ENGAGEMENTS by Chidi Amuta
Even after three decades of his untidy retreat to his Minna hometown, Babangida never forget the ‘public’ debts he owed to Nigerians. He owed Nigerian history an expose on his turbulent leadership . He owed the Nigerian populace an insight into his personal enigma and enduring charisma. He also owed us a personal perspective on the worrisome things that happened under his watch. Above all things, Babangida owed a personal recompense and reconciliation with Nigeria on the political headache of the June 12 1983 elections.
Through the public outing of his long awaited memoir – A Journey in Service – Babangida has settled nearly all his outstanding liabilities to his fellow citizens. In addition to previously unknown details of ‘what happened’ , he has finally come to a personal resolution of and reconciliation with the outcome of the contentious June 12 election. Abiola won. His election was annulled by Abacha’s hidden hands of limitless power ambition. Nigeria survived. Above all, he (IBB) has survived into ripening old age to look back and tell the story himself. Professional trouble makers and history manglers have been deprived of an opportunity to end the Babangida story in malignant tales.
Three decades is long enough time for a man to exhale after leading a sweltering marathon in Nigeria’s turbulent power waters. It is time enough for actors and spectators to have calmed down and taken a respite . Anger would have turned into resignation. Vengeful partisans would have handed the entire matter over to God in a nation where the divine has the final say in all matters political .
The man of power himself should have reflected on the roads he couldn’t travel and the paths that he and even the angels dreaded to try.
Babangida led us through troubling times and a treacherous landscape of existential problems. The times were hard and the options daunting in every direction. Our treasury was nearly empty as almost all leaders had turned dealers and fled with our common treasure. Our economic dance had no name. Nor could we look money lenders in the face and say: ‘please help a prodigal nation.’
We resolved by public acclaim after nationwide debates to retreat inwards in search of homegrown solutions. Harrowing reform was the name of the only option left. IBB showed us a new path, a hard road never before traveled. A free market economy of citizens chained under martial rule! Capitalism without capital and without freedom , rebuilding an economy under a retreating state and a frightened citizenry,
Babangida has spent three decades and more as one of us. He has watched history roll along. He may have lived through his errors and watched others ride the waves of his triumphs. His ultimate nemesis, Buhari , has come and gone, renaming his major pitfall- June 12- into a historical milestone of political advantage. The nation has learnt new names, new dance steps under new leaders. Wobbly as it is, Nigeria has survived as a democracy.
Despite the passage of time, however, something about Babangida has remained constant. His personal allure, the instant electricity of his name, the countless myths about the kind, gentle and smiling general at once capable of incredible compassion and unequaled humanity but readily credited with unthinkable atrocities. The Machiavellian Prince that left the throne but still elicits love but also compels chilling fear.
Above all, Babangida’s personal attraction and a certain public acknowledgment of his political genius has remained in tact. Politicians seeking national acknowledgment seek him. Those wanting to command access to power levers look for him. Those seeking recognition as political notables pay him homage. Those in want of the magic of political wisdom have made pilgrimage to his Minna home.
His Minna retirement home has remained something of a favourite destination for political pilgrims. Younger political gladiators in search of relevance, older political animals seeking to test their own relevance, regional leaders seeking a national acclaim and audience have gone to seek his blessing. He has remained something of a political oracle and universal counselor.
IBB’S tenure and time with us have remained alive for these years. People did not give up hoping for the story of those days from the man himself. The reasons behind the persistence of demands for a Babangida memoir are many.
The questions that have lingered are mostly about matters unusual that happened in the Babangida days : abnormal ways of dying; difficult ways of surviving and living; coups and runouts of coups and counter coups; impossible rules of governance. And yet, the man at the center of it all was constant, smiling, infinitely humane but stern as the professional warrior he was trained to be.
Rulership under him etched new rules and explored unfamiliar paths. It became a dance, a drama of hard choices: a man in full military gear that insisted strangely on being called ‘president’ without resigning his military commission; the msn who in the storm of the Cold War insisted that Nigeria should go: ‘a little to the right and a little to the left’, a man who enabled elected governors to rule under a martial president; a military ruler who allowed an elected legislature to thrive under ultimate garrison decrees. A master of multiple speak and the wisdom of Delphic ancestry: ‘ we do not know those who will succeed us but we know those who will NOT succeed us’!
The public outing of Babangida’s memoirs – A Journey in Service- is deserving of the national splash we have seen. Everything about IBB is news, sensation and headline. This is for good reason. In the growing pantheon of our former leaders, Babangida elicits the greatest anxiety and much deserved excitement . No memoir of a former leader has been and is likely to be so long awaited.
Why the anxious wait? The man’s actions in power deserve no less. He was an original author of the impossible. An army general who seized power, suspended the constitution but insists on being called President and genuinely in love with presidential democracy. A practicing Moslem who insisted that the ideal Nigerian family size should be a couple with four children. A dictator who ruled by decrees but committed himself to a rigorous democratic reform process. To rule by decree and allow elected local governments, state governors and an elected National Assembly.
The Babangida memoir is therefore a comprehensive answer to many lingering national questions but rendered as a string of varied personal stories of an individual life turned into national history
There are multiple stories in this master tale. The primary personal narrative is about his early life. It is story of a young lad who was orphaned at 14 and for whom school was a surrogate home. It is the story of proceeding to high school in Bida where he became classmates with people with whom his later life and career became intertwined. Gado Nasko, Sani Bello, Sani Sami, Mamman Vatsa, Mohammed Magoro , Garba Duba and others. It is the story of a boy who was good in sports and also had obvious natural leadership qualities. He was greeted by the envy of some peers and the obedience of many mates. These lives became more intertwined as most of these young boys later opted for careers in the military. They were inspired by among others young Capt Yakubu Gowon. They went ahead to head different areas of Nigeria’s military establishment.
The other story is that of his career path in the military, his involvement in the series of military coups that altered the history and course of the nation. His instinct for coups was so ingrained that many observers have said that his ultimate exit from power in 1983 was perhaps a self-inflicted coup .
The major tragic chapter of the IBB story is his combat experience in the civil war. His battlefield injury in
Uzuakoli and subsequent recovery ended in A decision to get married. Easily the most touching aspect of his war story is the breach with colleagues who fought on the Biafran side.
There are sub stories in this narrative that raise the temperature of the story to near tragic catastrophic dimensions. His bare handed encounter to disarm Col. Dimka after the assassination of Murtala Muhammed. There was also his narrow escape and survival following the Orkar coup. These aspects of the IBB story come close to fictional suspense crime stories.
The major story of public interest is Babangida and the drama of power incumbency. In this crucial part, the many unanswered questions come into view. he touching accounts of the death of Dele Giwa, the trial and execution of Mamman Vatsa, the dreadful night of the Orkar coup and the unfortunate crash of the military C-130 aircraft all come together as instances of the bad things that could happen in a season of power.
Babangida renders his account with the consummate ease of a master story teller. The difficult accounts of state action and the unattractive business of policy are made to be readable. He animates the landscape of the story with anecdotes and recollections of the human angle of difficult national decisions. In this memoir, there is hardly any name calling, hardly any contentious arguments. The audience is drawn into serious national issues by the allure of a very human story.
In the end, A Journey in Service becomes a shared experience between a national audience and the author as a heroic figure in a national experience of epic proportions.