The only problem here is that delusions can be immensely satisfying. For short periods of time people seem to enjoy turning off their brains and listening to those who assure them that all is well. Such people, like their godfathers, traffic in regimented certainty by believing that a ghost would jump out of the machine to restore the world after their idiotic vision of reality. These political applicants shamelessly confuse self-deception with democratic authenticity.
From the way he is proceeding on his ground-testing adventure of self-reinvention, one thing has become clear for all to see: A favourable biography is Babangida's final purpose in wanting to once more manipulate his way back to Aso Rock. Not service. No! Babangida's evil passion is to desperately seek a proper and befitting right of passage back into our collective consciousness. From his treacherous public career to the anti-climax at Aso Rock when he " stepped aside" in the style of a courageous coward (pardon the pun), Babangida left no new redemptive qualities that can linger in our memory and recommend his tainted credentials to us.
Since the self-styled evil genius stepped aside from a usurped office on August 27, 1995, we have been watching him living in the insecurity offered by the kind of freedom he conferred upon himself in his palatial hilltop abode in Minna, Niger State. Sometimes, this insecurity manifests itself in double-speak, sometimes it manifests in the building of incongruous alliance, and at other times, in lubricated religious hypocrisy and quite explicable sense of grandeur. It is only something that shakes the fragility of one's life support system that could elicit the ritual of self-atonement which Babangida seeks by attempting to force his way back into the political fray.
During his contemptible days in office, nothing about Babangida was moderate. He was tightly drawn; passionately emotional and betrayed a superhuman zeal to conquer and oppress. It was rather ironic that IBB as members of his sterile camp call him most affectionately, could not master the burning passions that ultimately consumed his public career both as a soldier and incompetent politician. Now holed out in Minna like a confused rat garrisoned under the hunter's floodlights, this colourless political dribbler who inflicted enormous collateral damage on the nation's psyche is sending under-cover agents, spin-doctors, persuaders and charm operatives across the land to get feelers for him. Babangida is surprisingly over-exerting pressures on himself to bring neophytes back into conformity with his new evil designs for a nation that is yet to recover from his first adventure into public life.
The painful part of Babangida's obvious charm-offensive is that it is regimented, it is unrepentant and it brims with Napoleonic arrogance to the core. Listening to this deceptive character, watching him on television, reading his hollow interviews in newspapers and magazines gives one the impression of a godlike transcendent figure who is grudgingly condescending to our lowly level by accepting the entreaty of his followers to do us this undeserving favour by agreeing to present himself for the Presidency in 2007!
Listening to the irritating nonsensical defenses by some of his shameless disciples represents a test in patience and civility. Those selectively short-sighted disciples who earnestly ask for Babangida are fair weather birds of passage who regrettably mistake fellowship with him, with faith in Nigeria. It is this brand of measured hypocrisy that is both an expression of and assisting cause in the terminal illness that bedevils public life in Nigeria today. Babangida's sheepish followers betray a sense of being controlled by something they have no power to confront or change. And from that derives sadly this very insignificant man's sense of political invincibility and indispensability on the national stage. It apparently perpetuates the empty myth and rumour of the so-called "Babangida
factor" in the Nigerian society today. Tragically, he appears to be taking this idea of indispensability rather seriously.
By setting himself aside for so long, Babangida had enough time to use his stolen billions in various denominations to charm and lure impoverished VIPs; build underground networks and perpetuate this foolish myth of his indispensability. The farther away he stayed from society at the time, the more fantastic his punctuated profile graduated into mythical proportions. All those sterile "seminars" and "workshops" he generously bankrolled to polish his fragmented image were systematically programmed to benefit him in 2007. Or so he thinks.
What still lingers however are those sad and painful memories of Babangida's deception and double-speak. Nothing more! The fear that resides deep in his being always seems to rise up to shake his little world of reverie and false sense of security. He is a negative influence, and a dinosaur about to preside over his own self- extinction.
Babangida's followers will be treating themselves to a comprehensive passive figment of their own deluded imagination if they believe for a moment that they have the capacity to lift him unto the national stage again via sycophancy. We are not afraid that he wants to (mis) rule us again. The forlon promises that would drive in-between IBB's gap-tooth to reinvent a new heaven and earth for Nigerians must be carefully evaluated against his odious antecedents as the grand patron saint of corruption. This old Maradona is now a Mara-doner. He needs to find out how the original bearer of that name is doing in a Cuban drug rehabilitation centre. If he and his depraved followers are merely testing the political waters, it is our duty to raise a danger signal: "Caution, the water is very deep please".
Again if Babangida is bored of this self imposed insecurity in freedom in his hilltop mansion that cost us so much; if he still wishes to render us any form of service at all, then let him take up humanitarian service at the prisons where he will find Nigerians serving maximum sentences for petty theft. Let him seek atonement in extended services in orphanages he helped to create through his own harsh political and economic policies. Let him sweep the streets and attend to senior citizens abandoned in the various homes for the elderly. Let him serve as an auxiliary nurse in a psychiatric hospital; let him complement the excellent services of guidedogs to the blind. Above all, let Babangida the evil genius invest his wealth in rural agriculture to give himself a human face before us. Otherwise, we may be compelled to slam a 12.4 billion United Dollar bounty on his head come 2007.
Nobody disputes Babangida's right to aspire to any position of his choice in the land. No. His desire to return to the presidency without the aid of an armoured tank and an AK-47 is a confirmation of man's innate capacity to choose. The difference is that the much advertised Babangida factor should not and will not constitute any influence on our own choice come 2007 and beyond. "The first step towards the dethronement of terror is the deflation of its hypocritical self-righteousness". Ordinary Nigerians will prescribe Babangida's limits this time around. His challenge is the ultimate battle between good and evil.
Wodi is with the Department of English, University of Port Harcourt
