ACCORDING to an American poet, essayist and accomplished memoirist, Professor Mary Karr, writing on ‘the Art of Memoir’, said that attempting to write one amounts to “knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it’s done right.” The outcome of the public presentation of the long-awaited autobiography by former military president Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) almost resonates with this assertion.
On February 20, 2025, the road leading to the Congress Hall of Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, was trodden by yesterday’s men and women in power, led by the former Nigeria military leader, General Yakubu Gowon. Also in attendance was former President Olusegun Obasanjo who served as the chairman of the occasion. The man who ended the military transition programme, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, with his wife, Justice Fatimah Abdulsalami, was not also left out, just as the man who in 2015 declared that his presidential ambition was not worth the blood of any Nigerian, former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, was not also left out of the ‘Club of Former Presidents’ for the event. Of course, it would been a miracle if former President Muhammadu Buhari, though represented by a former minister, attended the event. The presence of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the capstone of honour accorded to IBB.
Resurrecting Ghosts
In accepting to recount his footprints on the sands of governance, IBB had finally accepted to face the acerbic fusillades of criticism that were bound to trail the account. A week after the presentation of the memoir entitled: ‘A Journey in Service’, the former military president, who accepted full responsibility for the annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election, deviated to name some of the culprits that plotted the cancellation of an election adjudged as the freest and most transparent in the history of Nigeria’s election.
No doubt, the nullification of the 1993 presidential poll and the dynamics that led to its abortion have remained one of the most talked about issues by Nigerians who recalled the destruction of life and property. Apart from hoping that the June 12 crisis would find full exploration in the memoir, in terms going deeper on the matter, the only new information available in the book was the reference to the late head of state General Sani Abacha as the leader of the anti-June 12 camp in the military that had support from the political class. Taking into cognisance some of the reactions from the Abacha camp, especially his children, the dust is not yet settled.
Linking Abacha to the nullification of the presidential poll does not add anything new. The chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) Professor Humphrey Nwosu, had in his front row account on the June 12 debacle made it clear who worked against June 12. Names of the army officers who were involved in the poll never caused deafening hysteria. It only drives the fact that certain truths must not be heard from certain people.
Salvo Of Criticisms
For someone who ruled Nigeria for eight years, heading a military government was not a tea party. IBB, it would be recalled, was not only an officer who bestrode the army as an indistinguishable personnel, he was involved in the civil war and some of the military regimes after being appointed a member of the Supreme Military Council (SMC) by the Murtala/Obasanjo government in July 1975. That he rose to become a military president made it unavoidable to keep a sealed lip over certain national issues. He knows so much of Nigeria and actively participated in determining the direction of the pendulum at the highest level of power.
Unlike Obasanjo who, either willingly or unwillingly, handed power over to civilians in 1979, the IBB years in power have always come under blistering on account of June 12, especially the murder of Dele Giwa, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) controversy and human rights violations, among others. If IBB’s autobiography won’t provide answers to some of these issues, nothing was enough!
It is now obvious that after that public presentation, pro-Biafran agitators found oxygen and may soon head to court to renew their reparation suit that was abandoned during the Oputa Panel. Over 32 years after leaving office, the IBB memoir is about taking the nation down a frenzy slope of national disharmony. For those who had always wanted to pin IBB to some issues, that autobiography provided an opportunity.
Personal Touch
I have had the singular opportunity of sitting with IBB for no less than 10 hours during my five visits to his Minna Hilltop. Some of my understanding on the complex nature of Nigeria’s leadership came out from these meetings. It’s sad that some of the issues we discussed with him were not included in the book. By emphasising on issues that put his regime in bad light, he railroaded his recollections into a hole where his foes had always wanted him to be.
Dialogue and consultation remained one of the cornerstone of the IBB style as was ably manifested in his adoption of the title of ‘President.’ As the military president, he harped on collective decision and that was what manifested in some of the harsh choices he made in some of the issues that have continued to dim his place in history.
If IBB had thought his memoir would change people’s perspectives on his regime, he was mistaken. Leadership is a burden and considering some of the pains suffered by the citizens; it was only expedient that a review of the past be avoided in order not to resurrect the ghosts. For good or bad, the IBB regime remains an enduring paradox that conducted the freest election, but was unable to announce the result and swear in the winner, Chief MKO Abiola.
- Reef, a journalist and public commentator writes from Abuja.
