Thirty-two years after leaving power, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida has assumed full responsibility for what happened on the June 12th 1993 annulment of Chief MKO Abiola’s presidential election and its attendant consequences.

He has explained the circumstances under which it happened and has not only acknowledged that Abiola actually won the election but that he was also unfairly robbed of his mandate when he and his military regime annulled it.

What he didn’t say was that if he had not annulled the election, those who wanted it aborted would have killed him, key members of his government, MKO Abiola, MKO’s family and everyone else who opposed them and his government would have been toppled in a very violent and bloody coup which would have definitely led to a long, brutal and protracted civil war.

IBB has told his side of the story and explained to us what actually transpired. He refused to remain silent, he did not shy away from speaking the truth or refuse to accept responsibility and he did not pass the buck. Instead, he came clean, displayed immense courage and did the proper thing.

That is what leaders are meant to do and he did it without fear or favour regardless of whose ox was gored. Kudos to him. We need to appreciate this gesture, eschew all bitterness, let go of all our pent-up anger, forgive him for what many perceive to be his sins and move on. Equally, we need to accord him his rightful place in history as one the the greats despite his fallibility. He is after all a mere man, albeit a great one, and not God.

Only God is free of fault and is infallible and there is not one man that has ever lived, led or ruled that is infallible. All those insulting and abusing him today for putting the facts and his experiences on record in his book are malevolent, bitter, twisted souls & unenlightened, ignorant, cowards who have no appreciation of history or what this man actually achieved in his eight years in office or the events that led up to June 12.

They only see things in part and are allowing their emotions rather than their heads to rule them. I was in the NADECO trenches during that difficult time and like many others paid my dues too but I can say that outside of the June 12 matter, IBB did more for Nigeria than virtually any other president or head of state.

He left power 32 years ago and yet every single living former Nigerian president and head of state, bar President Muhammadu Buhari who he had removed from power in a coup in 1985, attended his book launching in person and despite all, Buhari actually sent a representative.

It was an extraordinary event and I witnessed it with my own eyes because I had the privilege of being invited.

If the number of leaders that attended — which included President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Head of State General Yakubu Gowon, former Head of State General Abdulsalami Abubakar, former President and former Head of State President Olusegun Obasanjo, former President Goodluck Jonathan, former President of Ghana Nana Akufo Addo, former President of Sierra Leone President Koroma, former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Vice President Sambo and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar — did not tell Nigerians the high esteem that the ruling elites have for him, then nothing will.

May God continue to be with this great and inspiring man who has displayed immense discipline, resilience, dignity, self-respect, courage and humility throughout his distinguished life. I pray he continues to share his vast reserves of knowledge & wisdom & make his contributions to national development for many years to come.

Whether his numerous detractors like it or not IBB remains an enigma, an institution and the most consequential head of state and president in our history. No one can take that from him and we are very proud of him. I wish both him and his family well.

Since Thursday when his autobiography, A Journey In Service, was launched, former military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, has taken centre stage of national attention. The autobiography reminds me of James Hadley Chase’s Make the Corpse Walk. It is the story of eccentric millionaire, Kester Weidmann, who in his weirdest best, believed money could buy everything, life and death inclusive. So, one day, Weidmann woke up with the crazy idea that his dead brother could be brought back to life. He then enlisted the services of a voodoo specialist to perform this crazed task. Rollo, crooked nightclub, owner was his perfect find to act out this massive con artistry of a lifetime. Things however went awry with the cast of this weird task who soon told themselves that Weidmann’s wealth was more attractive a pie than his absurd voodoo fabrication.

A couple of weeks ago, I recall citing Dr. Nina Mba’s description of biographers as “People who knead people.” It was in the process of taking a bird’s-eye view of Chief Bisi Akande’s autobiography, My Participations. My interpretation of Mba’s phrasal coinage was that biographers knead their subjects like bakers make raw flour into edible pancake, doughnut or bread. I also found my own label for autobiographers. Many a time, I submitted, they are self-conjurers. A Journey In Service didn’t just attempt to knead an edible dough out of an IBB Nigerians would love to hate, it is a re-conjuration, a Nigerian Kester Weidmann ex-head of state’s attempt to knead a compelling dough from his raw self perception in the estimation of history.

