
OTHERS' VIEWS
The latest autobiography in town: Babangida: A Journey in Service “is an important book in many respects” according to the reviewer, Yemi Osinbajo, a professor and former Vice President. Accordingly, it is not just a story of the remarkable journey of former military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida from childhood to the highest levels of public service, it is an account of a “journey of our Nation Nigeria, the Nigerian story, complex, sometimes unpredictable, sometimes stranger than fiction, but always fascinating”.
Many of the key characters in the book who shaped the history of our country were there on Thursday, “demonstrating something truly unique about Nigeria: our ability to move beyond the past and come together”.
Seated among those who shaped what the late General Chris Ali once called “The Federal Republic of the Nigerian Army” in Ali’s 2011 book was General Yakubu Gowon, who became Nigeria’s Head of State at just 32 and led the country for nine years. His government was overthrown in 1975 by a coup involving then-Brigadier Olusegun Obasanjo, Brigadier Theophilus Danjuma, and the author himself, Babangida, who was then commander of the newly formed Armoured Corps.
The reviewer with a deep sense of history noted: “Also involved were then-Lieutenant Colonels Muhammadu Buhari, Sani Bello, and Sani Sami. Yet, there they were on February 20 at Transcorp Hilton, with former President Obasanjo and General Danjuma with his representative, (no thanks to ill-health) present not as adversaries but as witnesses to history, celebrating a fellow statesman.
“In a striking turn of fate, the author notes that it was President Obasanjo who, after the tragic assassination of General Murtala Mohammed, insisted that a young Lt. Col. Babangida be appointed to the Supreme Military Council, making him its youngest member at the time”, the reviewer revealed.
But not physically present but represented on the occasion was immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari another leader whose path intertwined with Babangida. It was Babangida who played a key role in the coup that brought General Buhari to power in 1983, and later, in another coup that removed him and brought Babangida himself to power. Specifically, President Buhari was represented at this occasion, celebrating the man who overthrew him and detained him for three and a half years his one time old adversary General Babangida.
There was some hushed excitement when the reviewer reminded the younger ones who don’t read history that, “there is gentleman here who was an elected senator in 1992 in the course of Babangida’s Transition Programme, when Babangida annulled the 1993 election, and General Abacha took over and dissolved the Senate. He tried to reconstitute the senate in resistance to the dissolution he was detained and charged to court, he escaped into exile. Today, he also is here to celebrate with his erstwhile tormentors but now as President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu GCFR…”
The 420-paged book also raises curiosities “because it unveils one of the most enigmatic leaders Nigeria has ever had. A man who some call Maradona, others the evil genius, baring his mind in his own words, in writing, for the first time since he left office 32 years ago”. Then the denouement on Thursday as revealed by the artful reviewer who notes that the author “concludes in the book and I quote him : “looking back now, the June 12 saga was undeniably the most challenging moment of my life and, in certain respects, one of the most painful… and he went on to admit “If I had to do it all over, I’d do it differently…”
Osinbajo, a professor of law of evidence rounds off his review thus: “by any standard, Babangida’s Journey of Service is an extraordinary book. It is a collection of stories from a life deeply intertwined with Nigeria’s contemporary history, —told with remarkable wit, insight, and a vivid sense of place. Babangida’s storytelling ability is undeniable; he draws the reader into each moment, making history feel immediate and alive. His prose flows effortlessly from one era to another, from one pivotal event to the next, in a way that is both engaging and easy to read. He is generous in his praise of others, acknowledging the contributions of many along the way. Yet, despite the richness of his narrative, this book will not silence the debates or end the controversies surrounding his years in power especially the final chapter of his leadership. The questions will persist, the criticisms will continue, but that has always been the nature of the Babangida Phenomenon. He remains, as ever, a force of history…”
In his remark, President Bola Tinubu on the book and unveiling of the fund raiser for a presidential library, said former military president Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida showed unusual courage and patriotism by admitting that late M.K.O. Abiola won the June 12 election in 1993.
The annulment was a watershed moment in Nigeria’s democratic history, precipitating a political crisis and hastened his exit from power. Many of the key actors of the phenomenal June 12, 1993 election crisis have died. They included M.K.O Abiola, the presumed winner of the election, General Sani Abacha, the Head of State who finally buried the mandate and assumed power; the then Attorney General Akpamgbo; Saleh, Chief Judge of Abuja who pronounced the election dead; etc, including most of the G-34 members who signed away June 12 The Guardian reported as a scoop on June 11, 2000.
President Tinubu said the former leader’s admission about Abiola’s victory would help to set the records properly. But as yours sincerely had noted in an “Arise News” comment on Thursday night: It is as Shakespeare would have put the outcome of an elections after 32 years: “…a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…” . Nigeria’s leader said he would continue to do his best for the country by making tough decisions to reposition the economy. He called on Nigerians to refocus their time, energy, and resources on building the country that remains their home and be more mindful of changes in global migration laws that could impede their dreams of a better life.
“I am glad about what is happening in America and Europe, the contradiction you have seen now. What is it telling us? It is telling us to wake up and make Africa a better place, particularly this country, Nigeria….”
President Tinubu thanked Gen. Babangida for his foresight in ensuring the private sector’s growth in Nigeria. “Without you, people like me will not be in politics. I thank you for your progressive revolution. You said you wanted young, brilliant people in politics. We met you in Dodan Barracks. You inspired some of us. And when you look at the programme today, the names of bankers and many of us here today for this library project are all because they believe in the visionary Babangida. Thank you for what you are.”
Gen. Babangida who thanked the President and all guests for attending the unveiling of his autobiography, admitted that annulling the June 12 elections was the most challenging decision of his life. Given another chance, he would have handled the situation differently.
His words: “That accident of history is most regrettable. The nation is entitled to expect my expression of regret. As a leader of the military administration, I accept full responsibility for all decisions taken under my watch”. “June 12 happened under my watch; mistakes, oversights, and missteps happened in quick succession, but I say in my book, in all matters, we acted in the supreme national interest so that Nigeria could survive…”
The launch of General IBB’s book, offers valuable lessons and deliverables for the current administration. As I was saying on “Arise News Tv” on Thursday, the key takeaway is the importance of our leaders investing in human capital, particularly the youth and tapping of intellectuals and technocrats across all geo-political zones as IBB intentionally did in his time.
Using a football analogy, I had on Thursday emphasised that just as a Spanish football club, Real Madrid invest in top talent like Mbappe, Vinicius Jnr, Rodrigo, Bellingham, etc Nigeria’s leaders must prioritise investing in their best and brightest people. This means also that leaders in Nigeria should create and invest in opportunities for education, skills development, and entrepreneurship. There shouldn’t be recourse to the people Alvin Toffler calls the illiterate of the 21st century who can’t learn, unlearn and relearn.
What is more, at the event, Tinubu had the opportunity of hearing about the quality of IBB’s team from 1985 to 1993, a period marked by significant economic and political reforms in Nigeria. In other words, IBB tapped the brightest and the best brains from all over the country. Tinubu’s team has been regularly criticised as a celebration of mediocrity. He has an opportunity soon to rejig his team as he marks second year in office in May this year.
Tinubu’s presence at the book launch highlights his commitment to learning from Nigeria’s past leaders and building on their achievements. As the current President of Nigeria, he recognises the importance of understanding the country’s history and the role that leaders like IBB have played in shaping its development.
The Lessons: visionary leadership: IBB’s leadership style, as highlighted in the book, demonstrates the importance of having a clear vision for the country’s development; strategic planning: The book launch emphasises the need for strategic planning and implementation, which was a hallmark of IBB’s administration: he created agencies even in human capital development sectors, (education and health) where the late Babs Fafunwa and Olikoye Ransome Kuti, for instance, showcased the importance of skilled and committed leaders in the discipline of execution.
Besides, IBB’s leadership style highlights the importance of inclusive governance, which involves engaging with various stakeholders, including the youth, to ensure that their voices were heard. President Tinubu’s testimony also underscores that. He (Tinubu) should borrow from that brilliance.
In the main, the launch of IBB’s book offers valuable lessons and deliverables for President Tinubu’s administration. By investing in human capital, particularly prioritising education reform beyond creation of more instead of better universities, inclusive governance, the administration can set Nigeria on a path to sustainable development and growth. That is the Babangida we should find in a new Tinubu after the profound speeches last Thursday. After all, in a Sunday August 22, 1993, issue of The Guardian a Nigerian celebrated columnist, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo of blessed memory wrote a classic on ‘The Babangida in all of us’. I hope the best of Babangida President Tinubu spoke glowingly about on Thursday will also be in him, for the public good’s game at this time.
[OPINION] Babangida’s journey in self-service: Pathetic attempts to rewrite history - Owei Lakemfa
AdminIbrahim Badamosi Babangida, the retired General and head of the 1985-93 military junta who styled himself ‘President’ has again intruded into our national consciousness. On Thursday, February 20, 2025, the General who was disgraced out of office 32 years ago, unleashed an unguided missile he called an autobiography.
Titled: ‘A Journey In Service’, it was a failed attempt to rewrite the history of his misrule which included the de-industrialisation of the country, unchecked corruption, religious sectarianism, annulment of a presidential election he certified as being free, fair and credible and, most painfully, the mass murder of Nigerians who protested his crippling economic policies and the annulment. The 420-page book published by Bookcraft has 13 chapters and an epilogue dripping with self-justification. It is disgraceful that a man who rose to be a General in the Nigerian Army did not have the courage to own up to his deeds. Rather, he blamed others, especially the dead who have no chance of defending themselves.
Nigerians first encountered Babangida as a coup plotter in the mid-1970s. Then in December 1983, he was one of the main leaders of the coup that overthrew the elected Shagari administration. On August 27, 1985, he executed his own coup and announced himself ‘President’. At this time, Nigerians were protesting against a proposed International Monetary Fund, IMF, loan because its conditionalities promised to be crippling and destructive. Babangida presented himself as a democrat and asked Nigerians to debate the issue. Nigerians overwhelmingly rejected the IMF and its conditionalities. On December 13, 1985, Babangida announced that the rejection was “clearly the will of the majority of our people…”. He added that “the path of honour and the essence of democratic patriotism lies in discontinuing the negotiations with the IMF…”.
