By Ike Abonyi
“A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.” –Edmund Burke
Former [military] President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, fondly called IBB, hit the headlines again ahead of his 80th birthday. He was born in Minna, Niger State, on August 17, 1941. There goes a career soldier whose adventure into and journey through Nigeria’s political landscape left so much for which he is today cherished or vilified.
Whichever you choose, IBB is a man whose history of contributions to Nigeria’s development will take a big space in the annals of the nation. Therefore, it is not surprising that a recent media interview heralding his arrival at the 8th floor of his eventful earthly life is generating uncommon attention. For starters, the present democratic dispensation dating back to 1999 has IBB’s footprints, no matter the angle you chose to view it. The landmark National Assembly structure as well as the Three Arms Zone can only come from a lover of solid foundations.
I first met IBB nearly 30 years ago. Then he was already President, Nigeria’s first junta leader to be so-called by diktat. He had just ousted Major-General Muhammadu Buhari in a bloodless palace coup. Buhari had run six months of directionless military administration, and needed to be removed to pave the way for General Babangida.
Before he emerged as Buhari’s replacement, it was common knowledge that Babangida, as Chief of Army Staff, was the power behind the throne. As a politically clueless Buhari went back and forth with the Major-Gen Muhammadu Buhari rigid and uncompromising in his attitude to issues of national significance. Efforts to make him understand that a diverse polity like Nigeria required recognition and appreciation of differences in both cultural and individual perceptions, only served to aggravate these attitudes.”
In going for Buhari after the December 1983 ouster of civil rule, even though most of his mates knew he was not politically smart, the coup leaders were trying to appease the Fulani elite whose kinsman Shehu Shagari, had just been deposed. No doubt, IBB had a better understanding of Nigeria and all her idiosyncrasies and diversities.
It was, therefore, no surprise that Gen Babangida emerged as one of the nation’s talents in managing diverse Nigeria. As the Assistant Editor in the Lagos office of the Kano-based Triumph newspaper, I was in the team of journalists that went to Dodan Barracks, Lagos, to interview him in the early 1990s. On the panel of that historic interview was Mallam Garba Shehu, current spokesman of President Buhari. Are you surprised? Shehu has been around for a long time and has been a jolly good professional doing his job in the most difficult circumstances. It just happens that now he is unlucky to have a hard sell on President Buhari.
He is not the first presidential “salesman” in that predicament. Dr Reuben Abati was in a similar situation speaking for Dr Goodluck Jonathan, who was the black sheep of the time. Despite the uneasy feeling of belonging to that unenterprising era, here we are. He is today anchoring one of the best current affairs shows on television.
Who knows, by the time Mallam Shehu is done with his current torturous assignment, he might find himself in the next limelight. We should, therefore, not lump all professionals working for and with politicians together and tar all with the same brush. A Wada Nas of the Sani Abacha era or Lai Mohammed of the incumbent regime should be properly isolated for who they are, politicians. With politicians, colours are determined by circumstance, not by any science. In this country, we have watched both Wada Nas and Lai Mohammad defend the indefensible and get away and they call it politics.
For professionals, there is a limit to how they can allow themselves to be dragged into the murky waters of the conscienceless game of politics. Enough of that digressing because this week’s musing is on one of Nigeria’s most charismatic and visionary leaders, Gen Babangida. My first encounter with him left me with an impression of a man who knows political power and what to do with it. That first meeting with him was arranged to appease the Fulani folks who were agitated about the overthrow of one of their own, Buhari. Remember, Gen Babangida and his cohorts, Joshua Dogonyaro, Domkat Bali, and Mamman Vatsa, among others, were non-Fulani.
The proper perception of the regime needed to be “megaphoned” to the Fulani elite and the proper media outlet to do the job was the then vibrant Triumph newspaper owned by the Fulanidominated Kano State government and widely read then in the Muslim North. Triumph also published Hausa and Arabic titles, the Alfijiri and Albasir. When the young, gap-toothed and smiling army general entered the interview room, it was charged with jokes. He tried to relax us to be able to deliver his message. He was so relaxed and down to earth that all of us left Dodan Barracks believing that a change of government was inevitable to save and protect northern interests and move the nation forward.
The Fulani and Muslim elite’s interests were not at all threatened and so much was made clear by IBB. What Gen Babangida became afterwards did not surprise us because close contact with him showed that in him was the modern-day Niccolo Machiavelli. After him, nobody has ever come close to joggling with power as he did in those days. Gen Babangida was a leader that was never afraid of trying out new concepts. He toyed with a number of options in his numerous political arithmetic . Recall his diarchy system of government the first of its kind in the country, and his two party system which he still insists is the best for the country.
Not to forget option A4 voting system and off course the freest and fairest election in Nigeria history, June 12, 1993 which himself bungled by annuling it. Plus the uncountable conferences that kept Nigerians doing what they like-talking It is his use and or non-use of power for good and for the not-so-good that earned him the nickname “Maradona” after the late Argentinian football legend, Diego Maradona, who did everything with the round leather, including scoring against England at the 1986 World Cup with his so-called “hand of God”. In the course of my journalism job in 2016, I came face-to-face with this great general again (now retired) when I led the New Telegraph newspaper editorial team to interview him at the home of our publisher, now Senate Chief Whip Orji Uzo Kalu, for the then-upcoming newspaper that I was nurturing as the Deputy Managing Director.
Not surprisingly, IBB was his jovial self, as usual, with his mental and visual acuity very much intact. In May 2021, I accompanied the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Prince Uche Secondus, to Babangida’s Hilltop, Minna, home in Niger State. As Prince Secondus tried to introduce me, IBB quickly recalled his Dodan Barracks days and said, “These were the young ones who made sure we remained on our toes.” This time, the general was still his usual amiable self, mentally alert but no longer a standing combatant. Confronted by age and associated conditions, the retired career soldier could no longer stand at attention.
Everybody sought a selfie with him as he sat, smiling and cracking up his guests with humour. By Tuesday, August 17, this visionary will clock 80 years. Though unable to be on his feet effectively, IBB still stands as one of the outstanding, made-in-Nigeria statesmen. As the US former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once put it, “The statesman’s duty is to bridge the gap between his nation’s experience and his vision.” IBB in a wide ranging way meets this standards. I liken IBB to Gen George S. Patton, Commander of the famous 7th Army during the Second World War.
The man known as ‘Blood and Guts’ is often associated with great motivating and inspirational speeches to his soldiers. He was once described by the American media as a complicated military figure, but there can be little debate over whether he was quotable.
You like him or not, IBB stands out as one of Nigeria’s most controversial leaders. But there is no debate about his charisma and vision. A leader without vision is like a car without a steering wheel. Happy birthday, great general and leader.
