On Saturday, 17th August, 2024, former PresidentIbrahim Badamasi Babangida will celebrate his 83rdbirthday. This might have an air of inevitability for anyone familiar with his force of character, conviction, patriotism and love of his nation. Not only he has outlived most of his peers, colleagues and eminent detractors, he has also remained indefatigably active up to date, even on wheel-chair. His house has remained a Mecca for political actors seeking some forms of ‘’blessings” or another, even more than 30 years afterstepping aside. IBB’s longevity is especially miraculous despite been pronounced dead uncountable times. He has an unquenchable curiosity that keeps him dynamically engaged with the country, Africa and the world politics. His mind is a heat-seeking weapon that identifies and grapples with the existential challenges of the global world.
Today, just like when he stepped aside in 1993, the mere mention of his name still provokes varied emotions in different people. He remains very much an enigma to twice as many Nigerians. There are some who believe he was more of a reform-oriented leader, even if the changes he sought to achieve in the polity could not be achieved for varying factors. In a nation desperately craving for heroes even as I write, IBB ticked all the right boxes at least for his efforts on that remarkable day if we are to embrace the true definition of the term. Nigerians could not deny his courage nor ignore the uncommon gallantry during his military days that is in plain sight even today. It was in those tragic circumstances that IBB literally introduced himself to Nigerians for the first time. He was later to become the Chief of Army Staff a few years afterwards and subsequently the Military President in quick succession.
Despite being born in analog era, he would ruminateabout the repercussions of the new technology and modern media, and he stills infuses the debate over its uses with his singular philosophical and historical insight. He remains one of the most brilliant and most informed Presidents we ever had in Nigeria. Anyone who has had one-on-one encounter with him, including the print and electronic media, will attest to this. The other secret of IBB’s endurance is his sense of mission. Although he has been caricatured as a cold realist, he is anything but dispassionate. He believes deeply in such arcane concepts as patriotism, loyalty and bipartisanship. It pains him to see the nastiness in today’s public discourse and the seeming collapse of the unity, peace and tolerance irrespective of tribe, region or religion. You can call him names, but not anethnic, regional or religious chauvinist. If he is one, Generals Tunde Ogbeha, Adetunji Olurin, Raji Rasaki, Olagunse Oyinlola, David Mark and host of others wouldn’t have made his core Military loyalists as his inner kitchen cabinet. Despite being a Muslim, Christians made more list as Governors and Ministers in his administration. He is a liberal and a strong believer of merit, know-how and capacity. No any administration in Nigeria that has ever paraded technocrats as did by IBB. We still remember Profs: Olukoye Ransome Kuti, Jubril Aminu, Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa, Sam Oyovbaire, Bolaji Akinyemi, Ben Nwabuze & Akin Mabogunje; Dr’s: Tunji Olagunju, Rilwanu Lukman, Kalu Idika Kalu, SP Chu Okongwu,George Obiozor & M.T Mbu; Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed (Wazirin Jema’a), Clement Akpambo (SAN), Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji (Triple A), Alhaji Shehu Musa, Gray Adetokunbo Longe, Alhaji Abdulkadir Ahmad, Alabo Tonye Gram-Douglas, Prince Bola Ajibola, Alhaji Ahmadu Abubakar, Prince Tony Momoh, Chief Olu Falae, Owelle Gilbert Chikelu, Amb. Bunu Sherrif Musa, Chief Alex Akinyele and many others who served the nation with devotion and dedication.
No single Nigerian leader, either dead or alive, has influenced our national development like IBB, even as he is and still being vilified with malicious manipulations of the press, religious, ethnic and regional odium. He is practically Nigerian human bridge across the Niger. IBB is regarded as one of the most important, much discussed and influential Presidents in history of Nigeria. He is a political intellect, theorist, military strategist and a futurist. He is credited with modernizing the nation and kick-started the economy diversification of Nigeria and helped it become the super-power it is today in Africa. The tragedy of Nigeria has been that those who came after IBB embodied many of the vices that they claimed to deplore. Today, we see how elected political office holders, pro-democrats, activists, youths and journalists holding elected and appointed offices have turned worst than those they labeled “corrupt military dictators” by abusing the trust of their offices, abusing rule of law, abusing judiciary, abusing freedom of speech and mocking the democracy they claim to cherish and yearn for during the military era. It is an undeniable fact that IBB exerted a crucial influence on the development of Nigerian nationalism and he is an exceptional Nigerian ruler that avoided the traditional, regional, authoritarian, anti-Western norms and rhetoric’s.
Babangida is a kind of mind reader, with a breathtaking ability to enter the thinking and feelings of his interlocutor. His actions look optimal today, with the benefit of hindsight. But he always insisted on the conjectural nature of decision making. At the point of decision, the statesman wasn’t sure how things will turn out. Indeed, there is always a strong temptation not to act, rather than to risk acting and being wrong. But most of his decisions taken in the past remainedthe map for many successive administrations. I know that some people cannot be truly objective about hislegacy, but after three decades of stepping aside, many Nigerians especially those who are old enough to remember his efforts to anchor statecraft with consistent principles and an awareness of historical reality. This is the mission he has pursued for the better part of the country, using his razor sharp mind, rare brain, team of technocrats and unflagging energy to serve the country with the physical structures he put in place and that have remained economic assets the country is surviving on.
The annulment of “June 12’’ presidential election will remain troubling conscience on him despite taking personal responsibility for the action and its consequences. However, the annulment of the election altered the direction and providence of our nation’s history. The significant political gladiators that blamed him for annulling the election ended up lobbying and taking appointments as Ministers, Ambassadors and head of agencies immediately after stepping aside. Today, the young politicians from 1999 that emerged as Governors, Ministers, DGs, MDs, ESs, EDs, Special Advisers, Ambassadors, High Commissioners, Senators, House of Reps Members, Commissioners, State Assembly Members, LGA Chairpersons and Councilors all owed their lucks to infamous cancellation of June 12 elections. The annulment paved their ways to attaining political and economic power in the country.
If you fought in our bloody Civil War to keep the nation one; if you still have a bullet lodged in your leg from the same war; and if you walked un-armed into the premises of Radio Nigeria to confront heavily armed coup plotters many of whom may have had too much to drink the previous night; if your predecessors are still struggling to improve on the economic reforms, uniting the country and physical infrastructures he built three decades ago, yes, a generation ago; then we cannot doubt his courage and uncommon patriotism to the nation as he clocks 83.
President Babangida is a man who exhibited both a “mathematical cast of mind” and a “taste for adventure”. Nigerians could not deny his courage nor ignore the uncommon gallantry that was in plain sight even today. How many Nigerians dead or alive have been tested the same way? How many people have been tested with power without any dent? Today, more than ever before, there is an overriding obligation for Nigerians to separate the many myths on the IBB presidency by appreciating the courage so obvious in the reforms he initiated to fix Nigeria for good. As he celebrates 83rd birthday, IBB has remained the very picture of post-presidential charisma, rallying point, dignity, enigma and unifier both in service and retirement. Happy birthday, sir!
Mr. Yahaya writes from Jagbele Quarters, Muye, Niger State.