Nigerians were ecstatic and praised him. Only to find out that they had been duped as Babangida fully implemented the IMF enslaving programme called the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP. So we knew by 1986 that we had a military regime which had no honour. More felonious was that the regime made criticism of SAP a criminal offence. For this, human rights lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi, and the two foremost labour leaders in our history, Michael Imoudu and Wahab Goodluck, were detained without trial for organising an ‘Alternative To SAP Conference’. When in 1989 and 1992 Nigerians, led by students protested against the devastating SAP programme, the regime sent the police and soldiers to massacre protesters especially in Lagos and Benin. In his book, Babangida justified the mass killings thus: “In the military mind-set, there are only two types of people: enemies or friends. Our political opponents were, therefore, primarily ‘enemy forces’ before they were fellow Nigerians.”
Babangida without consulting Nigerians, dragged Nigeria, a secular country, into the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, OIC. When Nigerians protested, he said we should “learn to tolerate each other”. Once the then Deputy Head of State, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, opposed Nigeria joining the OIC, he was sacked and retired from the military. In his book, Babangida said he was livid because the impression was given “that Nigeria, under my watch, had become a full member of the OIC”. One of the most dastardly acts of Babangida was his execution of his childhood friend, General Mamman Vatsa, over an alleged coup plot. In his autobiography, Babangida wrote: “With the benefit of hindsight now, I recall that a constant part of our relationship as teenagers and young men was a continuous and recurrent peer jealousy on his part towards me. He was always envious of my achievements…”. Who says the jealousy was not on the part of Babangida as Vatsa was a celebrated poet and man of culture in contrast to the image of his fellow Generals like Babangida.
Nigerians viewed Babangida as a fox in sheep clothing who is untrustworthy and unreliable. So they gave him the sobriquet, ‘Maradona’ because they thought he dribbled Nigerians as the Argentine footballer, Diego Maradona, dribbled people on the football field. Babangida demonstrated this duplicity in his book. For instance, while he blamed retired General Yakubu Gowon for once shifting the 1976 military handover date, he was silent over his own shifting of the handover date on four occasions, and being resisted the fifth time he tried. He also blamed the Obasanjo regime which had a transition period of three years for allegedly being hasty in its handover of power to civilians, insinuating that was why the Second Republic collapsed. But he said nothing about his own seven-year transition programme that ended in disaster for the entire country. In contrast to his failed transition programme, that of the Abubakar regime which gave birth to the current civil rule 25 years ago, lasted just nine months.
There should be honour amongst professional coup plotters, so Babangida blaming the late General Sani Abacha for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Chief Mashood Kashimawo Abiola, defeated the esprit de corp that should exist amongst them. Apart from Abacha, Babangida also blamed Arthur Nzeribe, Justices Bassey Ikpeme and Dahiru Saleh and the office of his Vice President, Augustus Aikhomu for the annulment. He also accused then National Electoral Commission Chairman, Professor Humphrey Nwosu, of unilaterally stopping the election results. He equally blamed Abiola for not accepting to head an interim arrangement that would have led to a fifth postponement of the handover! Conveniently, those he accused are all dead!
The truth is that Babangida never planned to hand over power. This was why he postponed the handover date from 1990 to 1992. When he realised that Nigerians did not believe him, he made a nationwide address on August 27, 1990 titled, ‘The Last Lap: Retrospect and Prospect’. In that short address, he mentioned five times that he and his military gang will hand over power in 1992. They were false promises as he later postponed the hand-over to January 2, 1993, then to August 27, 1993. After the presidential election, he tried to hang on to power with a fifth postponement. Babangida can be a gambler. After destroying the country and attempting to set it ablaze with the 1993 annulment, he tried to return to power by officially declaring in September 2010 his intention to run in the 2011 presidential election. The mass reaction of Nigerians forced him to retreat.
In his autobiography which should be appropriately titled ‘A Journey in Self-Service’, Babangida tried to rewrite history. But history is already written, and even if he launches a hundred more autobiographies and biographies, he cannot re-write history. Let me admit that in his latest gambit, Babangida broke even as he raked in about N17 billion as donations. But as a popular saying goes: vanity upon vanity, all is vanity.
Every discerning Nigerian, not just experts in economic and financial matters, know the reasons why our country has been struggling economically and running up debts unabatedly and at an alarming rate. Not just because of the corruption in our polity which has loomed so large over this country and assumed a frightening crescendo that has damaged our national integrity in the international system, but essentially because spanning several years, our liquidity position has been in a dire situation. Regrettably, our nation has been unable to steadily drive the generation of sufficient revenues to fund our annual Appropriations in a manner that will drastically and substantially reduce our deficit spending time and time again.
My position has always been that our nation’s future is beyond oil. No doubt, we must efficiently administer the natural resources bequeathed to us by God to maximise the full value accruable, which we are fortunate to have as other countries lack what we have or have a very tiny fraction of what we have. Nevertheless, we cannot continue to rely on their sale proceeds for the bulk of our fiscal and budgetary revenues – it is unsustainable and a recipe for disaster.
The international markets where they are traded are very volatile and can swing within a very short period just like it is expected to be shaken by the trade war Donald Trump seemed to have ignited with his “Reciprocal tariffs” economic stance on exports from the European Union, China, Canada, Mexico, and a host of other countries coming to the US. There is a general saying that, ‘when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers’. Simply put, when superpowers engage one another in ‘economic and trade fisticuffs’, oftentimes, it is fringe players like Nigeria and other developing countries that suffer.
The cheering news however, is that it appears the administration of Bola Tinubu has taken steps to truly walk the talk to diversify our revenues away from natural resources to other sources like taxes with the appointment of the tax czar, a man that, in just under two years of leadership, has created a watershed moment by imprinting his footsteps in the federal agency that he leads, refusing to be defined by the conception of others – especially of his predecessors. He is showing he has so much imagination and as a public servant serving at the pleasure of the President, he plays a titanic role in this government’s economic approach to achieve economic sustainability – surpassed 2023 revenue generation by a whopping 76 percent (12.37 trillion naira to 21.6 trillion naira), a 2024 achievement which was 11 percent over and above a target of 19.4 trillion naira set for the year under review.
I must emphasise that it looks like Zacchaeus Adedeji, who has been transformative and earned the respect and admiration of virtually everyone in the tax agency and the country at large, is the long-awaited change and problem solver Nigeria has been clamouring and yearning for to reorganise our tax ecosystem, cut the red tapes by reducing the bureaucracy, and drive the elimination of all waste and frauds which have been widely reported to abound in the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), which he currently presides over.
A year ago, a video was widely shared on social media titled, “Moment Rich by Humility”, where the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narenda Modi, was a guest at a gathering comprising of young men and women – many were teenagers. As all the participants sat on the floor awaiting the arrival of Modi to take up a lone chair planted right at the centre, just in front of the participants, who by this time were already looking anxious, he came in with resounding cheers from the people and went straight for the chair. Lifted it with his left hand and handed it over to one of the organisers; a nicely dressed young man – well-suited. Thereafter, Modi sat on the floor with these people and beckoned those at the rear to move nearer to sit with him.
Seeing this video on LinkedIn, I wrote on my page, ‘How else can one define exemplary, purposeful, strong and quality leadership other than this awesome demonstration of equality and empathy by PM, Mr. Modi? No wonder India has doubled her GDP from USD 1.87 trillion in 2014 when Mr. Modi assumed leadership to USD 3.73 trillion in 2023 (making them the 5th biggest economy in the world), and is unsurprisingly, in line with IMF projections, on the path to become a $5 trillion economy in 3-4 years. Leadership is everything! Painfully, in Nigeria, what we have is a massive leadership deficit!!’
Drawing a parallel, the exact type of leadership shown by the Indian PM – considering his fellow citizens not any less than him, is seen being demonstrated by Zacchaeus Adedeji in FIRS. True leadership is being fair to all – treating everyone without bias! Bishop David Oyedepo said: “Those who truly fear God will be fair to men”.
Two months ago, there was a huge media buzz drawing a significant amount of public attention where the members of staff of FIRS trooped out en masse and were captured on video taking over the street leading to the headquarters of FIRS to herald the arrival of their executive chairman. They sang, danced, and celebrated the unprecedented welfare packages approved for them. His influence is said to be re-writing the 70-year history of this agency. The excitement on display by these staff possibly points to a twisted tale of fraud which existed before his arrival, which made their morale reach rock bottom, akin to a people being pried loose from the grip of long-term ‘taskmasters’ who have denied them what rightfully belongs to them while holding them down for years, a course of events which perhaps changed with the emergence of a new leader. I believe Zacchaeus communicated a cultural message with the staff welfarism which was; ‘I am not any better than any of you and I am because you are.’
There’s a saying in Yoruba, “Omo eni iba joni, a ba yo” – this literally means it will be a thing of joy for a parent, should a child pick traits, behaviours, and semblance of the parent. For President Tinubu, he doesn’t have to worry over this statement, like most parents do. Just the same way he was reported to have assembled a team of sound and young individuals – known as “Lagos Boys”, who have transformed Lagos state since the advent of the Fourth Republic, he will probably be extremely delighted that his ‘son’; Zacchaeus, is following in his footsteps of having a penchant for identifying extremely cerebral, dutiful, and sound professionals to form a formidable team to achieve shared vision and objectives. The drive of President Tinubu and Adedeji regarding the tax reforms speaks to their deal-making abilities. They are on the verge of pulling through what no administration in over four decades has thought of doing, probably because of the political blowback which could lead to a myriad of social, political, and ethnic issues past leaders felt may accompany the process.
