By Mobolaji Sanusi
On Thursday, February 21, 2025, despotic retired General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida launched his book titled: “A Journey In Service-An Autobiography.” The book is obviously an attempt to appease almighty God, not any human being.
As he revels in the twilight of his life and with the mindset that he’s currently enjoying an age bracket where going the mortal way is imminent, the fear of eluding aljannah if necessary atonement is forsaken here on earth cannot be overlooked.
At his book presentation that was well attended by all known notable living victims of his misrule in Abuja, the demonic military ruler in Nigeria’s political history, for once , publicly expressed halfhearted contrition to wit: “I regret June 12. I accept full responsibility for the decisions taken and June 12 happened under my watch. Mistakes, missteps happened in quick succession. That accident of history is most regrettable. The nation is entitled to expect my expression of regret.”
With those carefully crafted words in Babangida’s usual deceptive language come a sense of nostalgic feelings about an avoidable act of a military power monger that threw the country into a yet-to-be-overcome democratic and economic rigmarole.
For Babangida, other power mongers and living creatures, time teaches the value of life but people only change when faced by compelling experience of life’s reality. The dawn of Babangida’s sad reality has arrived during his 83rd birthday celebration. And the truth about the acknowledgment of his criminal annulment of June 12, 1993 Presidential election that Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola convincingly won has just been made by him. He has dodged this reality in his bid to preserve his pride and already badly dented leadership reputation for decades.
In a country with contemporary generation of youths that lacked a veritable sense of their history, the depth of Babangida’s book launch might be taken with levity. To them, it’s not difficult to dismiss it as a routine, frequently embarked upon by political leaders masquerading as authors to garb history in their preferred clothes colour.
What’s not impossible from the foregoing is the likelihood that Niccolo Machiavelli had Babangida and perhaps other Nigerian political gladiators in mind when he opined several decades ago: “Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.” For Nigerians that are old enough when Babangida was an imperial military ruler, the truth that his book launch audience failed to throw on his face is that he is one power-obsessed political monster who ruled this country and nearly ran it politically and economically aground.
With the assemblage of brilliant minds that he surrounded himself with during his imperial reign in power, he espoused astounding policy philosophy that he never embodied empirically. In actual fact, Babangida is an embodiment of the widely known cliche of leading by precept rather than example.
Currently, the stark reality staring IBB in the face is reinforced by the fact that at the apogee of his political power, he failed to trust his instincts which are altruistic messages from his soul. He gleefully succumbed to pleasures of the flesh. And with his conscience giving him sleepless nights over his misrule over Nigeria and especially misdeeds to MKO Abiola, he has now grudgingly through his autobiography come out to half heartedly confessed the sad truth of how he deprived Nigerians the opportunity of having a president in Abiola that holds, till date, the record of winning an untainted election ever in the anal of presidential elections in this country.
Rather than make direct regrets and pointed plea for forgiveness from his country patriots, IBB was busy passing buck on General Sani Abacha and Aikhomu through his secretary that he claimed released the annulment press statement while away in Katsina state, without his imprimatur. This is despite his knowing that both were not alive to defend themselves.
Unfortunately and obviously in a deliberate strategic timing by Babangida, he ensured that most of those he orchestrated the devilish June 12, 1993 presidential annulment saga with; that could corroborate or debunked his lies including Arthur Nzeribe, Abimbola Davis, , Clement Akpamgbo, Justices Dahiru Saleh and Bassey Ikpeme, Professors Humphrey Nwosu and Omo Omoruyi and more importantly General Sani Abacha and Vice Admiral Augustus Aikhomu are all dead. That is vintage Babangida for young Nigerians to know.
What is actually a take away from the chapter in his book dwelling on his journey to nowhere political transition policy is for Nigerians to stay away from IBB’s deceptively buck passing presentations by his acting like a victim in a problem he willfully created, inflicting indescribable anguish and despair on Nigeria/Nigerians in the process.
IBB, through his gap-toothed deceitful smiles during his rulership of this country was loved but not trusted by millions of discernible Nigerians.
Babangida’s recent confession is a confirmation of Benjamin Franklin’s aphorism that: “Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” The tragedy of IBB’s life and times as military ruler of this country is that he’s getting wise the fact. That is, after his willfully dastard political orchestration.
Alexander the Great once said: “In the end, when it’s all over, all that matters is what you’ve done.” What matters to Nigerians with a dispassionate sense of history is that true statesmanship and reliable leadership are all over for IBB. All that matters to us is not his belated confession but how he unforgettably messed up our political turfs with insincere policies and economic terrain through his insincere foreign induced Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) that led to devaluation of the Naira and abysmal craze for seeking and obtaining looted loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
What is on records is that Nigerians tried to stop IBB’s political transition and economic journey-to-nowhere.
Yours sincerely was at the time on the streets with other patriots to protest against his inimical policies and political abracadabra. Yours sincerely joined other patriotic journalists, writers and activists to write damning articles, editorials in newspapers but the ‘evil genius’ and his team of tyrants ignored us. No wonder that Thomas Paine once admonished that “A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” Babangida and his team foisted themselves on us and held themselves accountable to none of us. Such a ruler’s narrative on June 12 annulment or plea for regret should not be believed.
Despite Babangida’s dubious confession, his being weighed down by the pain of June 12 Presidential Election annulment regrets may yet not abate considering that this also led to his ignominiously being forced to step aside from power nearly 33 years ago.
We can’t easily forget his statement that he was “not only in government but also in power. A statement he made to sternly warn millions that were and are still June 12 Presidential Election devotees protesting against his decision at that time. Babangida was ready to burn this country down even if he was to rule over its ashes with his undeniable obsession for power at that point in history.
Seeing the way that especially victims of Babangida’s destructive torment are heaping glowing praises on him at his book launch, yours sincerely keeps reflecting over what the reactions of late patriots like MKO Abiola, Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Dele Giwa, Kudirat Abiola, Bagauda Kaltho and millions that were martyrs of struggles against Babangida’s tyranny will be in their graves.
This in my humble view is the worst scenario created at the evil genius 83rd birthday book launch. Babangida might take solace in the divine injunction stating that “to err is human but to forgive is divine.”
For most Nigerians with conscience, the injustice of June 12 criminal annulment and the cruel elimination of MKO Abiola can be aptly summed up by the words of Thomas Aquinas to wit: “No evil can be excused because it is done with a good intention,” not even on any phantom national security report. Herein lies the futility of Babangida’s half hearted regret at his book launch.
• Sanusi, a journalist/corporate legal consultant wrote in this piece from Lagos.
