By BATOS NWADIKE
General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida( IBB) recently launched his memoir in Abuja. He raised good money about seventeen billion naira and clearly delivered his message to the country. He ruled Nigeria as military president for eight years (1985- 1993). He was a very crafty and strong president in power. He created states, empowered the private sector, decentralised banks, built more universities, constructed the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos, built Nicon NOGA hotel in Abuja and moved the capital of Nigeria from Lagos to Abuja amongst many other visible achievement of his era.
He introduced an unending experimentation for the military to hand over power to civilians. He achieved a lot in Nigeria that ordinarily he may have been adjudged the best ruler Nigeria ever had. But he annulled the 12th June 1993 presidential election in which Bashorun MKO Abiola was widely believed to have won and would have been declared elected president by the Nigeria Election Commission(NEC), the body entrusted with election administration in Nigeria. Babangida’s case is that of the proverbial eagle in Igbo parlance that has all the attributes of a beautiful creature but steps down to eat the frog( Ugo mara mma ma na eri awo).
Thirty-two years after the annulment of that election, which was adjudged the freest and fairest election in Nigeria, the contradictions of the annulment bogs and trails IBB. So last week, in his released memoir “A Journey In Service” IBB puts down in book form what happened to June 12. He did not only address the June 12 matter, he addressed the 1966 coup tagged erroneously an Igbo coup. It is instructive to note that much of the hatred, marginalisation, exclusion and sundry ethnic slur that the Igbo experience and face in Nigeria are pointedly traceable to the 15th January 1966 military coup led by an Igbo from Okpanam in Delta state Major Kaduna Chukwuma Nzeogwu. I think IBB has fully rested the matter.
IBB is a lucky man writing this memoir at this juncture in Nigerias history. His peers, contemporaries, have many died. Who to ask? Abacha has died, Abiola has died, Humphrey Nwosu has died, and even Omo Omoruyi has died but God has kept him, IBB, alive to tell this big story of Nigeria in the days before and during his reign as military president. Lucky man!
I don’t really think that only IBB wrote this book. Even though his name is emblazoned on it as the author, and if he did it alone, his acronym really stands out as Maradona. The book can be likened to the immutable song of American super star musicians like Micheal Jackson, Diana Ross, Stave Wonder, Lionel Richee, Madonna et al. In that song, many voices did the song, and it was called, ‘ “We are the World”. In “A Journey In Service” i hear and read many egg heads and juggernauts and rulers imprint in the book. It is like, ‘let us end these dragging forth and nigh in our nation’. The book is like a pacifier of different hurts and healer of different wounds. It may have made a lot of sense if the scope of the book was widened with the title ” We Are Nigeria”
Therefore, it was very evident that the National Democratic Coalition(NADECO) chieftains who were seated at the book launch, such as President Ahmed Bola Tinubu no more cared less about the histrionics of IBB. The major bone of contention that was June 12 had been solved by time. President Buhari had confered Abiola with the highest national award of GCFR reserved for Heads of State. Therefore, Abiola is now in the pantheon of former Heads of State of Nigeria. MKO Abiola’s associate Ahmed Bola Tinubu is today president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. So, why worry! All sections of Nigeria are soothing, from the healing balm of the Nigerian journey since 1960 till, date. We are Nigeria!
Dr. Batos Nwadike( Oyi of Igboland) was the Presidential Candidate if the People’s Mandate Party( PMP) in 2011 elections in Nigeria and writes from the Ozuruigbo Leadership Centre, Umueze Umuorlu, Isu, in Nwangele LGA, Imo state.