The current tax laws have not helped us in any way and some people were fighting to keep it that way. Defending the status quo? Howbeit, since he took over the reins at the agency, it has shown that it has extraordinary courage that is peerless to challenge the state of affairs and replace the several-decades-old-archaic tax laws affecting the efficiency of the nation’s tax system, with a set of new tax laws. It must be noted that a strong leader is known by the kind of team he/she assembles and his/her achievement is contingent on the cumulative achievements of the team. To this end, kudos must be given to Zacchaeus, who is already setting the standards sky high, for pinpointing and headhunting Taiwo Oyedele, a man with equally matchless courage and character to head the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, which is poised to change the tax landscape of this country just as I posited in my piece on TheCable titled, ‘Nigeria’s liquidity problems and the tax reform bills’, published December 23, 2024. I have heard people say Oyedele knows so much about our nation’s tax terrain that he explains the tax reform bills effortlessly, so much so that even a primary school pupil would have a grasp of the subject matter.
There’s a lot going on in this agency. A section of the media has freaked out about the sudden resurgence of the agency – not out of heightened fear but of excitement. For many, the new and purposeful leadership has awakened the agency from the slumber that has characterised it for several years resulting in its helplessness to meet government’s objectives – drive tax revenues to boost the nation’s liquidity. Nonetheless, Nigerians might need so much to cope with the troubling truth of the grisly details of the scale of inefficiencies and venality which have been reported to exist for far too long in this agency and which may have spiralled out of control, constituting a massive drain on the nation’s public finances.
It is therefore hoped that the executive chairman is aware of what he is up against and will take a more dramatic and drastic approach to curtail these systemic issues, leveraging modern and state-of-the-art technology to block all the loopholes and leakages through which the country has been losing money. As a matter of urgency, he would need to square more with his team to set up a swarm of whizkids who are adept in the use of AI to find where the tax monies are, shine the spotlight on the prevalent leakages to stop the economic bleed, and then get the monies in.
The nation’s tax czar has had his fair share of backlash. Right from his appointment as honourable commissioner of finance in Oyo State at the very young age of 33 years old, his capabilities and capacity to function and deliver on the job were questioned. Also, accusations have been levelled against him, with some media outlets taking a swipe at him to suggest that he is colluding to push a sectional and ethnic agenda with the tax reform bills, which for me is crying wolf and at best, comical.
In all these, he has proven his critics wrong that he does not fit the bill or the profile of a non-performer or a visionless professional. His passion seems to be in overhauling and streamlining revenue systems, it is therefore not entirely unexpected to see him replicate at the federal level, what he did in Oyo State. Balance is being returned to FIRS with some level of reasonableness and common sense, taking historic steps to restructure our tax climate to enable us to compete favourably with OECD countries whose average tax-to-GDP ratio is about 34 percent – with little or no natural resources like Nigeria. He would have to implement a robust and efficient system whereby it is almost impossible to evade taxes, or make them incorrectly or untimely.
The wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, said: “To save tax-payers money, it comes down to two things; competence and caring.” From the way he has managed the agency thus far, it is clear that he possesses and showcases these two attributes needed to stop the continuous drain on our country’s monetary resources. Intriguingly, his performance within this short stint at the agency is already earning him recommendations to contest the Oyo state governorship election in 2027.
However, he was said to have declined, choosing to stick with his responsibilities at FIRS, a decision I want to believe will go down well with not only the staff of his agency but with a lot of Nigerians who think that in about two dozen months of playing key roles in the Tinubu administration – first as SA to the president on revenue and then as the tax czar, he is driving an unparalleled agenda with an extraordinary masterstroke, the likes not seen possibly in modern-day Nigerian history.
Finally, Zacchaeus, the tax collector, a man driven, motivated, and committed to public service, is in the driver’s seat of the nation’s tax agency. Some people, including the Yoruba, believe that the name you bear defines who you are throughout life. I truly believe he’s walking in his purpose and living out the true meaning of his name! His approach suggests that like good detectives who know their onion, he has set machinery in motion to follow all the tax monies.
In the same way PM Modi is almost tripling India’s economy – from $1.87 trillion to $4.3 trillion now, FIRS under the empathic leadership of Adedeji, just like Modi, can triple the nation’s tax-to-GDP ratio – from 10 percent to 30 percent. This will wipe out deficit spending and increase total annual spending exponentially.
There is however a raging concern. With the growing list of structural and systemic issues the country is grappling with, for which there seems to be no end in sight, will the government deploy the superfluous of tax revenues the agency is set to generate in the coming years to good use? Ensure that every tax-payer naira raised is utilised judiciously in building infrastructure, and to stimulate domestic production in key economic sectors to spur production and productivity which is essential to further boost tax receipts.
Furthermore, Nigerians from all walks of life hope that like the Biblical Zacchaeus, he will end the era of corruptive activities inherent in the system where the bulk of the tax revenues end up in private pockets, usher in a period of wealth distribution to reduce the income inequality – the rich, super wealthy, and public officials regardless of status paying their fair share of taxes, and bring restoration and economic stability to the poor and struggling Nigerians.
However, the question on the minds of many Nigerians is that; will he spare no effort with the onerous responsibility on his shoulder, to not only achieve the expectations of the Nigerian people to drain the swamp, contribute to easing their economic pains and help them live quality life, but go the extra mile to surpass them? Time will tell!
Just before I started reading Ibrahim Babangida’s autobiography, I recall the last speech I wrote for him. I don’t remember whether I sent it to him or whether I published it. I only remember writing it at the tail end of Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration when Babangida’s supporters pushed him to run for president. Enjoy.
Fellow compatriots, we gathered here today because Nigeria made a passionate call. Nigeria called for a tested leader with a good understanding of the complex nature of our polity, the variant nature of our terrain, and the promises of our diverse people.
I was born in Minna, Niger State of Nigeria, during the Second World War. Growing up, I gained values seen in middle-ground Nigeria between the fantastic emirates of the North and the great empires of the South. I adopted the principle of keeping the centre stable by balancing things -“a little to the right and a little to the left.”
When I was a young man, I fought for this nation. I excelled in armoured weapons. I displayed my fury during the civil war that threatened to tear our beloved country apart. On battlefield after battlefield, I showed my mantle. I crushed every force in front of me with animal brutality. Like all wars, I did things ugly and inhumane. But during the war, I also had the decency to look for things beautiful in those who were our enemies. That was how I saw Mary King. Like a victor whose wish is the command of the vanquished, I married her. I have done my utmost best to heal Maryam’s pain over the last 35 years of our marriage. As president, I promise to do the same for the hurting people of Nigeria.
Maryam and I have two sons, Mohammed and Aminu. Mohammed and Aminu have grown up as fine gentlemen of excellent character and grace. I hope that one day, as the Bushes did, my sons, too, will serve this nation of ours. We also have two daughters, Aisha and Halima. Those of you who were lucky to attend Aisha’s modest wedding know that my children are my exceptional jewellery. I sleep and wake up thinking about them and how to make sure they do not go to bed hungry. That is how, as president, I will care for Nigeria.
I wish my parents were alive to see me today. They would have been proud of me. They would have seen that the values they taught me – kindness, un-wiliness, and honesty have paid off.
I have a track record of loyalty, courage, and patriotism. In the annals of Nigerian history, my record is unsurpassed.
I single-handedly disarmed Lt. Col. B. S. Dimka on February 13, 1976, after he killed our beloved Head of State, General Murtala Muhammed. My critics said I played it safe. They said I betrayed my friend and created a situation where I would benefit, irrespective of which side triumphed. The truth is that I saved our dear country from ultimate destruction. I finished Major Gideon Orkar and his Middle Belt gang on April 22, 1990. I specialized in destroying foolish revolutionaries like him. I am better prepared to dismantle irritants like the OPC, MASSOB, and all the little ants making some noise down the Niger Delta. I flattened Zamani Lekwot. I can handle all these self-described militia leaders. If we have to reenact the crash of Hercules C130, we shall do so. If we have to deploy a letter bomb again, you bet we will. We must do anything within our power to protect and preserve Nigeria’s corporate integrity. To keep Nigeria one is a task that is not negotiable. And that is why I thank Obasanjo so much for keeping that solemn promise over the last eight years.
People say I should apologize for June 12, but what better apology is there than Olusegun Obasanjo? I worked very hard to make him the president. I picked him up from prison, dusted him, and placed him on a white horse. I ordered my boys to guard him as he rode to Aso Rock. It was my majestic way of saying I was sorry. Sorry that, as a general, I yielded. Evil forces surrounded me days before June 12, 1993, and I gave way for the first time in my career. I would have sacrificed myself to stop the troops if that would have sufficed. But upon careful examination, I came to the sad conclusion that the sacrifice of myself would have plunged our country into a second civil war. This war would have nailed Nigeria’s coffin. I did so, realizing I would be back to finish the job I began in 1985.
So tonight, confident in where I came from, inspired by the lessons of yesterday, I humbly accept the nomination for president by the greatest political party in Africa, the People’s Democratic Party. I promise you that the groovy days are coming back.
My first act as president will be to give the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic award to my good friend, Prof. Omo Omoruyi. Except for those days of the June 12 agitation, when he got confused and switched from a specialist to a madman, he has been a faithful friend since I met him in 1980 at the Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru. Amongst all my friends in all these years, he was the only one I did not meet all his needs. He desperately pleaded for a merit award, but I did not find the time to give him one. Having left his prestigious post at Harvard, having stopped trading punches with small boys on the Internet, and having come home to help me finish the task of perfecting Nigeria, he deserves our praise.
I also want to thank other faithful friends like General Adisa, Chief Alex Akinyele, David Mark, Bode George, Wada Nas, John Shagaya, Wole Soyinka, Clement Akpamgbo, Arthur Nzeribe, Arthur Eze, and many other friends who have kept the faith. They kept their faith despite the barrage of assaults I was receiving from misguided elements in our society. They honourably call themselves Babangida boys. Akinyele even vowed to die for me. What else could one ask for in a friend? Like these honourable friends of mine, I, too, kept my faith in Nigeria. I bore the indignity. I swallowed the insults. I knew that at the right time, I would return to redeem my name and restore our nation’s lost glory. To my detractors, I say, be afraid. Be terrified, for IBB is on the way.
As we march on to the future, let’s not forget the marvellous accomplishments we achieved in the past. Let us resolve to build from the spot we stopped.
