Daily Independent Online.
*
Friday, July 23, 2004.
Even if we were cursed (2)
By Naiwu Osahon
For eight years,
Babangida kept shifting his handing over date and juggling his transition
programme by arbitrarily banning and unbanning politicians, particularly the
known opponents of the military rule. He attempted to compromise some vocal
critics by setting them and those he could not recruit, he sacked where
possible or detained or hounded into exile.
About two years
into his rule in 1987, he announced that he was planning to bequeath a lasting
legacy of civil rule through a gradual learning political process. Four years
into his regime in 1989, he lifted for the first time his ban on partisan
politics and set up two political parastatals. One was called the Social
Democratic Party (SDP) and the other was the National Republican Convention
(NRC). The handing over date to civilian government was postponed once again
from late 1990 to the 1st of October 1992. He allowed elections to be held into
the local governments in 1990 and in 1991 instigated intra-party squabbles to
find excuse to ban 12 of the candidates participating in the governorship
elections. Candidates replacing the disqualified ones had barely one week to
campaign. Elections into the National and State Assemblies miraculously
followed without too much acrimony.
Allegation of
massive rigging was invoked to ban Adamu Ciroma and Shehu Musa Yar Adua who
emerged from party primaries as presidential candidates for the NRC and the SDP
respectively and 21 other presidential aspirants for the scheduled August 1992
presidential election, from participating in all future elections. The trick
was that Babangida was gradually narrowing the field of potential presidential
materials to himself. Remember that Babangida had promised Yar Adua the
Presidency when Yar Adua helped to actualize the 1985 coup that brought
Babangida to power. The ban did not go down well with the political elite in
general and particularly with Yar Adua who had assumed he would take over
leadership from Babangida.
With the bar,
Babangida once again postponed his handing over date from October 1, 1992 to
December 5,1992. Soon after, Babangida mandated the National Electoral
Commission (NEC) to conduct the presidential primaries of the political parties
and again fixed a new date of January 3,1993 for the handing over of the reins
of power to a civilian government.
Bribery,
thuggery, rigging, ethnic cleavages etc ruined the NEC supervised political
parties' presidential primaries resulting in the dissolution of party
executives who were replaced by sole administrators and national co-ordinators.
Handing over date was again postponed to August 27,1993.
Baba Gana
Kingibe, who was the SDP chairman before the dissolution of the party
executives, and was now supposed to be managing the affairs of Yar Adua, was
alleged to have received Babangida's backing and financial support to aspire as
presidential candidate obviously to cause confusion in Yar Adua's political
camp. Kingibe pasted his campaign posters all over the place, causing bad blood
between himself and Yar Adua, which spilled into the Jos SDP convention of
1993.
In the meantime,
Babangida was busy creating anarchy in the ranks of the politicians by
introducing his modified open ballot system and insisting that presidential
aspirants go through tedious ward, local government and state congresses. This
eventually produced two presidential aspirants for each of the states plus two
for the FCT and the unwieldy 62 presidential aspirants had to go through
further elimination processes at various national congresses before the Jos
(SDP) and Port-Harcourt (NRC) conventions of 1993. Several irregularities were
observed at the party conventions and a lot of money changed hands.
Alhaji Bashir
Tofa for the NRC and Bashorun M.K.0 Abiola for the SDP emerged as the
presidential flag bearers. Babangida who was unhappy that progress was being
made in the presidential election process was further pissed-off when his
nominee, Pascal Bafyau, the ex-NLC president, as Abiola's running mate (to spy
on Abiola) was rejected by Abiola. Abiola also upset Yar Adua's calculations by
not accepting Abubakar Atiku as his running mate. Of course, the emergence at
last of promising presidential candidates for both parties was not a very
palatable option for Abacha who was still nursing the dream to succeed
Babangida although pretending he wanted the military regime to end. Abacha
misled Babangida to think of him as a possible ally, so the scenario was set
for Babangida to feel that if he annulled the election, he would have the
support of Abacha, Yar Adua and other perceived, powerful enemies of Abiola.
Babangida, in his
determination to scuttle the presidential election at all costs, promulgated
Decree 13, forbidding the presidential flag bearers of the two political
parties from doing anything whatsoever that would influence members of the
public to vote for them at the election scheduled for June 12,1993. Then
Babangida empowered NEC to disqualify any of the candidates at will and as a
(final) fall back strategy to scuttle our democratic dream; he set up his
Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) party using Senator Arthur Nzeribe as
proxy. On June 10,1993, at the unholy hour of 9.30 pm, the late Justice Ikpeme,
who was appointed a few days earlier and hurriedly transferred from Lagos to
Abuja, granted a court order to the ABN restraining the NEC Chairman Humphrey
Nwosu from conducting the Presidential election on June 12, 1993.
The Director of
the United States Information Service (USIS) in Nigeria at the time, Mr.
