Daily Independent Online.
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Monday,July 19, 2004.
Ibb for president: Caveat emptor!
By Lekan Thompson
Clearly, those overzealous but short-sighted Nigerian spin
doctors and self-styled political pundits desperately bent on ramming the
Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) alternative down our throats, have a herculean task in
selling him come 2007.
Does Nigeria suffer such a dearth of talented, educated,
honest and experienced men and women that we have to despondently fall back on
the IBB option in 2007? Why should the fate of Nigeria hinge inexorably on the
return to power of a General with Machiavellian antecedents of guile and bad
faith? Isn’t our democracy being turned into a farce when men of soiled
reputation become our “safest” choice? Does the future of Nigeria
depend crucially on such kakistocratic alternative in 2007?
As one of those Nigerians with sharp, but sad reflection of
the IBB uninspiring legacy, I feel insulted by the on-going campaign by some
self-seeking Nigerians who want to impose his candidature even before the 2007
presidential election whistle is blown. Indeed, one does not doubt
Babangida’s financial muscle to hire the best PR gurus money can buy.
However, these PR pundits are well aware that even public relations has its
limitations, especially in selling a discredited product. In fact, even the
most beautiful girl will have a hard task selling cakes that have gone rancid!
According to a distinguished PR pundit, Irving Smith Kogan,
“…words cannot substitute for deeds, and that salesmanship or
promotion can never replace performance…” He argues further that
“a public relations counsellor cannot, by his efforts alone, make a sick
company well or a bad deed good.”
In the light of the foregoing profound observation by a
leading PR authority, one wonders to what extent IBB’s spin doctors can
conceal the dark history around his political career. It is also true as
another American PR expert noted, that any desperate attempt to sell a bad
product or a discredited individual “is like putting a bandage on a
cancer.” Therefore, no PR campaign, however sophisticated, can obscure
the ugly memory of Gen. Babangida’s tenure. His so-called economic
revolution was ruined by insincerity.
No economic reform could succeed while corruption was
allowed to gnaw at the jugular of the country’s development. While
ordinary Nigerians were repeatedly urged to make sacrifices for the
country’s economic recovery, the regime IBB presided over busied itself
making fortunes for itself at the expense of the ordinary citizens, who were
hopelessly reduced to penurious existence.
Contrary to the objectives of the Structural Adjustment
Programme (SAP), the policy created more paupers out of Nigerians, while the
leadership was feathering its nest on the ruins of the ordinary people. SAP was
so badly and insincerely implemented that it virtually wiped out the middle
class. In fact, even the so-called establishment of the National Directorate of
Employment (NDE) was eventually ruined by massive corruption. While a few
officials made millions for themselves out of NDE funds, the army of the
unemployed youth, for whom the projected was intended, continued to suffer a
bleak and uncertain future.
Who, in his right mind, should expect Nigerians to be proud
of such IBB legacy? The IBB regime was the story of an administration that
regarded honesty, transparency, accountability and incorruptibility as dirty
words in the dictionary of public probity.
Deceiving and misleading his fellow citizens is IBB’s
stock-in-trade, and one doubts whether the old leopard can ever change his
spots. A mention of IBB for the 2007 presidential contest usually pushes our
adrenaline racing. His ambition fills me with anxiety, sometimes even disgust,
because one does not want to go through another mental ordeal of uncertain
future.
What pro-IBB campaigners fail to convince Nigerians,
however, is the credibility of their master. A man who repeatedly frustrated
the publication of the Oputa Human Rights Commission report or the Dr. Pius
Okigbo’s indictment of his regime over the unaccounted N12.4 billion Gulf
War (1990-1991) oil windfall
proceeds, clearly has something to hide. If, indeed, he had nothing to hide, he
would have nothing to fear if the two reports were to see the light of the day.
Gen. Babangida is a prisoner of his own past, and that is
why he is not decisive about his formal declaration to contest in 2007.
His answers to press interviews, including the one he
recently granted the NEWSWATCH magazine, were decidedly evasive as far as the issue of his
ambition is concerned. In fact, the guy is so unsure of himself that he is
reluctant to release money to oil his campaign. Instead, he is said to be
urging his associates and beneficiaries of his rapacious legacy to gamble their
own funds into his campaign. But his fears are well-founded because Nigerians
have the capacity to booby-trap him, taking his money and ditching him in the
end. That may be outfoxing the fox!
Another worrisome point worthy of mention is the fact that
the IBB political legacy, which his supporters so glorify, was a dark chapter
of our national life. He recklessly committed over forty-billion naira of
public funds to a political transition programme, which he never intended to
implement honestly. As a result, Nigeria ended in a cul-de-sac, leading to a
political crisis that almost struck a fatal blow to our national existence. But
as fate would have it, the June 12 crisis of 1993, which he had selfishly
contrived, eventually became his nemesis.
He was forced to abdicate office in August 1993, because the
Frankenstein monster that he created was about to consume him. But even as he
was leaving office, his capacity for deception was still on display. He created
the so-called Interim National Government (ING), headed by a former UACN
Chairman, Chief Ernest Shonekan, in order to fool Nigerians that he did not
intend to remain in office “a day longer than necessary.”
As Mark Anthony said, in Julius Caesar, “the evils that men do, live
after them”. And so shall
IBB’s past haunt him. His past will be our gauge of judging whether to
trust him to run or ruin our country once again. Nigerian voters are no longer
stupid to judge leaders on the basis of hyped up virtues painted of them by
their strategists. On the contrary, Nigerians are now more critically inclined
in the judgment of their leaders.
Credibility is more effective than sophisticated, but
devious public relations shenanigans. Therefore, IBB and his spin doctors have
an uphill task to change the ugly face of the history that pursues him. One man
cannot always succeed in fooling his fellow citizens perpetually. As IBB takes
the plunge by throwing his hat into the ring, Nigerians shall be waiting and
watching to see how he can sell himself to millions of Nigerians disillusioned
by his leadership style. As one British politician noted, “every man is
his own worst enemy, and his own executioner”.
Gen. Babangida’s dark legacy is the noose that may
hang him politically. It remains to be seen whether Nigerians are ready in 2007
to bargain their conscience away, and throw the integrity of individual
candidates to the dogs in the critical decision of who they should vote for.
What makes Nigerians uneasy about IBB’s desperate bid
to recapture power from a nation he once virtually usurped for nine years is
not his military uniform, but his unreliable nature. Uniquely wily and
dangerously manipulative, the return of such man to upset our political apple-cart should justifiably make
Nigerians queasy. Indeed, a man with such malodorous record must be treated
with a long spoon.
Gen. Babangida once said that “history can forgive you
for taking a wrong decision, but cannot forgive you for not taking decision at
all.” He must be reminded, however, that history does not forgive those
leaders who pursue a deliberate policy of ruining the interest of their nation
on the altar of their narrow and egotistical ambitions. The June 12
presidential election of 1993, which would have produced Chief Moshood Abiola
as democratically elected president, was one good example of deliberate
mischief for which history cannot forgive deceitful leaders like Babangida.
• Thompson wrote in from Abuja