No government in the history of this nation has made more people millionaires than my previous administration. You name any leading political or business figure in Nigeria today, and if they are honest, they will tell you that my government made them. That is why everyone loves me from East to West and North to South. I am coming back to do more of the same. If you believe in me, you, too, will be a beneficiary.
I am a wealthy man, for those who may not know. My interest in serving is just for the common good. I want to finish what I could not finish the last time. Remember our goals: clean water for all by the year 2000; electricity for all by the year 2000; telephone for all by the year 2000; education for all by the year 2000; States and Local Government Areas for all by the year 2000, etc. Tonight, I pledge to fulfil all that and even more in the next four years. I will put computers in every classroom in Nigeria. I will give every Nigerian an actual phone, not these money-burning gadgets called Cellular Phones. At every doorstep in Nigeria, I will drop a microwave. I will connect all Nigerian homes, from Sokoto to Port Harcourt to the World Wide Web. I want every Nigerian at home to read those abuses despondent Nigerians abroad heap on their illustrious leaders at home.
And if I hear enough applause, I will throw in a toaster, too.
Ignore the rhetoric of my opponents. Never forget the good things I made sure happened when I was president. During my tenure, my good friend, Wole Soyinka, won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and from him, I got the idea of madmen and specialists. Obafemi Awolowo joined his ancestors and made room for Obasanjo to take Yoruba politics to the mainstream. Emeka Anyaoku became the Commonwealth’s Secretary General, and Nigeria effectively reintegrated the Igbo into its national life. Dele Giwa joined the exalted list of his profession’s casualties, leading to the rapid multiplication of the media. Also, Sheik Abubakar Gumi died, taking with him Sharia and the fear of a non-Muslim ruling Nigeria.
My parents, Aisha and Muhammad Babangida, taught me to wield big sticks and carry bags of carrots. When I was president, I defended human rights and fought for democracy. I came in and freed political prisoners. I donated money to ASUU, NLC, NANS, PMAN, NBA, NFA, and other civic organizations. My government was the most generous ever. In fact, I understood that at one point, Nigerians called me Mr. Donatus. I am proud of what I did to support civic societies in their effort to better our country. But like the lessons my parents taught, when the civic societies became a butt in my behind, I banned them. I have no apologies for that. I will do the same when I become president. For me, you are for us or against us. And when you are for us, I am generous and grateful. When you are against us, I treat you like enemy combatants. Those in doubt should ask Maman Vatsa.
For those concerned about past policies that caused us all pain, rest assured: we will not repeat them. There will be no structural adjustment program anymore because there are no more structures to be adjusted. There will be no Zango-Kataf riots because I have taken Zango to Plateau State and Kataf to Kano State. There will be no removal of oil subsidies because the Americans will now remove and refine the oil. Our government will have nothing to do with that dirty work. Our sole task will be to collect the money and spend it.
People often ask me why I signed up for Nigeria as a member of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC). Let me use this opportunity to answer this raging question for the first time. I signed Nigeria as a member of the Organization of Islamic Countries as proof for those who thought my commitment to Islam was suspect. These people were apprehensive that marrying a famished girl from the South, who ran after a future wide-tooth general in the heat of a brutal war, diluted my Islam. I satisfied them, and they inducted me into the exclusive club called “The Establishment.” That is what democracy is all about–give and take.
The economic outlook of Nigeria today is gloomy. As president, I will once again set our economy in motion. I will send out a battalion of young men and women and ask them to go there and conquer the world. The men shall reach every nook and cranny of the globe by email. The women will find their way to the streets of Italy, Frankfurt, London, and Moscow. I will once again liberate and invigorate the economic environment. I will open its doors to those who never had the opportunity. I foresee an oil windfall on the horizon. Who better to handle this coming boom than the man who judiciously managed the Gulf War windfall?
Rest assured, the end of wasteful days is coming soon. To all your troubled friends, tell them IBB is on the way. The man who gave you People’s Bank will bring you People’s Money. The man whose wife brought you a Better Life for Rural Women (BLRW), his sons shall bring you Full Employment for Urban Youths (FEUY). For my fellow countrymen and women choked by poverty, my daughter, Aisha, shall Yank Out Poverty Yoke (YOPY) from your necks.
Whatever are the ills that besiege our fatherland, whatever are the obstacles that cripple you, tonight, I say to you, IBB is on his way. IBB shall console you. IBB shall wipe away your tears. IBB shall lift you and place you on a high pedestal where there will be no more sorrow.
My fellow citizens, look into my eyes, and you see the messiah is on his way.
Thank you for listening. May God bless you and bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Do people follow titles, or do they follow courage? What role does integrity play in the essence of true leadership? And can the pursuit and defence of justice serve as a harbinger of outstanding leadership? These are timeless questions, their answers woven into the fabric of history.
While titles may bestow authority, they do not define true leadership. History reminds us that it is not rank but resilience, not position but principle, that carves a leader’s place in people’s hearts. Integrity forms the bedrock of genuine leadership, ensuring power is wielded not for personal gain but for a higher cause. And justice—unyielding, unrelenting—is often the mark of those who lead not by words alone but by deeds that shape nations and inspire generations.
Chief Edwin Clark stands as a testament to these ideals. A fearless advocate, a visionary strategist, and a patriot unwavering in his pursuit of justice, he led with courage and an unshakable moral compass. His passing marks the close of an era, but his legacy endures—a guiding light for those who seek to lead with honour, integrity, and an unbreakable commitment to justice.
At the tender age of 24, while at Teachers Training College in Abraka, Edwin Clark’s leadership potential was already evident. He was not one to turn a blind eye to injustice. Even as a student, he was known for leading his peers in addressing issues that affected them and organising press conferences to discuss national matters. This early period laid the groundwork for his lifelong commitment to justice and fighting for the oppressed. His readiness to challenge the status quo and engage in meaningful dialogue set him apart from his peers and highlighted his natural leadership qualities.
Not content with fighting from the sidelines, Clark ventured into active politics. In 1955, he ran as an independent candidate and won as a Councillor, a bold move considering the dominance of political parties. Interestingly, his father also contested and won under the NCNC platform from another ward. Clark’s presence as an independent candidate made him a thorn in the side of party-backed councillors, as he remained steadfast in holding them accountable. This early political experience demonstrated his commitment to challenging the status quo and fighting for what he believed was right. His ability to operate independently of party structures, a rare trait in Nigerian politics, showcased his political courage and deep-seated belief in true representation.
Leadership and courage are often debated—are they inherent traits shaped by one’s environment? In Edwin Clark’s case, his leadership qualities were shaped by strong values, an unwavering belief in justice, and an environment riddled with societal failures. His ability to stand firm in the face of adversity and his relentless pursuit of justice established him as a formidable leader. His resilience and conviction became his defining traits, as he remained undeterred by political, social, or personal obstacles.
Clark’s leadership extended beyond the borders of Nigeria. In 1961, upon his arrival in London to study law, he was elected President of Hans Crescent, a student body of over 200 students from different countries. His re-election for a second term was a testament to his exceptional leadership abilities. He fiercely defended students’ welfare, often taking significant personal risks to ensure their voices were heard. His leadership at Hans Crescent demonstrated his capacity to unite diverse groups, a skill that would prove invaluable throughout his political career.
Clark’s activism was not confined to Nigerian affairs. Despite his admiration for him, he organised a protest against Ghana’s leader, Kwame Nkrumah. Clark believed in calling out injustice wherever it occurred. He had no personal stake in Ghana’s governance but was driven by a sense of shared humanity and justice. This act underscored his commitment to fearless advocacy beyond his national interests. His ability to separate admiration from accountability was rare, reflecting his unwavering commitment to principles over personal affiliations.
As the Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association (Warri branch), Clark took on the challenge of professional misconduct in the legal field. He called for the establishment of an ombudsman to oversee ethical practices. His intolerance for corruption led him to confront friends and colleagues in the legal profession, highlighting his unwavering principles. This period solidified his reputation as an anti-corruption activist. His pursuit of ethical standards in the legal profession reflected his broader mission to instil integrity in governance and society.
Recognising the power of collective action, Clark initiated several organisations to address national issues. These platforms were crucial in mobilising people, amplifying voices, and influencing public discourse. Some of his notable initiatives include the South-South People’s Conference, the South-South People’s Assembly, the Southern Nigeria People’s Assembly, the Congress for Equality and Change, the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum, and Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF). These organisations were strategically created to address specific challenges and ensure that justice and equity remained part of Nigeria’s political discourse. His ability to galvanise people around common causes demonstrated his visionary leadership and commitment to building coalitions for meaningful change.
Though not the originator of the resource control movement, Clark became one of its most vocal champions. He saw it as a means of achieving economic justice, particularly for the Niger Delta region. Between 1998 and 2021, he held 25 press conferences on the issue, undeterred by opposition from political allies and adversaries. His steadfast advocacy ensured that resource control remained a prominent national conversation. He viewed the equitable distribution of resources as a fundamental issue of justice that could not be compromised.
Clark never shied away from disagreeing with influential figures. Despite his close relationship with President Olusegun Obasanjo, he openly challenged his policies when they contradicted his values. Similarly, he became the leading critic of President Buhari’s administration over lopsided federal appointments. His willingness to speak truth to power, even when it meant losing friendships, underscored his dedication to justice. His ability to maintain friendships while holding firm to his principles was a testament to his diplomatic skills and deep loyalty to the truth.
Beyond individuals, Clark confronted institutions that he believed threatened Nigeria’s stability. He was a vocal critic of the Nigeria Governors Forum, labelling it a danger to national peace. He also fought against corruption in the judiciary, demanding greater accountability in governance. These fearless confrontations positioned him as a moral compass in Nigerian politics. He was never intimidated by the entrenched interests that sought to maintain the status quo, constantly advocating for policies and reforms that would benefit the larger population.