Make no mistake about it, very few, if there are any, Nigerian rulers possessed General Babangida’s intelligence, brilliance and savvy. It is why I easily agree with Gen Yakubu Gowon, in his foreword to the autobiography, who says “General Babangida was arguably one of the most remarkable military officers this country is blessed with.” While the last 25 years of civilian rule have paraded accidents as leaders, Babangida wanted power, romanced power, was besotted by power and prepared for power, mentally and physically. While in office, his statecraft and style of leadership were a total lift from and replica portraiture of the precepts in The Prince, 16th-century Italian writer, diplomat and politician, Niccolo Machiavelli’s famous but deadly portrait of and prescriptions for tough leadership.

To reinforce this and create a look-alike model of Machiavelli’s quintessential ruler, IBB garnished power with the image of a lethal ruler. In the same vein, he decorated the cottage of power with the sweet icing of a patrimonial leader. Like Machiavelli, Babangida concentrated and centered power around himself. This gave the semblance of a leadership that was people-centred, under the pretence of running a government that carried the people along. He was also unpredictable with power, like the Machiavelli Prince, springing surprises at the drop of a hat, a portraiture that is a dip into the playbook of Machiavelli. In the same way, like a concentration camp, he gathered people of contravening persuasions into government, sucking them in via gifts and purchase of their loyalties. Respected academics fell to his suasion through appointments while his smiles hid the graffiti of a sadistic rule.

Like Machiavelli, IBB silenced opposition. His smilingly harmless look turned his opposition into jelly. For instance, he swayed hitherto unbending critics like Tai Solarin who he brought into the People’s Bank and subsequently humiliated. Babangida ran a government that was unpredictable and which he manoeuvred to sustain his hold on power. He was a genie of a genius, deservedly earning the sobriquets of “evil genius” and “Maradona.” But, as a replay of the epic downfall of emperors, rulers and suzerains of old has shown, wisdom kills the wise. Many times, the wise die in graveyards dug by the unwise. My people render this as “Ogbon pa ologbon”.

Very few Nigerian leaders built institutions that endure like Babangida. He went on a binge of self-adulation when he made a recount of these in his book. Babangida established organisations like the Mass Mobilization for Self Recovery, Social Justice and Economic Recovery (MAMSER), Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure, (DIFFRI) Code of Conduct Bureau, AMCON, etc. Many of the political institutions he established, some of which still stand today, were products of the tirelessly innovating mind of the military leader. He also introduced some palliative measures into the economy, especially after the early 1990s SAP riots like the Urban Mass Transit Programme; Better Life for Rural Dwellers Programme; non-interest small loan-funneling community banks like the Peoples Bank, among others.

In A Journey In Service, Babangida gave the impression of a ruler who was not driven by self to serve. Which was not completely true. By the time he vacated power in 1993, allegations of frittering off more than $14 billion 1992 Gulf War oil windfall hung on his head like a Sword of Damocles.

While A Journey In Service contains the histrionics of Babangida’s eight-year rule, it sidestepped some basic realities that Nigerians had to grapple with within this period. Of a truth, IBB was one of Nigeria’s smartest rulers. As against the Bola Tinubu government which is being clever by half in its lickspittling for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Babangida literally retreated when Nigeria roared against his decision to accept IMF’s multi-billion-dollar financial aid to cushion the economy.

Babangida’s economic programmes, especially the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), have been adjudged to be the beginning of the obliteration of the Nigerian middle class. That class was a major anvil of the Nigerian economy with its features of sophistication. SAP obliterated this class and also led to violence in the polity. Some of these were inter and intra-ethnic violence, religious uprisings like the 1991 Katsina and Bauchi riots, the Zango-Kataf riots of 1992 and the Ogoni crisis which later snowballed into the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa under Sani Abacha. IBB’s ECOWAS Peace Keeping Force (ECOMOG) in Liberia had Nigeria propitiate billions of Naira to a non-existing god of cooperation in West Africa while also constituting a massive drain on the economy.

