the elections. Amidst a fresh round of strikes and protests that grounded economic activities, Babangida on August 26 declared that he was ‘stepping aside’ as head of the military regime, and handing over the reins of government to Ernest Shonekan under an interim administration.

Within three months of the handover, the late General Sani Abacha seized power.

Considering the circumstances around his 1993 exit from power, few were surprised when Babangida announced that he would run for president in the 2007 national elections. He was doing so “under the banner of the Nigerian people”, he said, after accusing the country’s political elite of stoking ethnic and religious violence.

Extreme reactions of support or opposition from the Southwest ensued after he picked up a nomination form from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Headquarters in Abuja. He withdrew from the race, citing the ‘moral dilemma’ of running against Umaru Yar’Adua, the younger brother of the late Shehu Yar’Adua, as well as against Major-General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, on account of his close relationship with the latter two.

But dreams die hard. Babangida’s spokesman announced on April 12, 2010 that his principal would seek the nomination of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the presidency in the elections scheduled for 2011 but fate again seemed to have played a fast one on him. He lost out to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in a consensus arrangement put together by northern leaders.

A committee headed by Mallam Adamu Ciroma eventually picked Abubakar out of four aspirants – Babangida, Major-General Gusau, Dr. Bukola Saraki and Abubakar – who indicated interest to represent the North. Abubakar himself contested the PDP ticket in 2011 with and lost to former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Without some form of legal closure, the $12 billion Gulf War oil windfall of 1991 probably rocked his chances of staging a return to Aso Villa the most. As the death rumour peddlers have shown with worrying consistency, shaking off controversy may be a dribble too much, even for a quick General.