Frustration Of The Babangida Years
BY KUNLE SANYAOLU
AS the hours ticked by into days and weeks, it does appear that the list of presidential aspirants for the 2007 general elections is unwilling to extend beyond three names. Apart from Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar and Buba Marwa, no one else is so far laying any serious claim to the number one seat. Even the South East politicians trying to whimper on their rights to the stool are not united on the issue. Neither are they working on a particular person as a saleable presidential product. Instead, the governors and other moneybags are more interested in themselves, and are simply positioning themselves for the best come 2007. Unfortunately, with as many as three years before the election, governance has come to a standstill for the whole country. Everyone is scheming for a pie in post 2007. As expected in such a scenario, the masses are the ones suffering.
For some reasons, former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) seems to be having more attention in the course of touting the chances of the three aspirants. People are weighing the aspirants and their chances. Babangida may be said to be getting more mention not necessarily on account of his merit but simply on the practicality of his chances, vis-a-vis the Nigerian system of politicking. In this country, particularly since June 12, 1993, no one gets elected into office because he is eminently suited to deliver positive impacts on Nigerians. No. People get elected because they have money or have huge financial backing, which they are willing to expend in return for patronage. In the case of Babangida, he is known to have plenty of money. He was military president for eight long years. It was a period of oil windfall, which came normally through the regular crude oil sale and through the artificially induced gulf war one in Iraq. It was a lot of money, but at the time, the country was all motion and no movement.
Nevertheless, those touting Babangida's chances in 2007 are banking on his money, not his record in terms of concrete performance. That will be almost nil. But Babangida has record of a Maradonna: sleek, cunning, smooth, deceitful and a hidden selfish motive. He dribbled more than 100 million Nigerians for most parts of his tenure as president. He banned politicians, unbanned them and banned them again all in a bid to prolong his stay in power. He succeeded. He had pledged originally to relinquish power in 1989. That was four years earlier in 1985. His apparent commitment to restore normalcy in government was so transparent that Nigerians nursed no reservation. So when he created unnecessary obstacles in the transition programme and used the obstacles as excuse to extend the transition to 1991, only a few Nigerians really saw beyond the fa?ade. Most of us still thought he had genuine intention.
But of course, deceit doesn't last forever. After experimenting with all sorts of electoral options (including option A4) Babangida finally revealed his inability to disengage himself from the spoils of office. He again extended his transition to 2001, by which time, he had played out all his tricks and Nigerians were wiser. Even then, he managed to last till 1993. And that, after annulling the best election ever held in this country. That he has not been pointedly charged to defend the annulment, the years of mismanagement, corruption and neglect is a measure of Babangida's Maradonic ingenuity. Don't ask me how he did it, but it is not beyond his hobnobbing with the powers that be, even before its inception. You must give it to Babangida that he has foresight. He is a military strategist who has brought his training and experience to fashion out political permutation in and out of government. The thinking of his political aides and associates now is that a combination of his money and record of deceit and cunning manipulation is a sure banker to deliver the presidency in 2007. So the associates are all out to advance the course, knowing it will be late for them to partake in Babangida's government unless they start now. In their over-enthusiasm, the associates tend to complicate Babangida's strategy. Why for instance would a campaign director announce that IBB had earmarked N100 billion towards realising his ambition in 2007 Knowing Babangida, no one needs to disclose that information whether it is true or not.
If Nigerians were not generally an impossible and unpredictable lot, they ought not to battle an eyelid over his aspiration. Babangida's aspiration ought not to be more than a wishful thinking. Not unless we want to be reminded, in practical terms, of the frustration of the period between August 27, 1985 and August 26, 1993. It was a period of hope initially. But it would be remembered more for the dashing of the hope, as one dashes raw egg against rock. Babangida killed Nigerians' spirit slowly and systematically. He successfully laid the foundation for the political, economic and social woes plaguing the country now. His successors, including the incumbent, have been building on that foundation, thereby inflicting pains on Nigerians.
Nigerians recall painfully the myriad of occasions when Babangida would, in the thick of obvious problems and restlessness of the country, decide to make a nationwide broadcast. As the minutes ticked by in the broadcast, he would inundate Nigerians with woolly, meaningless rhetoric, high in sound but empty in common sense. Because Nigerians craved then for assurance or re-assurance about their problems, they would stay glued to the television sets until the very end of the broadcast. Then they would realise, time and again, that the broadcast was yet another 419. The president had no interest to even acknowledge their fear and pain, let alone assuage them. He was probably benefiting from the pain. In any event, he inflicted them not in the public interest, but for his selfish interest. The broadcast was simply to bid for time, which he hoped, would make Nigerians forget their pain. It would be too much of a personal sacrifice for him to take the simplest and costless of actions to eliminate that pain.
Babangida in government was a master of diversion. But he was very adept in impressing that he cared; that he was concerned. Invariably, his concern was lopsided. It was hardly for the people. Occasionally, when the pressure became heavy, as manifested, for instance, in the SAP riot - when Nigerians violently protested the harsh economic climate - he would announce the injection of huge public fund supposedly to cushion the effects of a bad policy. As for the policy, it remained. Oh, it may be reformed to accommodate a few more pains for the masses. At the end of the day, the fund would be released, of course, but largely to corrupt pockets. The effect was hardly felt by the needy masses. Again, that system is being fine-tuned by the present Federal Government as could be seen in its handling of fuel price increases.
Babangida was an epitome of dishonesty. He repeatedly told Nigerians he was leaving office. That turned out to be a lie. He never wanted to go. When his secret desire blew out in the open, he pleaded with Nigerians, "honestly I am going." It was a repugnant pleading coming from a president. Yet, at the end of the day, he was hounded out, in tears, having exceeded his welcome. It was Babangida who started using ghost indices to positively assess the performance of the economy. When Nigerians were dying of hunger, disease, inflation and unemployment, Babangida would gleefully announce a geometric increase in gross domestic product (GDP), foreign reserve and use other unverifiable words like 'stability' of the naira, public interest and 'development of Nigeria.'
Merely recalling the Babangida years is a most painful exercise. I can quite understand why many Nigerians disagreed with Wole Soyinka that what IBB needed to do is to first apologise to Nigerians before seriously aspiring for the presidency in 2007. To those Nigerians, IBB's offence could not be forgiven merely by his apologising. He should simply keep off from the political scene. I agree with those pundits. I never pray to live through another set of Babangida years or to risk an assumption that IBB is now wiser and would like to redeem his stained image. It is too risky to accept that assumption. A leopard doesn't change his spot.