Of all these, Babangida’s handling of the political transition programme of his administration would seem to have inflicted the hugest pain whose hurt has refused to disappear from the Nigerian backbone. This makes Chapter 12 of his memoir, which comes under the title “Transition to Civil Rule and the June 12 Saga” the most contentious of the autobiography. Therein, IBB made spirited efforts to explain his clear-mindedness and intention of bequeathing a civilian government to Nigerians. Data on the ground however point to a self-vaunting ambition for life rule. He started off by rationalising his government’s political agenda, beginning with the political bureau. The more he explained June 12, the more he revealed gaping holes fraught with his demonstrable intention to transmute into a civilian president. His romance with diarchy is a clear example.

The above got him a harvest of dead and dislocated Nigerians. South west became the graveyard of recorded and unrecorded casualties. I clearly recall one of the incidents aftermath of the June 12 election fiasco in Lagos where the death of 75 people was recorded. Gen Sani Abacha, the secretary of defence and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, had to summon Michael Otedola, the civilian governor of Lagos state, over the violence. Nigeria subsequently became an ungovernable state with soldiers deployed on the streets of Lagos and other southwest cities.

Babangida, in a national broadcast which was his first statement on the voided June 12 presidential election, rather than the ambivalent portrayal he made of himself in his autobiography, rationalised the annulment of the election. He had said: “It is true that the presidential election was generally seen to be free, fair and peaceful” but in the same vein, went into a long list of reasons he claimed his government annulled the election.

During the twilight of his rule, with the June 12 fiasco becoming a whirlwind, it was as if Babangida was shopping for justifications for the annulment of the election, right, left and centre. One of these, he said, was that some military officers had sworn that Abiola would be president over their dead bodies. He then glibly called for a new election which would still lead to the handing over of power on August 27, 1993 and set new criteria for eligibility to contest. The whirlwind eventually swept him off, with him making a quieter admittance that he was “stepping aside” from power.

A Journey In Service, while collating some of the events above, attempted to rationalise Babangida’s decisions for taking fatal decisions of state but the rationalisations fell face flat, and fatally, too. For instance, he attempted to state that he was not a power-besotting ruler, which was a wrong self-appraisal. As he retreated to Minna in August 1993, palpable fears hovered in the polity that he would yet take over the reins of office of Nigerian president in the shortest time. On August 15, 2006, in an interview he granted the Financial Times, he gave an inkling of his intention to fulfil this fear. He had vaguely told the newspaper that in 2007, he would run for office “under the banner of the Nigerian people”. Less than three months after, specifically on November 8, 2006, he showed up to pick the party nomination form of the PDP which the then chairman, Ahmadu Alli, personally issued him. Not long after, IBB timidly fled like a frightened cat, from his aspiration, citing a reason people found untenable. He had said that his withdrawal was due to a “moral dilemma” because the younger brother of Shehu Yar-Adua, his late military boss, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, was also in the race. The speculation was however that he scampered away for fear of electoral disgrace. Again, in September 2010, the retired general expressed the desire to run for the 2011 presidential election but withdrew the intention almost immediately.

The book is also a fatal deconstruction of a Babangida whose heroism and valour were almost a legend. It would have been better if  Babangida had continued playing the ostrich on June 12 by not talking about it at all. Nigerians, and indeed the world, would have continued to be beguiled by the facade they had of a tough hombre Babangida. With this, Babangida would have gone to his grave with the impression of a man of valour. Recall that, at some point in his rule, he had told a news magazine that he loved dreaded military generals, Shaka and Hannibal. Shaka the Zulu was a 19th-century general often depicted with a long throwing assegai and heavy shield. Hannibal was also a Carthaginian military general and statesman who led the forces of Carthage against the Roman Republic. When the interviewers reminded Babangida that both were ruthless and dreaded, he merely flashed his gap tooth in a weird grin.