Like Abraham Lincoln, Clark was a leader of integrity, known for his courage in standing up for what was right. He also fought institutions and vices, including the Nigerian judiciary and corruption. Even those who opposed him respected his convictions. He was the kind of leader adversaries preferred as an ally rather than an opponent. His legacy is one of steadfastness, resilience, and an unyielding commitment to justice, values that continue to resonate beyond his lifetime.
Clark’s legacy is one of dedication to Nigeria’s betterment. He remained a steadfast advocate for justice and equity until his final days. His life is a roadmap for aspiring leaders seeking courage and integrity to lead. His journey teaches us that leadership is not about titlenor comfort but the willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.
E K Clark’s life answers the question of whether courage is a function of genetic makeup or the environmental context. It is self-evident that Chief Clark’s courageous leadership has been shaped by his genetic makeup, strong values, and an environment of self-perpetuating injustice and societal failures.
His life challenges the next generation to continue the fight for justice. The lessons he left behind must inspire every Nigerian to work towards a better and more just nation. His contributions to national discourse and governance set a precedent that should be emulated by all who aspire to lead.
Edwin Clark was more than a politician; he was a movement. His courage, integrity, and unwavering commitment to justice made him a beacon of hope in Nigeria’s political landscape. His legacy will inspire future generations to pursue justice, speak truth to power, and lead with unwavering integrity. His story reminds us that one individual’s determination can shape history, and his impact will be felt for generations.
Pa E K Clark was a living example of courage, strategic thinking, patriotism, tenacity, and selflessness. His lifelong example of standing up for what is right and just, as well as the challenge he gave us never to stop working for a better and more just Nigeria, should inspire us every day. His story reminds us that one individual’s determination can shape the course of history, and his impact will be felt for generations to come. In remembering him, we are reminded of the responsibility to build a just and equitable society, standing firm in the face of adversity, just as he did.
Dakuku Peterside, a public sector turnaround expert, public policy analyst and leadership coach, is the author of the forthcoming book, “Leading in a Storm”, a book on crisis leadership.
In five parts, thirteen chapters, six appendices, including an interview; a prologue and an epilogue, he sought to give a definite definition of himself. But, for me, the deepest insight into the person of General Ibrahim Babangida is not in his expensive book (it fetched him billions; I bought a copy for N40,000). The greatest revelation was at the launch of the book in Abuja. His comrade-in-arms and childhood friend, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, revealed that a cleric told them about 80 years ago that Babangida would one day be president of his country.
Now, when you, a seer, tell a child that he would be king one day, the palace cannot be safe until the child becomes man and he becomes king – or he dies. We read exactly that in Shakespeare’s story of the Scottish General, Macbeth. Three witches tell Macbeth that he will be King of Scotland. Macbeth becomes impatient; he kills the reigning king and takes the throne. Because of the security of his throne, paranoia pushes King Macbeth to take other desperate measures. People die; civil war erupts, and more people die. Darkness falls. Please, go back and read again your Macbeth.
My people have several proverbs and sayings on royalty and fate. They say one’s destiny makes one a king but one’s character dethrones one (Orí ẹni ni í fini j’ọba, ìwà èyàn ni í yọ èyàn l’óyè). Like Macbeth, IBB joined the army and rose to become a General. Again, like Macbeth, the Thane of Cawdor prophecy came true for Babangida and he became Chief of Army Staff. Finally, like Macbeth, he became king and pronounced himself president and proceeded to do as Macbeth did until he left almost the Macbeth way. If you had been wondering why the amiable General from Minna chose ‘president’ as his official title, now you know it was in fulfillment of a prophecy.
Babangida once named his heroes: Zulu’s Emperor Chaka and General Hannibal of Carthage. Read again about those Generals, their careers and their exploits, their end. Read page 121 of IBB’s book and decide if you are convinced by his reasons for not answering what all his predecessors answered: Head of State. He says in the book that he chose to be different not because he wanted to copy Turkey’s General Kemal Ataturk or Emperor Chaka the Great. He says he chose to be ‘president’ as a demonstration of his commitment to “our suspended constitution.”
Babangida’s feet walked corridors of power; he befriended, and ‘charmed’ power even before he installed Buhari as Head of State in December 1983. His feet took him, or he took his feet everywhere his inner head (his Ori Inu) could be found. He was intrepid, smooth and daring. I read Shehu Shagari’s autobiography, ‘Beckoned to Serve’ published in 2001: “In late October or early November 1983, Major General Babangida and Colonel Aliyu Mohammed came to the State House to see me and we had a long discussion. They did pay me such visits usually at night long before I became President.” Shagari had that recorded on page 497 of his own autobiography. You are likely to ask what IBB was looking for in Shagari’s home at night. The way Babangida walked hallways of power was the way persons kept awake by destiny walked, restlessly.
In the Foreword to Babangida’s book written by his boss, General Yakubu Gowon, we gain better discernment on the labyrinth called IBB. The older General describes Babangida as “a natural leader but also a devoted follower.” Sun Tzu, in ‘The Art of War’ tells Generals: “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” Is that why President Babangida is read in the book bossing and, at the same time, bowing to his army chief, General Sani Abacha, in double-quick manner? Many commentators have said that his June 12 account is a mesh of courage and cowardice. ‘Abacha did this, Abacha did that but I regrettably take full responsibility for everything that happened’! Here, before you abuse IBB as a General without biceps, know that he did not walk alone. Apart from Murtala Muhammed who came fast and left fast, every military regime we had had its internal tormentor. For Gowon, it was Murtala Muhammed who was both boy and boss to the boss. All accounts say Gowon ruled under Murtala’s shadows until the kingmaker said enough and took the crown from Gowon alias Jack. Read the Gowon/Murtala story in Theophilus Akindele’s ‘Memoir of Mixed Blessings’ – especially the contract controversies. In his own book, Babangida says Murtala Muhammed, in Gowon’s government, “was quite a handful in matters pertaining to control” (page 85). IBB himself played the Murtala role to Muhammadu Buhari, 1984-85. He made the lanky General from Daura sit on the throne then shoved him off the seat because of his “excesses.” It should, therefore, not shock the reader that Abacha was the captain of the ship who allowed IBB to be there until the groom was ready for the bride. Babangida’s ‘A Journey in Service’ tears the mask.
Somewhere in that book, like a river nearing its sea, for whatever reasons, IBB reproduced (introduced) a 1995 interview he granted TELL magazine, and it reads like a summary of the entire IBB story. At a point in the interview, TELL magazine editors remind him of how he dealt ruthlessly with them and their magazine, IBB asks “What happened to TELL? TELL? Seriously, what happened?” He is told that over half a million copies of TELL were seized, and some of the editors speaking with him there were arrested. His response: “You see, when I sat up there, I didn’t know most of these things that happened…At times, the information only reached me later.” If what he said here is true, for a man who boasted that he was trained to dominate his environment, the fact that big things happened in his government without his knowledge could only tell how hopelessly imprisoned people of power could be.
Some people’s luck or escape route is in dying young. One loud example is General Murtala Muhammed. Would he be the hero he is if he had ruled for three, four years? Nigeria would definitively have happened to him. Unlike Murtala, some other people are very lucky to live hard and live long. Babangida is one of such. He is 83 years old. Imagine if he had died when his enemy, Muhammadu Buhari, was president. He would not have made the loud statement he made in Abuja last week! Or worse, if he had died during the June 12 crisis. He lived those bloody moments and validated Musician Odolaye Aremu’s theory that “if we don’t die young, enemies of fifteen years will become our friends.” At his book launch last week, his enemies and friends dropped offerings at his altar. NADECO man, Bola Tinubu, described him as “visionary Babangida.” Gowon in the Foreword declares that “in the post-Civil War period, his (IBB’s) tenure in office is easily the most remarkable.” That is an interesting verdict. Almost five of those post-Civil War years belong to Gowon himself. Some people are very good at scoring own goals.
In language and structure, I find this book by IBB to be very solid and uncomplicated. But, certainly, the most contentious of the content of the book is the June 12 story. And, the author’s treatment of the matter is the most extensive – almost 40 pages. Very unlike IBB, he named his friend, Sani Abacha, as the head of the forces that cancelled the election. But the annulment was just a culmination of a long, dark, bad process triggered by IBB himself long before the election was held. He said he was away in Katsina when Abacha and his boys annulled the election. But IBB came back from Katsina; why didn’t he undo what Abacha did? If he did anything at all, it is not in the book. Instead, what we see are hand-wringing cliches on the annulment and its consequences. The Abacha family is angry, furious; Abiola’s people are not impressed; they wondered why he waited for ‘all’ his witnesses to die before coming out. But what he wrote is no news. What is news is that those facts are directly from IBB himself. Snippets of what he said were in the media of that period. And we heard all sorts of weird things in newsrooms, the scrambling for and partitioning of power. For instance, we heard (or read) that Abacha, one heated meeting day, followed General Joshua Dogonyaro to the toilet and told him: “Let IBB go and we remain.” And Dogonyaro’s reply was “Who are the we?” Soldiers are great followers of Sun Tzu: “in the midst of chaos, there is opportunity.”
Professor Omo Omoruyi was one of the key architects of IBB’s transition programme and, perhaps, the closest to IBB in the dark days of the annulment. In 1999, Omoruyi published ‘The Tale of June 12: The Betrayal of the Democratic Rights of Nigerians’. It is his account of the June 12 tragedy. More than twenty-five years after it was published, I have not read anyone that is mentioned in the book coming out to say the professor lied. So, I take Omoruyi’s account of the pre and post-annulment events as reliable. He claims in his book (page 37) that the June 12 election “was aborted by forces external to its design.” He is more direct on page 257: “General Abacha felt humiliated when General Babangida yielded to the US pressure to order on June 11, 1993 that the June 12 election must go on. From that June 11, General Abacha showed no interest in the matter and waited for when it would crash…It was Lt.-General Alani Akinrinade, a former Chief of Defence Staff and an experienced professional officer, who read the situation right in the interview he granted to reporters in October 1993 when he said that ‘Shonekan is a mask…the masquerade itself is the armed forces and Abacha is the personification of that masquerade.’ See TELL, November 1, 1993. p.25.”
