IBB, history and revision

 If he had his way, Nigerians should be eternally grateful to former dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, rtd (IBB). The ex-ruler, who ruled by the oxymoronic title of ‘military president’, saved this country an upheaval of monumental proportions when he arbitrarily annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential poll, and we’ve been flaying him all along because we didn’t know it was a saving act. How gross! Many years on, he angles to be seen as ‘Babangida, the saviour,’ not the fiend as history reckons; and he even savours dubious manoeuvres he adopted in forcing his way on the country. That’s the gist of postulations Babangida made in a recent personality interview on television to commemorate his 80th birthday anniversary that falls due tomorrow, 17th August.

The former military leader had on 24th June, 1993 voided the 12th June election that is now officially reckoned as won by the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola. He became head of state on 27th August, 1985 after displacing in a palace coup the military junta of Major-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari that had overthrown the Second Republic led by President Shehu Shagari on 31st December 1983. Babangida dug his heels into power for all of eight years, and the 12th June, 1993 poll that was to see him out of office was widely regarded – at the time and until now – as the freest and fairest Nigeria ever had. MKO of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) defeated Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC) in results already announced at constituency levels and were being tabulated for formal declaration by the electoral commission in Abuja, when the IBB regime threw in the spanners by way of an unsigned statement of annulment read out on radio. Many broadcast stations impliedly illustrated the universal shock over that announcement by closely trailing it with legendary Sonny Okosuns’s hit track, ‘Which Way, Nigeria?’ 

Following public outcry over the whimsical and anti-democracy high hand, the IBB regime strained to taint the election with unproven allegations of vote-buying and other irregularities that didn’t catch on. Spontaneous and sustained protests and socio-political unrest resulted nationwide from the poll annulment, compelling Babangida to ‘step aside’ on 27th August, 1993. He handed over power to a contraption he called Interim National Government (ING) and on which he installed boardroom czar, the late Chief Ernest Shonekan, as ‘head.’ It was an oddity fully cobbled together by IBB even though he would not be a part of it, and which was forced out apparently as IBB designed it on 17th November, 1993 by the late Gen. Sani Abacha, who returned the country to military dictatorship that lasted another eight years and had no prospects of ending but for his providential death on 8th June, 1998. Abiola himself died in detention on 7th July 1998 in the course of insisting on actualisation of the June 12 mandate.

In 2018, Buhari who now rules as a democratically elected president confronted the facts of history and officially acknowledged the June 12 poll as duly won by Abiola. He conferred Abiola posthumously with Nigeria’s highest honour reserved for heads of state, Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR), and his running mate, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, with the second highest honour, Grand Commander of the Niger (GCON). He as well moved Nigeria’s ‘Democracy Day’ from 29th May, which was the day of inauguration of the present republic, to 12th June in commemoration of the 1993 election. “June 12th, 1993 was the day when Nigerians in millions expressed their democratic will in what was undisputedly the freest, fairest and most peaceful elections since our Independence,” the president said in a statement on 6th June, 2018. “The fact that the outcome of that election was not upheld by the then military government does not detract from the democratic credentials of that process,” he added. 

“IBB never wanted to leave power and was only forced out by Nigerians having had enough of his ‘maradonism’ and standing up to him.”

Asked for explanation on why he voided the 12th June poll, Babangida in an interview on Arise Tv, penultimate weekend, said he did it to save Nigeria a major convulsion. “Do you want me to be honest with you?,” he counter-quizzed his interviewer, and when she nodded, he said:  “If it (the election) materialised (i.e. was given effect), there would have been a coup d’état which could have been violent. That’s all I can confirm. It didn’t happen, thank God for the ‘maradonic’ way we handled you guys in the society. But that could’ve given room for more instability in the country.” Further questioned if the pressure to annul the election was from the military or civilians, Babangida pinned it to both. “The military could do it because they had the weapons to do it, and others (civil society) could use agitation,” he said. By the way, ‘maradonic’ was a coinage from the name of legendary Argentine footballer, the late Maradona, by whom Babangida said he was nicknamed because of his “deft political moves.”

The self-adulatory narrative by IBB riled pro-democracy actors who lashed back, accusing him of turning history on its head. Among many others,  Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, said Babangida never wanted to leave power in the first place and only acted a script towards that predetermined end. Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) and National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) chieftain, Olawale Oshun, said Babangida’s explanation contradicted known stances of many in the military elite of his time who canvassed giving effect to the poll and enthroning democracy. Another Afenifere stalwart, Sola Ebiseni, wondered why Babangida, who was famed for uncovering alleged coup plots before they were activated and dealing retribution including capital punishment to purported suspects, voided the June 12 poll to avert a coup he apparently had inkling of rather than bring suspects preemptively to book as he had always done under his regime. Rights activist and President, Women Arise and Centre for Change, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, said the former dictator’s apologia was not only insulting to the memory of Abiola, but also insulted the sacrifices of those who paid the supreme price in the struggle for actualisation of the June 12 mandate.

Records of history amply exposed IBB’s claims as blatantly revisionistic and an affront on logic. If there was anyone unhappy with Abiola’s prospective presidency as to contemplate violent blowback, it must be Babangida himself and a handful of self-interested collaborators. Results from the June 12 poll showed otherwise. Abiola was a southerner – the first time in Nigeria’s electoral history power was to shift South – and he contested along with Kingibe on a Moslem-Moslem ticket; yet he roundly trumped Tofa, a northerner, who ran with Sylvester Ugoh on a more politically correct Moslem-Christian ticket that the Nigerian electorate apparently didn’t consider to be of importance. In the first batch of results announced by the electoral commission on 14th June, 1993, Abiola won all the states of the Southwest, three of seven states in Ugoh’s Southeast, five of the nine states of the North including Tofa’s home state of Kano, and four of the seven Middle Belt states. Of the 6.6million votes then announced, Abiola had polled 4.3million and Tofa 2.3million; and in the total tally unofficially made public later on, he won 8,341,309 (58.36%) of popular votes to Tofa’s 5,952,087 (41.64%). Where was the disaffection IBB talked about?

Besides, it wasn’t the threat of violent rejection of a possible Abiola presidency that made Babangida tinker endlessly with governance structures of his regime in apparent attempt to make them more appealing and, by obvious implication, enduring. The vote hadn’t held when on 30th August, 1990, he redesignated the No. 2 office in his regime from Chief of General Staff to Vice President; and on 4th June, 1993 when he dissolved the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) and replaced it with the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC). In the same vein, the Council of Ministers was supplanted by the Transitional Council (TC). These are not to mention serial changes to the guidelines and procedures of political transition that many noted as changing the rules in the middle of the game. IBB never wanted to leave power and was only forced out by Nigerians having had enough of his ‘maradonism’ and standing up to him. At 80 years, he should live with that fact and not escape into revisionism.