What we have in A Journey In Service is a pusillanimous army general that didn’t resemble the picture of General Babangida we had. The general in that book, on the outward, merely wears the epaulette of a valiant four-star general but was a buck-passer. How does the world reconcile the picture of a Babangida who fought valiantly in the civil war and got wounded in the process; one who smilingly and fearlessly almost disarmed Lt- Col Bukar Suka Dimka inside the Radio Nigeria studio; who had the steely heart to order the execution of his best friend, Mamman Vatsa, now selling himself in the portraiture of a Sani Abacha bootlicker? The book is a portrait of a military general who didn’t want to die after Gideon Orkar fiercely dealt him a mortal blow inside Dodan Barracks. It appears to every reader, back-grounded by what we heard in April 1990 that, though IBB refuted it, after his rescue by Abacha in the Orkar coup, a blood oath made between the duo to hand over power to the Kanuri-born psychopath. All the fatal decisions Babangida later took were predicated on this assumption. He was sore afraid of Abacha and his sadism and in the process, cost Nigerians their lives in their thousands. Again, this vicariously triggered the disequilibrium Nigeria witnessed post-June 12 and IBB was also responsible for the trillions of Naira Nigeria wasted. Babangida can also be said to be vicariously responsible for the ghastly rule of Abacha, the many people he killed and the stagnation of reason during his time in government.

That chapter on June 12 drowned the other revealing and intellectually stimulating chapters of the book which are historical nuggets. Unfortunately, virtually all the dramatis personae of the election are now deceased. Did Babangida wait for this auspicious moment to unleash his revisionist chapter of his memoir? Or, was it merely to make peace with history and his creator when he passes? Whatever it is, that chapter was poor artistry. It is akin to eccentric millionaire, Kester Weidmann’s weird attempt to make a corpse walk, an absurd fabrication of sainthood for himself. Thirty two years after, the anti-hero of that grisly political drama which almost splintered Nigeria and was on the verge of tossing the country into a huge internecine war, chose to canonize himself.

However, A Journey In Service has shown the path of a road to travel wide open to travellers in government. Babangida traced his geneology from grandfather, Malam Ibrahim, a prominent Muslim cleric and wanderer who migrated from Sokoto to Kano and Kontagora who settled in Wushishi. He also wrote about how Ibrahim married his pretty wife, Halima. He traced the family roots up to his father, Malam Muhammadu Badamasi, ostensibly to explain how he got his middle name, ‘Badamasi’ which many confused with ‘Gbadamosi’ a Yoruba name. Now, or in the future, we will expect President Tinubu, VP Kashim Shettima’s and others’ autobiographies as well. They must all write their memoirs so that we can indeed meet the characters who govern us.

Lastly, many have disdained the gathering in Abuja for the book launch and the huge billions of Naira announced as donations. No one remembered to even offer a minute silence for the dead of and from June 12. The gathering has been explained off as elite regrouping and this class’ clear disconnect from the everyday issues of the average Nigerian. It should serve as a lesson to the Nigerian people. In Osun State now, power-mongers are seeking state capture, the same way IBB sought to, over three decades ago. The APC is baring its fangs, using Bola Tinubu’s hold on federal power as Malacca-cane with which to grope in the dark. The Attorney General of the Federation is rudely descending into the Osun arena with partisan and needless threat laced in the garb of a harmless advice, while the IGP is flexing his muscles with impunity.

As they all gathered by the feet of IBB last Thursday, they should have learned a fundamental lesson from the senescent General: that it is only an allotted time that power-wielders use; no one wears the apron of power forever until it becomes a tattered rag (Igba l’onigba nlo; enikan o lo ile aye gbo). It speaks to the temporality and ephemerality of the power they use to harass Nigerians.

“A group without a leader is a mob” – Anonymous, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 82. “All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies” – Dr John Arbuthnot, 1667-1735, VBQ p 191. 