Omoruyi accuses IBB of betraying his country and its people with his disruptive handling of the last leg of the transition programme. He says IBB lost control of the military and the government soon after the election held. He said Babangida was in a fix as of 9.30 p.m. on 21 June, 1993 when he met him. His book (page 162 – 164) quotes the General copiously: “I see disaster for myself and my family. Where do I go from here?” Omoruyi quotes IBB as confirming that Abiola won the election but that “they” would kill him if he allowed the results to stay. Omoruyi wrote further that at the end of that outburst, Babangida made a telling remark. He quotes him as saying “I told you that I am a prisoner. What do I do? I think I need a psychiatrist” (page 171). Two days after all these, the annulment announcement was made via an unsigned, undated paper circulated to the media through the Vice President’s office.
Can we, at this point, ask journalist Nduka Irabor to come out and tell the world who gave him the unsigned annulment statement that he released to the world on 23 June 1993? He can no longer be quiet.
Now, if Abacha emitted such negative vibrations in his government, why did Babangida leave him behind after retiring himself and all service chiefs? IBB offers no cogent reason for this in his ‘A Journey in Service’. Instead, what we read is his admission of “a grave mistake” in retaining Abacha as chairman of the joint Chief of Staff and “as enforcer-in-chief for the new government” of Ernest Shonekan. Omoruyi addresses the same issue better in his own book (page 257): “In response to my question as to who would guard the guards after August 26, 1993, he (Babangida) said he would remove the operational control from him (Abacha) and assign it to Lt.-General Joshua Dogonyaro.” It is interesting that IBB thought that running into Dogonyaro’s fire was a better option to staying in Abacha’s fire. In any case, Abacha sacked Dogonyaro and all other “guards” soon after Babangida stepped aside. The other arms of the IBB boys, he used them to get rid of Shonekan and his Interim National Government (ING). He then cavalierly gave them the tissue paper treatment – he used, dumped and flushed them down the drain.
We saw a convergence of all the forces in Abuja last week. NADECO and the military factions swam in open adultery. They wined and partied and gave the General of Generals a generous pat on the back. One of my university classmates described the Abuja event as “not funny.” Her post to me dripped with so much pain. She told tales of death and dying and suffering. She gave accounts of personal experiences and sacrifices. She felt betrayed.
I begged her to let me include her tears here without mentioning her name: “I watched the launch of the book written by IBB and took a cursory look at the parade of eminent personalities in attendance. I listened to the speeches one after the other and saw them laughing. I was stunned that people therein, one after the other, eulogized IBB. I thought for a moment that I was in another planet or that I had mental issues by asking myself if these people were describing the same events that I witnessed as a 26-year-old spinster living in Lagos and trying to chart a course for the future. Significantly, I remember how I walked from Aguda in company of a friend to queue up and vote at Adebola Street, off Bode Thomas in Surulere, Lagos and walked back home. I remember sitting at the reception of the school of nursing on Awolowo Road waiting to collect my sister’s transcript when an elderly woman fainted on hearing the news of the annulment. I recall her colleagues trying to revive her and crying at the same time that their hope for a better Nigeria had just been dashed. I remember having woken up early one morning to go to work and arriving in Norman Williams in Ikoyi only to realize that Lagos was on lockdown and going back home became an arduous task. I remember getting a ride through the Third Mainland Bridge to Obanikoro and walking back home in Aguda, dodging bullets and escaping area boys who took advantage of the situation. I survived but some did not. What I saw in that hall last week was a mockery of those who died and of those of us who did not die but are yet to recover from the trauma of that period. It is not funny!”
My friend spoke for millions seething helplessly in the dimly lit parlours of their lives. But, there must be a closure, and I think that was what that Abuja gathering thought it was doing. For those who are angry and crying betrayal, I give what I gave my friend – a quote: “Whatever happens, stay alive. Don’t die before you’re dead.” Some say the quote is from English writer, Virginia Woolf; some others credit Polish writer and Nobel Laureate, Olga Tokarczuk. Whoever the writer is between those two ladies gave a valuable advice. “Whatever happens, stay alive.”
Daedalus was a mythical sculptor who lived in Athens. In one desperate moment, the man threw a stone at a bird and killed it; the stone ricocheted and killed a second bird. With the feathers, he and his son created wings with which they escaped from detention in a high tower which they had helped their tormentor to design. That appears to be the objective of General Ibrahim Babangida’s autobiography. To kill many birds with one lone stone. Still all storms; settle all scores; explain all controversies; and they are many: OIC membership, Dele Giwa’s death, Mamman Vatsa’s coup, the C-130 Plane Crash, the Gideon Orkar Coup, June 12; the SAP riots, Gulf Oil Windfall. The author thoroughly explains and analyses these as “challenges of leadership” all across the 420 pages, some from page 203 to 220. But, has he succeeded in getting these cases closed? Dirty water may quench fire but if you want to fight fire, you don’t wear clothes made of dry grass. Has Babangida’s book helped him to calm or further enrage the sea? Well, in Chinua Achebe’s words, it is “morning yet on creation day.”
TODAY, I delight to ask questions, which I expect those closer than me to the affected scene of activity to answer. The rumblings in Ondo state, though multi-faceted, are in two broad categories – security of life and property and cloak-and-dagger struggle for power and fleeting relevance by politicians and power blocs. On the security front, Ondo state is not smiling; especially the Owo axis where I come from. Reports from home are to the effect that the activities of Fulani herdsmen and bandits are on the increase again. Dastardly acts committed repeatedly send fear and trepidation down the spine of the people. Farmers are denied access to the farm and neither can women go to the brooks to fetch water. Many fear to travel home these days. The areas of Owo/Ose local governments bordering the neighbouring Edo state are particularly unsafe. Recall that it was here that a first-class traditional ruler was murdered by herdsmen/bandits sometime ago. Another area that is fast becoming too dangerous for comfort is the road leading from Owo to the northernmost part of the state. Kidnappings and killings are said to have become a regular occurrence in the aforementioned parts. What is the government doing about it? And what do you, as a person in the thick of this dark cloud, think can be done both by the government (Federal, State, and Local) and the people themselves?
The rival cult wars that ravaged Owo some months’ back are said to have abated in recent times. The curfew imposed by the state government, though not yet officially lifted, is said to have been relaxed and people have tepidly begun to pick the bits and pieces of their economic life. I heard that cult-related killings have meanwhile stopped, thanks to the efforts of the government and the traditional authorities. I watched a video of the Olowo of Owo leading his chiefs and the town’s people to perform traditional rites and lay curses on cultists, their sponsors and backers. That must have helped. But while the crisis raged, Owo people saw hell in the hands of law enforcers who reportedly took advantage to feather their nests. I understand that so many innocent people were arrested and whisked off to Akure, the state capital, and bail, which officially is free, ranged from between N200,000 and N300,000. People were said to have been arrested right on the pavements, verandas, and balconies of their homes. The suffering was said to have been so much for my people. What do you think? That it serves them right? Or that the government should investigate and bring the culprits to book?
The cloak-and-dagger struggle for power among the politicians and power blocs in the state is a continuation of the confrontation between the pro-Akeredolu and pro-Aiyedatiwa factions. The Gov. Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu faction reigned supreme while their principal was alive and in power but lost out immediately he died. The faction supporting the then deputy governor, Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, fought tooth-and-nail to prevent his impeachment and once he became governor, the pendulum of power tilted in their favour. Power equation is never stationary or stagnant. It is dynamic and shifting; today in someone’s favour, tomorrow in another’s. Like corruption, those who lose power fight back. So, there are many angles to the ongoing fight in Ondo state: Those who are angered that it is no longer business as usual are kicking and splattering mud all over the place. That is understandable, it is in the nature of politics, especially the brand played here.
Spencer Johnson’s “Who moved my cheese” tells it all! Few people have the right orientation on how to respond to change. The person whose cheese is moved is not likely to take kindly to it. As our people will say, no one looks kindly at the person who collects food from one’s mouth! Vengeance on the one hand, and the desire to do the right thing, are thus two ends of the stick. So it is “Boo ba o pa; boo ba o buu l’ese”. Eliminate him/her physically if you are lucky to catch up with him/her; otherwise, ruin his or her integrity irreparably.
The other side of the coin, however, is that there can be no smoke where there has been no fire. That is one of my profession’s firm beliefs. This is the principle that makes reporters follow all leads and take all rumours and allegations seriously, believing that, in the end, something will be unearthed. The more I perused the allegations making the rounds in Ondo state; the more I kept returning to the conclusion of one informed citizen of the state that altruism is neither totally present nor absent in any of them. You might need more than a microscope to glean the ENTIRE truth! Even Jesus Christ did not make light of how arduous the task of separating the wheat from the chaff can be (Matthew 3:12)!
Did you read Chinua Achebe’s “Girls at war?” A 1972 short story, it focused on the essence of survival instinct in the midst of the uncertainties of the Nigerian civil war (1967 – 1970). In Ondo State, high profile “girls” are at war and the focus is survivalist instincts in the slippery terrains of politics. In saner climes, once you serve your term and leave office, you stay away! You hugged the limelight while you were there; now is the turn of other people to do similarly. That is the norm of civilised conduct. The new sheriffs in town must also understand that their stay, too, is for a while. Respect yourself, so that you can be respected. Raking up mud does no one any honour.
Jamaican reggae superstar, Peter Tosh, admonishes those who live in glass houses not to throw stones. Were you in public office? Or are you still there? That is a glass house. You should not throw stones! Hardly can you find anyone who passed through public office without leaving skeletons behind. If you left none of yours, what of those left by family, friends, and aides? So, stop washing your dirty linens in the open. It is not all clothes that are spread out in the sun to dry.
Osun State was on fire last week. It is most unfortunate that this came a few days after the six governors of the South-west had demonstrated exemplary camaraderie, giving great hope that they were in one accord to tackle the twin problems of security of life and property and food security, among others, ravaging the region. If the governors did not have it on their agenda before now, henceforth, it must rank high on their priority list to always discuss ways and means of promoting peaceful resolution of issues within the region; especially since they do not all belong to the same political party.