O’Brien, warned that the US government would not be happy if the June 12
election was cancelled. Babangida panicked and although he declared O'Brien a
persona non-granta and ordered him out of the country in his personal interest,
Babangida allowed Nwosu to go ahead with the election. The election was adjudged
by the international and local observers monitoring it and even the two
political parties as the fairest and freest in the history of Nigeria. By the
evening of June 14, 1993, more than 50% of the election results had been
authenticated and released by NEC, showing that SDP's Moshood Abiola had swept
the polls.
To everyone's
surprise, Babangida suddenly ordered NEC not to release any more results. On
June 23, 1993, Babangida gave an unsigned statement to Nduka Irabor announcing
the cancellation of the presidential election on the radio. The unsigned
statement was a strategy to allow Babangida to deny its authenticity should
Nigeria begin to boil over the announcement. Nigerians had become too hungry
and docile to react. Babangida annulled the June l2 election entirely on his
own, based on his selfish, personal agenda to rule indefinitely. His immediate
constituency (the military) was vehemently against the annulment. Abacha saw
his opportunity to act and with the backing of the armed forces of Nigeria, warned
Babangida that he would be entirely on his own after the August 27,1993 handing
over date. Even on August 26,1993 when Babangida was to be pulled out in the
military tradition, Babangida played all sorts of pranks to delay the event
from 11.am to 1.00pm to 3.00pm when the Nigerian Army removed Babangida's
guards from the Eagle Square to warn him that his time was up. Babangida put a
makeshift interim contraption in place to conclude what was supposed to be left
of his transition programme and stepped aside as he put it at the time. In less than three months,
Abacha bought in dollars the interim contrivance out of business.
When Obasanjo in
2001 decided to look quietly into the missing NNPC's US$12.4 billion Gulf war
oil windfall linked to Babangida, it was found that the documents pertaining to
the fraud had disappeared from the volts of the Central bank. The brilliant,
highly respected economist, Pius Okigbo, who handled the investigations into
the scam, had private copies. Before he could deliver, he insisted on traveling
to London against strong, wise, private counsel, and he was wasted. However,
Obasanjo is being dishonest over the matter because other members of the Okigbo
panel have copies of the report and are still alive. In any case, what stops Obasanjo
from investigating the stolen money afresh?
Babangida was
ruthless in the way he amassed his colossal wealth. Perhaps you would want to
join me to play the prude accountant, generous with figures. Let's pretend that
Babangida was a General throughout his service years in the Nigerian army.
Again let's assume he spent 30 years in the army and was paid N100,000 monthly
and he saved every kobo of his salary. He would be worth about N35,000,000 plus
interest in the bank today. But Babangida's palatial abode in Minna is a11eged
to be conservatively worth billions of naira. Recently, he threw a wedding
party for his first daughter, which numbed the nation. No one dared to ask
where the money came from to set up such a palatial abode in our jungle of abject
poverty and hunger. Nigerians reveled in the show of shame hoodwinked by the
audacity, the sumptuous food, the ambience, the vulgarity. At least we saw our
fellow Nigerians (albeit a handful of them) living it up on the money that
could have guaranteed millions of Nigerians active, regular employment
indefinitely. Babangida usurped eight years and eight months of the forty-three
years of military rule and still wants to come back to finish us off properly.
If he was honest with himself, he ought to be ashamed for the economic,
political and social mess he has turned Nigeria into. But what do military
Generals care? All our military heads of state were largely insensitive,
corrupt, almost illiterate, self-appointed tyrants who seized their stripes of
honour (dishonour is probably more appropriate) through coups rather than the
rigours of formal training, experience or war.
Each one of the
military heads of state simply got up from bed one chosen morning, pistol on
the hip, jackboots on the ready to besmear our constitution to loot our
treasury to their hearts content. Of course, they soon made up on the job for
their lack of proper war or soldiering experience by detaining, tear gassing,
shooting and bombing citizens protesting against their high-handedness and
misrule.
Everyone of our
coup Generals aspired to be the richest lazy fool in the world sitting like an
over-fed baboon atop the tallest tree in our devastated and rotting vineyard,
savouring their exploits amidst squalor, hunger and decaying corpses. Nature
blessed Nigeria with enviable raw wealth soon squandered by a couple of
selfish, rudderless leaders who pocketed our Central Bank to turn us into the
dust-bin of the West and the laughing stock of the world. The rest of the world
promptly dubbed us the "Big for nothing, senseless giant in the
sun”.
The coup Generals
could not be bothered about our appellation as they busied themselves loading a
plane with foreign currencies to divert to their foreign accounts through
Entebbe, Uganda airport. While Idi Amin was still dazed, scratching his head
wondering if he was in a dream or what, another of our coup Generals pounced on
2.8 billion dollars from the NNPC's account in London and another 2.5 billion
naira from the PTF later, for the icing.