Ask anybody who is the leader of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, or the Labour Party; and you would receive different answers. These are the two leading opposition parties. Yet, they are effectively leaderless. Everybody in the world knows who the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain. She is our own Nigerian-born Kemi Badenoch. We might not like what she says; but, worldwide, she is more highly esteemed that any politician in Nigeria today; mainly, because she will never decamp to the ruling party for personal gain. The abnormality can never happen in the UK or India or Canada. There are some Made-In-Nigeria political atrocities which, being endemic, have guaranteed that good governance, which is indispensable to development, will continue to elude us.

Just in case the reader goes away with the impression that the ruling party had been exonerated, permit me to ask: who is the leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC? I know the President – Bola Tinubu. Ordinarily, he should be regarded as the leader. But, some of the most disgruntled political elements, especially in the North, are APC members. So badly is the party divided, the Chairman, Ganduje, has been afraid to call a meeting of the National Executive Committee. That is bad enough. The most alarming aspect of the APC problem lies in the lack of total support for Tinubu and even open hostility, by people holding APC party cards.

 Important Bills

“There is nothing worse than for a leader to look behind him and find nobody is following” – US President Lyndon Johnson. Tinubu is not without followers; far from it. However, there are several types of followers. What happened to Jonathan should teach him a lesson – going forward. Most Nigerian politicians are political mercenaries; they go where food is ready and leave when there is threat to the food supply. Right now, northern political leaders are confronted with an APC in which their financial interests are seriously threatened. In less than two years of Tinubu government, the adverse changes in their individual and collective circumstances have resulted in a groundswell of demand for the return of the presidency to the North – at all costs.

More than ever, they are prepared to forgive even those who governed very badly. El-Rufai, the immediate past Governor of Kaduna State, offers a good example of current mind of the North. Extremely clever, he knows that blaming the rulers excites the populace more easily than appeals for hope when a country experiences economic hardship. It is all well and good to point to the benefits in the long run if tough measures are taken now. But, the stomach is a rascal. People don’t eat in the long run; they must have food today. And, if that is not possible; somebody must pay for it. The strongest campaigners against the Tinubu government are APC members. Before going into the details of how they intend to sabotage the leadership of the APC, it is necessary to point out that they have already scored a major victory.

Tax Bills Gutted

“Building half a bridge is the most worthless investment a government can make” – An international bridge-builder with over 300 bridges to his credit.  Granted, Tinubu and the framers of the Tax Reform Bills committed a blunder by not consulting widely enough and building a winning coalition before presenting the bill to the National Assembly, NASS. Still, the fact that the first groups to openly reject them were those dominated by APC spoke volumes about how much control the President had over his own party.

The Nigeria Governors Forum, at first, not only turned them down; the most vocal opponent of the bills was Professor Zulum of Borno State. Vice President Shetimma, who is from that state, must have been deeply embarrassed. That gesture demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the party could not guarantee the support of its own Governors. Similarly, at the NASS, the fiercest war against the bills was waged by APC Senators led by Ndume. That provided the northern elite the opportunity to rally the people around them. Incidentally, anybody following the affair closely would have noticed that most members of the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, as well as various youth organisations, who were up in arms, had not even read the bills before taking positions.

Once the bills were pronounced anti-North by the early responders, the majority simply fell in line. It was the classic case of giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it. The very few northern FG supporters kept their distance; they remained in Abuja out of fear of reprisals by lynch mobs. The Daily Trust, the most reliable political weather vane, to which I subscribe, published everyday stinging rebukes of the bills as a plot by Lagos State to colonise the North. It was as bad as that. Tension was lowered when amendments were made to the bills which partly mollified the Governors. Despite that, trust had been eroded. Northerners, who provided the winning margin, now feel like the man who escaped being beheaded by a beneficiary but lost his cap. The broad attitude now is: never again. Millions of those who voted in 2023 have turned their backs on the apparent leader of their party. The obvious question is: why have they not departed? The short answer is: money and time.