I have said it repeatedly that a uniform local government system as a so-called third tier of government rammed down everyone’s throat from Abuja is anachronistic and tramples federalism properly so called. Federating units should be at liberty to fashion out the local administration most suited to their needs and peculiarities. Unfortunately, even the states that we have today are not federating units like we had them in the First Republic but are mere creations of the military. But our leaders must obey the law – except they are minded to make a revolution; which I do not object to!
That Mr. A did not follow the law does not mean that Mr. B must retaliate in kind. Two wrongs, as they say, do not make a right. Both sides in the Osun imbroglio should look themselves in the mirror. The law frowns at hand-picked local government chairmen and councillors. They, too, are to be elected like the other two tiers of government (federal and state). Take-over and hand-over must, however, be done under the law. Anything likely to cause a breach of peace and breakdown of law and order must be avoided. Wilful destruction of life and property is an uncivilised conduct that should not be witnessed among us anymore. Court decisions should be obeyed without fail. There are avenues for appeal. Once that is exhausted, the decision of the court should be executed according to law. Where there are disagreements over interpretation – which is the crux of the matter in the Osun case – seek independent counsel and advice. Resorting to self-help is barbaric.
Last week’s crisis of leadership in the Lagos State House of Assembly speaks volumes about cracks in the once formidable APC political machine often touted as impregnable. But now it would appear as if William Butler’s “The Second Coming” has happened to that political fortress that withstood even the assault on it by President Olusegun Obasanjo. Bemoans Butler: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer/Things fall apart/The centre cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” Such was the anarchy loosed upon the Lagos State House of Assembly last week when security operatives were said to have invaded it! But can anyone in his right senses call what happened an invasion when the same House had purportedly written to the security operatives requesting that security around the House be beefed up?
The House might have made a tactical mistake calling on the cat to help watch over its beef. They should have known better than to entrust their destiny in the hands of forces they do not control. Getting them in may be easy but getting them to do exactly what you invited them for may be something else. Throwing them out after you found, to your chagrin, that they were now turning the tables on you, may become even more herculean. The Honourables must have learnt some lesson the hard way last week.
Some analysts say the honourables are fighting a losing battle; another, that they have already lost the battle. How can they ever hope to get away with their “coup”? Can we not liken what is happening to the case of a child who cursed the “Iroko” tree and immediately began to cast curious glances over his shoulder to see what the “Iroko” would do? The elders say the “iroko” is as patient as the vulture. It not only takes its time but also chooses the place and time to strike once it is offended. How many of the “rebels” will be put forward by their party in 2027? A party to the dispute has gone to court; so we are obligated to let the law run its full gamut.
I struggled when I tried to cast a headline for the rumblings in the Lagos State House of Assembly: “Storm in a teacup” or “Bearding the Lion in his lair” Which of the two do you consider more appropriate?
Banning digital assets makes about as much sense as regulating against gravity. How many times did the market dip, back in 2017, on the news that China was banning Bitcoin BTC-0.92%Bitcoin, only to promptly recover at the realization of the notion’s absurdity?
But while Bitcoin is, to all intents and purposes, unbannable, the same can’t be said of central bank digital currencies—digital forms of national currencies issued and regulated by their central banks. In fact, that’s one of their core properties. Otherwise, governments couldn’t put their citizens in the naughty chair when they fall out of line by prohibiting their right to buy groceries.
To be fair, most governments aren’t as heavy-handed as China, with its notorious social credit scoring and rampant surveillance. Instead, they are seeking to develop digital currencies for boring bureaucratic purposes, such as greater administrative efficiency and economic data gathering.
Still, it’s no coincidence that China has been one of the biggest proponents of CBDCs and is racing ahead with its own implementation. And it should, therefore, come as no surprise that the United States, which instinctively inverts every Chinese position, should have canceled its own digital dollar after President Trump laid the banhammer.
There’s a beautiful yin and yang-ness to China banning Bitcoin and the US banning CBDCs. The self-perpetuating cycle is complete. Trump’s decision, like many that emulate from his “shoot first and ask questions later” government, is somewhat reactionary. However, sometimes, shooting first is the smartest thing you can do, and in this case, Trump has hit the target.
America’s digital dollar deserves to be shot down—as do those of every other Western nation. Not because the concept is wrong but because the implementation certainly is. If billions of citizens are going to have their data and financial assets placed on a global database, it’s going to need much better privacy protections than the current proposals offer.
The first domino falls
There are all kinds of ironies wrapped up in Trump’s decision to ban digital dollar. Like his willingness to countenance a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve or endorse a $TRUMP memecoin while simultaneously shunning a digital currency with a potential real-world use case. But even his most vocal critics have had little to say about this mandate.
While the US was by no means the staunchest advocate for a digital currency, with numerous nations much closer to launching their own efforts, the idea was very much on the table until Trump yanked the cloth. In becoming the first President to outright ban a CBDC, he’s tipped a domino that could cause other nations to follow suit, and the reason cited resonates with the people—privacy.
While other Western nations, especially in Europe, like to maintain the impression that they’re nobody’s master, the uncomfortable truth is that US decisions exert a strong pull on EU policy. Thus, America’s curtailing of its own CBDC will inevitably weaken the case for the EU’s digital euro and prompt renewed scrutiny of the purported privacy protections. If the EU wishes to get its own CBDC over the line, it will first need to return to the drawing board.
No privacy, no point
Despite the digital euro being described as being “as private as cash,” this isn’t strictly true. The potential for governments, NGOs, and other shadowy organizations to gain unwarranted insight into citizens’ spending habits—and to censor transactions or “cancel” customers altogether—is very real.
That’s not to suggest that backers of the digital euro are acting out of bad faith necessarily, more out of bad tech. Blockchain evolves fast while the wheels of policymaking turn slow, meaning that by the time digital currency pilots have been greenlit, the underlying tech is already looking tired. As anyone directly involved in web3 will tell you, there are now far better ways to enforce onchain privacy while maintaining compliance—ways that don’t involve placing the privacy of every citizen on a massive database and then broadcasting it for all the world to see.
From ZK proofs to fully homomorphic encryption, privacy standards have become more robust and feature-rich in recent years, allowing for nuanced disclosure of sensitive data without leaving it at risk of exposure to centralized entities and potential malicious actors. Crucially, onchain encryption standards have also become much lighter, allowing for more efficient computation.
Indeed, ZKs and FHE are the sorts of technologies that would be ideally suited to facilitating the outcomes the EU wishes to achieve with its digital euro, such as tiered privacy in which low-value purchases are lightly scrutinized and high-value ones are subject to more intensive checks.
The good news is it’s not too late to remedy this: the digital euro is still at an early stage, with its final implementation still being worked out. There’s time to get this right. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the whirlwind that is the Trump administration, it’s that a lot can be achieved in a month. There’s no need to move fast and break stuff.
But make no mistake, the EU does need to move and signal that its own digital currency will be everything the proposed digital yuans and dollars of the world are not: Secure. Private. Robust. Otherwise, it risks being canceled, just like CBDCs in the US.
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I am grateful to Seyi Sowemimo, SAN, and Abdul Jinadu respectively for taking the time to address matters of historical record from my column of last week. This column this week publishes their rejoinders (modestly edited for economy) without comment.
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My Father Refused to Swear in Muhammadu Buhari after the Coup of 31 December 1983
By Seyi Sowemimo, SAN
I have in recent times come across two posts or write-ups put up by Professor Odinkalu containing some misinformation, which requires correction so that they do not become accepted for all times as the true versions of the events to which they relate.
The first has to do with the events of 31st December 1983 which heralded in the Buhari/Idiagbon Administration. From his account, the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice George Sodeinde Sowemimo GCON (who happens to be my late father) was out of the country at the material time. The Military in his absence then proposed to swear in Justice Aniagolu in his place as Chief Justice but the learned Justice declined the offer.
I have some personal knowledge of the events of that day and it has therefore become necessary to correct some aspects of your narrative. Firstly, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Sowemimo was certainly in the country at that time. What actually happened was that on the night of the coup, the military officers sent the then Secretary to Federal Government, Mr. Gray Longe to CJN’s official residence to invite my father to their gathering at Bonny Camp. In panic, my late mother sent word to me to alert me of the development but happily by the time I got to the house, my father had returned from Bonny Camp.
What happened at Bonny Camp was that the Military Officers requested that my father swear him General Muhammadu Buhari, as the new Head of State and possibly thereafter accompany him to the Television Station where he was to make his maiden Broadcast. The Chief Justice refused and impressed on them the fact that they had by their actions suspended the Constitution and that he could not therefore as the Chief Justice legitimately swear General Buhari as the Head of State. The military officers were persuaded by this explanation and General Buhari thereafter proceeded with the takeover without formality of a swearing-in.
When my father got to Bonny Camp that night, he met some Judges at the venue but their presence has never been fully explained. I, however, believe that if such offer was ever made to Justice Aniagolu it would be easy for me to appreciate his disinclination towards the offer as judges of their ilk were not consumed by ambition and Justice Aniagolu would well have recognized that there were other Justices of the Supreme Court who were senior to him and that an acceptance of such an offer would have created a very awkward situation for the judiciary, especially at the level of the Supreme Court. Anyone familiar with the level of camaraderie which existed amongst the Justices of that Court at the material time will readily appreciate why such an offer would have been spurned.
The second post concerns the compulsory retirement of Hon Justice Yaya Jinadu from the High Court. An aspect of the narrative which is incorrect concerns the claim that Hon. Justice Adefarasin, the then Chief Judge of Lagos State, unilaterally withdrew the Garba case file from Justice Jinadu. The version that I am familiar with is that it was Justice Jinadu who requested that the case file be reassigned to another judge. The Advisory Judicial Council made up of the Chief Justice, the President of the Court of Appeal and several other Justices actually called for the case file and observed for themselves the minutes by Justice Jinadu requesting that the case file be assigned to another judge. It is therefore not correct or fair to give the impression that the case file was unceremoniously withdrawn from him by Justice Adefarasin, the Chief Judge. What infuriated members of the Supreme Military Council was the fact that the Judge had made those false claims against the Chief Judge. This was the background to the compulsory retirement of Justice Yaya Jinadu.