The scene was
thus set for the master dribbler of them all to prove his mettle and he did not
disappoint, scoring bull's eye loot in one swoop, US$12.4 billion. His goggled
friend in crime watched with envy until he snatched his opportunity to hit
payday with over US$5.0 billion, chasing after his mentor's record in power.
While the crooks
were busy looting, the few civilized amenities on the ground disintegrated.
Roads became death traps. Schools stayed closed for two weeks of every month
they opened. The naira was rendered worthless to enhance foreign exchange loot,
causing chronic unemployment, hunger, insecurity and hopelessness. Power
generating plants were sabotaged by the coup General's cronies selling
generating sets. Housing for the people was unheard of and tap-borne water was
a luxury. Manufacturing plants relocated to other lands due to lack of
patronage for their products. The menace of prostitution, armed robbery, 419
fraudsters became unbearable. Living was sheer hell, resulting in the stampede
for visas to escape from our sinking ship of state.
During the first
nine months of Abacha's regime, I wrote a weekly column for the Week-end Punch,
which probably contributed to the closing down of the Punch newspapers at the
time. One of my last pieces published was a study I conducted on hundreds of 5
- 7 year old Nigerian kids. I was shocked by their profound knowledge on
contemporary issues.
Asked if they
liked General Abacha, they all said no. Why? I asked. Some said he was wicked
or that he denied people jobs or that he made parents not to have food for
children. Some said he was always wearing dark goggles. What's wrong with that?
I asked. We can't see his eyes or he is funny and hiding something, some said.
Would they want to be heads of state themselves in future? I asked. One didn't
know what he would be to be in future. Another said: "no because they are
always driving with many cars as if they are rushing to the hospital whipping
and killing people on their way."
The rest said
they want to be heads of state in future because they would have lots of money
or they would be rich and never be hungry. If they want anything, they would
just buy it. But the salary of the head of state is not that much, I said. They
would increase their salaries or they would just take the money they need.
Steal it? I asked. "Yes," they all said. That is the legacy
bequeathed to Nigerians by the coup Generals.
Their penchant
for stealing probably has something to do with their generally low academic
qualifications. Actually, twenty to thirty years ago, only school drop-outs and
stack illiterates were attracted to the army. The army as a career only became
popular to graduates recently because of the exploits of the coup Genera1s in
power.
Many of our coup
Generals did not go beyond elementary school education although later in the
army, they attended two to three days seminars, workshops and field exercises
in India and Sandhust to sharpen their shooting skills. In fact, our dribbler
coup General returned to his elementary school to collect his school
certificate while he was our leader. Suggesting that he didn't pass the first
time around and so had to be obliged when he was President because the
certificate was important to him as evidence of some formal education. Another was
overthrown and he promptly went back to school abroad.
The coup Generals
were stubborn and never pretended to be democrats. For a start, the military
does not train anyone to be a democrat. That is why they allowed universities
to close down for six months at a time and a national strike to drag into the
second week. They envied the guts of the educated and their lowly education
denied them the sense of fairness and guilt.
Nigeria must be
one of the few countries in the world to have experienced a total break down of
services for over a week due to a workers' strike. The scenario was repeated
for three days in early June 2004. Hospitals, airports, markets, schools,
factories, banks, petrol stations, government agencies, telecommunication
facilities all closed down because a coup General cum ballot-box rigger
believed that stubbornness was a virtue. Being an oil marketer himself with one
of his sons supplying the bulk of NNPC's imported refined oil and himself
owning OBAT (ie Ob/At) oil, in partnership with his deputy in government, and
located at his Beachland estate, raising petroleum pump price daily is no more
than a greedy obsession for untrammeled wealth. But what do our leaders want so
much loot for? Has greed no limit? They can't take anything with them when they
die. Their greed for foreign exchange at any price to import refined oil is
responsible for the continuous fall of the naira.
Not too long ago,
this same born-again military-democrat was lampooning the policies of his
military cohorts in power for lack of human kindness. Now we know that what he
meant by human face was to break the back of Nigerian workers striking over his
wicked and arbitrary daily increases in fuel prices the same way he claimed to
have tamed ASUU strikers.
Why do we keep
re-cycling these spent coup Generals who have consistently demonstrated hatred
for our welfare as a people? Even if we were cursed, must we continue to
surrender to it in perpetuity? Of course, the coup Generals have their loot to
rig and buy their way back to power again and again but have we not now reached
the point to say enough and no more? Are we so stupid as to allow them to
return to mess up our lives again for another 43 years? Are they the only
materials available in a country of over one hundred and twenty million people
and parading hundreds of some of the best brains in the world in almost every
field of human endeavour?
I don't know how
we are going to survive the next three or so years. But if by any chance any of
our other retired coup Generals tries to come back after our current political
nightmare, they would not rule over one Nigeria because we are not all a cursed
people. That is for sure.
•Osahon, a renowned poet, wrote in
from Lagos.