 The Enemies Within

“Better a declared enemy than a doubtful ally” – Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769-1821.

Tinubu should thank God for Atiku and Obi. They are declared political opponents, but, might not be harmful on account of the mobs which have seized control of the PDP and Labour Party. The fellows who should be giving him sleepless nights are APC members; who are no longer loyal to him, but, who recognise that he is still in control of the kitchen. They intend to stay; continue to collect their shares of the national cake and stab him in the back at the right time. El-Rufai is naïve and too emotional for his own good. Yet, he is better than the pretenders who are working quietly to sabotage the APC and Tinubu.

Some of them are in Aso Rock. Obviously, even the APC is in muted disarray. Unlike the other poor parties, money has made it possible to sound-proof the edifice called APC; neighbours don’t hear the noise – which is very much there. Thus, if you ask APC members privately who is your leader, you might be shocked to receive the sort of reply one “party stalwart” gave me in Lagos last week: “We no longer have a leader. That old man should go home. See the mess he has created in Lagos State.” Tinubu might not realise it; but, he needs rock solid support from the South-West, especially, Lagos. He also must work on the rest of the South. Most people in the North have already made up their minds; this government is not for them. There is danger ahead.

Men, Money and Madness

“Power and money, do, of course, drive people crazy. So, why shouldn’t people also gain power and wealth through being crazy?” – Saul Bellow, 1915-2005, VBQ p 195. America, once called God’s Own Country, but not any longer, has two crazy men running the government. They have power and money and don’t care what anybody says. Americans used to pretend that nobody is above the law. But, they shamelessly elected the most lawless person ever to run for President.

Just two weeks ago, Donald Trump defied a court order; and nobody in Congress said a word. If Tinubu had done that, an American media would have called him all sorts of names and our National Assembly, NASS, bush men. That is understandable. Tinubu is not crazy; and people in our NASS are not under a spell. They have faults; but, not those needing to be remedied by bringing straight jackets. Mark my words, Americans will wake up before the end of Trump’s term to discover that even a giant alone can be extremely vulnerable.

All animals are not equal. If you doubt it, attempt to replicate General Ibrahim Babangida’s actions and inactions over the years – and see where you’ll end up.

First shoot your way into power. Confront civil society with both an iron fist and a toothy smile. Be a military Janus – on one side Santa Claus, on the other Belgium’s Leopold II. Then, seeing the prodigious talent and charisma Providence has bestowed on you, lock yourself up in a social laboratory and, like the scientist Frankenstein, create a new serpentine democracy which crawls a little to the right and a little to the left, eventually threatening to swallow you.

The June 12 monster! In what book is it written that a date could swallow an emperor? Run! As a cat with so many lives, you call it a day and retire into comfort. Didn’t God Himself rest on the seventh day?

Your coterie of eulogists and beneficiaries add salt to the society’s injury: They canonise you. “Saint Ibrahim invented the new Nigeria! It’s just unfortunate that negative forces did not allow him to conclude the good work he had started”. In the pantheon of Nigeria’s carpetbaggers who watered the tree of autocracy with the blood of fellow citizens, they say, “Saint Ibrahim is better than the other goggle-wearing gnome. We can confirm that Ibrahim doesn’t eat infants.”

In your hibernation, you continue to enjoy the status of a major shareholder in Naija Turn-By-Turn Plc. Your castle is a Mecca to which every political pilgrim journeys. And then, 32 years after the crime of June 12, you re-emerge to take responsibility for everything that happened under your watch. Except that it still wasn’t your fault but the machination of that goggled one!

Forgivable?

So, you knew all these years that MKO Abiola was the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and you waited for 32 years, after social strife, a near civil war, death of thousands of fellow citizens, destruction of careers, social polarisation and – tellingly – the death of the goggled one you fingered?

Now who is going to defend Afajápemó (he who owns dogs that hunt down rabbits for him)?