Finally, you described as infamous the judgment of Justice Sowemimo which convicted the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. You referred to the judgment as “infamous”. This characterisation clearly ignores the fact that the judgment was in fact upheld and confirmed unanimously by a panel of five justices of the Supreme Court [in] Michael Omisade & Ors. v. The Queen (1964) 1 All NLR, 23.
The judgment in the Omisade case was in fact preceded by the judgment in the treasonable felony trial of Chief Anthony Enahoro, who was convicted and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by Hon. Justice S.O Lambo on the very same set of facts, two weeks before the judgment in the Awolowo case. Chief Enahoro’s appeal was decided by another set of five Supreme Court Justices, who affirmed his conviction but reduced the sentence from 15 to seven years.
It is unfair in the circumstances to describe the judgment of the trial Court as infamous, considering the fact that 10 reputable Justices of the highest Court upheld the conviction of the accused persons.
Seyi Sowemimo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, practices law in Lagos
My Father was not Compulsorily Retired – A Response to Seyi Sowemimo
By Abdul Jinadu
It was with some sadness that I read a document which had been apparently circulating written by a Mr. Seyi Sowemimo dated 18 February 2025 entitled “Rejoinder to Recent Posts by Professor Chidi Odinkalu” in which the writer professes to address “two posts or write-ups put up by Professor Odinkalu….”
It is ironic that in purporting to correct alleged misinformation, Mr. Sowemimo himself traffics in misinformation and what one may charitably describe as errors of fact. He deals with two issues: the events of 31st December 1983 and the events surrounding my late father, Mr. Justice Yahya Abiodun Olatunde Jinadu’s resignation from the Lagos State High Court bench in 1984.
I have no particular position to take up with Mr. Sowemimo in respect of his first issue as I profess no particular knowledge of the matters which he discusses. However, I suspect that if he approached this first issue with the same standards of veracity and objectivity with which he addresses the second of his issues, Mr. Sowemimo’s account will be found to be somewhat lacking in fidelity to the truth.
I do take a firm position as regards Mr. Sowemimo’s comments regarding my father and the circumstances in which he resigned from the bench. It is lamentable, and perhaps indicative of the standards which currently obtain, that a member of the inner bar would display such poor skills as a legal researcher so as to assert that my father was compulsorily retired. If Mr. Sowemimo had carried out even the most basic research that one would expect of a first year law student at an average university, he would have discovered that my father resigned rather than bow to what he believed, and what history has confirmed, were egregious attempts by the Advisory Judicial Committee to interfere with the independence of the judiciary, all in the service of a military dictatorship. In his resignation letter (it is not clear on what basis one would write a resignation letter if he had been compulsorily retired) my father famously said that he was retiring “to protect his integrity and preserve the independence of the judiciary”.
I would recommend that Mr. Sowemimo search out a copy of the book “A Salute to Courage” written by Richard Akinnola and published by the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s Chambers which contains a more accurate account of the relevant events with reference to primary documents and interviews with some of the key actors. I am happy to provide Mr. Sowemimo with a copy should he so desire. The documents establish that Mr. Justice Adefarasin had unilaterally withdrawn the case file from my father on the instructions of the military dictatorship who were not pleased with the manner in which my father was conducting the trial. My father, long after he had retired, opined that he was aware that there was an attempt to use his court to wrongfully convict an innocent man and conscious of his judicial oath and his obligations as a Muslim mandated in the holy Quran that he abide no injustice particularly when he was appointed to the hallowed position on the bench, he was not going to allow that to happen. In my father’s words, the judiciary was the last hope of the common man.
This year marks the centenary of my father’s birth. He passed away five years ago surrounded by his loving family and confident in the judgment of history as still being the only judge in the history of Nigeria to have resigned on a point of principle.
It would have been a cause of immense sadness to him that an individual from the profession which he so revered and one who is the son of an individual who for a very long time he considered a dear friend would be the one attempting to rewrite history in this rather clumsy fashion. Fortunately, there are individuals alive today such as Alhaji Femi Okunnu SAN, who was one of my father’s closest advisors and confidants when this issue arose, who were first hand witnesses to the events in question.
Abdul Jinadu is a Barrister at Keating Chambers in London
Seplat Energy Plc, an indigenous oil and gas producer, is settling down to business in Akwa Ibom with its successful acquisition of the assets and liabilities of ExxonMobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited last year. It was one of the protracted corporate purchases in Nigeria’s oil industry lasting well over five years. ExxonMobil had operated in the state for over 50 years (It started as Mobil and in November 1999, merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil) and had become an important part of the Akwa Ibom community until it was bought last year for $1.3 billion by Seplat. To make its presence easily felt in the state, Seplat appointed an eminent Akwa Ibom son, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, as its board chairman. Early this year, the chairman led the company on a visit to Governor Umo Eno. I congratulate Senator Udoma on his appointment and I welcome Seplat to Akwa Ibom the state. But I have a few words of advice for the company.
During the visit to the Government House, Senator Udoma told the governor that the company is willing to partner with the government for sustainable development and would ‘’support the socio-economic development of Akwa Ibom State’’ and improve the wellbeing of the host communities. He said ExxonMobil was acquired by a subsidiary of Seplat known as Seplat Energy Offshore Limited, and clarified that the new entity will now be known as Seplat Energy Producing Nigeria Unlimited (SEPNU) and that all assets and liabilities of the previous company would be retained. Gov. Eno welcomed the company and promised cooperation from the government.
The specific roles and contributions of oil companies to the host communities are well spelt out in the Petroleum Industry Act and I am sure that SEPNU will do well to adhere to the provisions of this law and establish healthy relationships with its host communities in particular and Akwa Ibom State as a whole. But there are other items that I wish to bring to the notice of the company in terms of its relationship with Akwa Ibom State. First, ExxonMobil was a very responsible corporate citizen and through its conduct; it endeared itself to the people and the government. It had a lot of Akwa Ibom people in its senior management cadre. My good friend, Udom Inoyo, who is also well known to Senator Udoma, rose from a junior executive position hired in 1989 to the position of Executive Vice chairman from where he retired a few ago. There were many other Akwa Ibom sons and daughters in senior positions as geophysicists; engineers; lawyers; HR; finance; communications and IT specialists, etc.
Now, these people are retiring, and I want to advise that SEPNU should replace them with other Akwa Ibom people who are qualified to hold these positions. SEPNU should not make the mistake of replacing them with people from other places with the hackneyed excuse that ‘’there’s no qualified Akwa Ibom person for the job’’. I have heard such silly excuses from other companies, and I believe that with Senator Udoma as chairman, Seplat will not insult our people with a similar justification. In fact, SEPNU may have to draw up an affirmative action to ensure the employment of our people in all cadres; with at least two Akwa Ibom people in executive positions. There are many qualified Akwa Ibom persons and they are capable of competing for any position in the company. Akwa Ibom people will resist every attempt at cleansing out our people who were hired, trained and groomed by ExxonMobil from SEPNU.
ExxonMobil had also built and maintained a large pool of competent contractors and service providers from Akwa Ibom State. I imagine that SEPNU will continue to use them and add more to the list in future. In fact, it would be cost-effective for SEPNU to encourage service providers to be located close to QIT instead of mobilizing them from Warri, Lagos or Port Harcourt to its shallow water platforms. In terms of educational intervention, SEPNU should also offer generous scholarships to Akwa Ibom students at various educational institutions. ExxonMobil was also very good at this. The technical training centre built by ExxonMobil in Eket which served as a training facility for the technical staff will have to be upgraded to a full-fledged engineering centre.
ExxonMobil had planned to establish an engineering centre at the University of Uyo, but unfortunately, the plan was not fully realized before it exited the State. An engineering centre is relevant for the Nigerian oil industry as a training facility for the core professionals in civil, mechanical, petroleum and alternative energy engineering. SEPNU may wish to go ahead and either upgrade the training centre to an engineering centre or complete the one ExxonMobil was planning to build at UniUyo as well as continue with the trauma centre it was planning for the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital.
The location of ExxonMobil’s corporate headquarters in Lagos was a major concern to the Akwa Ibom people and the state government. The company resisted pressures from successive governors to relocate to Akwa Ibom despite the incentives and conducive business environment the state offers. As a renowned corporate lawyer, Senator Udoma understands the intricacies of oil politics and he’s in a position to guide Seplat on the issue of headquarters location. Seplat will do well to respect the people; interests and cultures of our people and work to establish mutually beneficial relationships with the people and their government.
I have a word for the host communities and the state government. Undoubtedly, they have their respective roles in making a success of Seplat’s entry to the state. While the PIA authorizes oil companies to pay royalties directly to the host communities, it is the responsibility of the host communities to manage these funds efficiently, and transparently and develop the communities. The monies are not to be shared among community leaders.
The state government is expected to deploy tax revenues and contributions from the oil company to create an enabling environment for the growth of business. I recall that in 2011, ExxonMobil paid N8 billion to the Akwa Ibom government when Godswill Akpabio was governor as its contribution to the repairs and expansion of Eket-Ibeno Road. But quite curiously, the Udom Emmanuel administration that succeeded Akpabio later denied that the money was paid. The denial created quite a furore and resulted in an unfortunate and needless controversy which embarrassed our people, including Akwa Ibom executives in the company. It was enough to discourage future CSR initiatives from the company. The government has a responsibility to manage its resources responsibly and transparently to earn the confidence of the citizens and investors.
I’m pleased at the appointment of Senator Udoma as the Chairman of Seplat. In 2021, I put him and 12 other persons on the cover of my book on the struggle for the abrogation of the onshore-offshore oil dichotomy. As a senator between 1999 and 2007, he fought hard to ensure the abrogation of the obnoxious dichotomy and with that, Akwa Ibom has been receiving billions every month in oil revenues. Senator Udoma is one of the most upright; decent and honest Nigerians. I’m sure that he will protect our interests.
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.