I believe in forgiveness. But a penitent person at confession shouldn’t be dribbling the priest. If a sinner says, “It was my hand, not me, that slapped the complainant”, who shall we hold responsible? Can forgiveness be possible or efficacious unless the compunction is heartfelt?

And in this case, what is the equivalent of restitution? Resurrection of the president-elect whose mandate was embezzled by a few gangsters? Saying sorry to the Abiola family and the relatives of Gen. Yar’Adua, Chief Alfred Rewane, Alhaja Suliat Adedeji, Bagauda Kaltho and thousands of others sent to their untimely graves between 1993 and 1998? Repairing, through some social alchemy, the bridges of ethnic amity destroyed by the whole saga? Recall of military officers who lost their commission because they chose to stand by the truth?

I confess that I do not have the answers. Perhaps, this poet does:

Grab a plate and throw it on the floor.

Okay, done!!

Did it break?

Yes it did.

Now say sorry to it.

Sorry!

Did it go back to how it was before?

Sometimes, sorry can’t fix everything.

Some broken lives cannot be the same again.

Broken Lives

And, thanks to the unnamed compatriot who Nigerianised the verse after Babangida launched his much-awaited book, “A Journey In Service” (thanks for sharing, Prof. Akin Onigbinde).

The lives you tore with your blatant lies, wrong accusations, negative criticisms and Gossips of hatred for no just reason might not be the same again.

Mind how you treat people.

The Life you didn’t Create.

Don’t be the one to destroy it.

…Apologies alone, and then a haulage of over N30 billion to Minna?

For a Library of Infamy?

How fair? How just?

Indeed, all animals are not equal. In normal life, a capo doesn’t return to the crime scene to hug the klieg lights and rake in billions of naira. If you’re not in their exclusive club, don’t delude yourself. Lesson: Some men are above the law. Sad. But true. Onlookers can only throw bricks or flowers.

Human rights lawyer Dele Farotimi, in a lamentation titled, “MKO on my mind” published on his X handle reacted thus:

“To die for a people devoid of memory, is to be killed over and over, again and again. In a place inhabited by the conscious, IBB would not dare to show his face in public. But in the crime scene that doubles as our country, having been succeeded by even more villainous ruiners, Badamasi is installed in the seat of the statesman.”

Peaceful repose to Abiola, his wife Kudirat and all those who were cut down during the June 12 struggle. It is because of their collective sacrifices that the rest of us are still able to face the challenges of nation building together today. But let no one urinate on their graves.

Pa Edwin Clark Exits

It was as if the two most vocal grand old men of Nigerian politics conspired to take their departure flights to eternity within the same week. The death of Pa Edwin Clark shortly after that of his bosom friend and fellow political gladiator, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, sent shock waves round the country. If the Lord had tarried awhile, Clark would have clocked 100 years on May 25, 2027.

Clark devoted his life to the struggle of the people of the Niger Delta and the cause of his Ijaw ethnic nationality. Although he fiercely manned his corner and disparaged all those milking his native land at the expense of the environment, he was at heart a pan-Nigerian nationalist. His political consciousness had been sharpened in the 50s when he joined the Zikist movement and built a persona etched in solid courage.

If Chief Clark had not existed, the dehumanising situation in the Niger Delta would have invented him because his people were in a dire need of his kind of leadership when he showed up combining his skill as a lawyer with his experiences as a civil servant and local activist.

He always believed that he was a child of destiny: “I remember that after primary education, I wanted to go to Government College Ughelli as far back as 1945. When I went for the interview, I was told that I was too old and was advised to go to the Government Teachers Training College, Abraka. When I got there, they said I was too young!”

But the three Clark brothers made a success of their different callings — one as a civil servant, later permanent secretary and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Another became a world famous professor of English while he, a lawyer, went on to serve as a state commissioner and later as a federal minister.

With the demise of Chief Clark, the challenge ahead of the people of the Niger Delta region is how to replace the trusted warhorse with another accomplished activist who would take the struggle of his people as his life’s work. The fact that Clark’s life will always be used as the benchmark of leadership will not make finding his replacement any easier.