For The record: The Evil Candidate: General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida PART 1

(Apart from Obasanjo, Babangida is the greatest evil ever to befall any
country in the world)-All that Babangida, (nicknamed IBB), has to show
for his over eight years in power in Nigeria, is private colossal
wealth, and the edification of corruption in our body politics. Yes, he
is richer than many African governments and can buy who ever he wants,
but he ruined our lives to reach there.
  The book, The Sink, by Jeffrey Robinson, an American writer, says it
all about Babangida. “Of the $120 billion siphoned out of the Nigerian
treasury into offshore accounts by dishonest politicians, $20 billion
is allegedly traceable to IBB directly as president from 1985 to
1993.”  The World Bank and other international sources of information
put his total loot from the Nigerian treasury at over $35 billion.
 
He is now threatening to use a fraction of his loot to return to power
and a figure of N400 billion has been mentioned by his cronies as his
campaign chest.  We ought to be worrying now about how to survive this
viper’s poisoned food. We are desperately hungry but if we eat, we die
immediately. If we don’t, we die slowly from hunger anyway, terrorized
by the viper’s fang. We are trapped.  We can’t get up to look elsewhere
for food or do anything else.  The evil genius has hijacked our
destiny. 
 
Fortunately, there are still principled, conscientious and patriotic
Nigerians, determined that if they must die, it must not be without a
fight.  Babangida would not return to rule over one Nigeria.  If he
does, lovers of Nigeria would, at least, make Nigeria ungovernable for
him, failing which, they would emigrate.  I would definitely renounce
my citizenship of Nigeria if nothing else.
 
The Yoruba have a proverb about: ‘a person about to be roasted, who
rubs his body with fat and goes to stand by a raging fire.’ This must
have influenced the following remarks on IBB by our popular human
rights lawyer/activist, Mr. Femi Falana: “I am not quite sure that
Nigerians can stop him from exposing himself to ridicule.  He has been
lucky that he is not in jail now.  His coming out to contest will
provide an opportunity for Nigerians to deal with him squarely and
confront him with the annulment of June 12 election, the murder of Dele
Giwa, the Ejigbo tragic plane crash, the destruction of our values as a
people, corruption, and massive violation of human rights.”
M. D. Yusufu, a former Inspector General of police said in Karl Maiers
book, This House has fallen, that: “Babangida went all out to corrupt
society.  Abacha was intimidating people with fear.  With him gone now
you can recover.  But this corruption remains and it is very corrosive
to society.”
 
Professor Akin Oyebode of the University of Lagos law department
describes IBB’s attempt to return to power “as a colossal assault on
the national psyche.  At the end of the debate on the IMF
conditionalities, he clamped on SAP, which was more draconian than the
IMF conditionalities.  Because he has a 50-bedroom house at Minna, he
thinks the world is his oyster.  He latches on the popular yearnings to
launder his image.  He has dirty rotten underwear that he wants to
clean so that people will give him a new improved IBB.  IBB is a bad
statement to the whole world that at the end of the day we again
brought Babangida to the scene.  I don’t want my children to live under
Babangida.  I won’t live under Babangida.”
 
If all he could deliver, as a young man was to loot our treasury dry,
what is he bringing to the table now?  He does not even have the basic
education or the intelligence.  To be an expert at maneuvering a people
and their treasury does not demonstrate intelligence as much as lack of
moral fiber and self-discipline.   Babangida is an empty barrel midget,
robed in threatening vulgar giant frippery of evil exploits. 
 
He lacks respect for democracy and worth of human life.  He killed Dele
Giwa.  He closed down Ogun state radio; Concord, Guardian, Punch and
Sketch newspapers; Newswatch and News magazines, during his time.  He
treated with contempt the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa led Human Rights
Violation Investigation Commission (HRVIC), when summoned to answer
charges on the murder of Dele Giwa.  He also rushed to the court to
prevent the implementation of the report of the Commission as it
affected him. 
 
Perhaps he wants to come back to rule so that he can retire with the
biggest loot in history?  But according to the book: The Sink, and 
International anti-corruption agencies reports, he has achieved that
status already so why does he not want to leave us alone?
 
Speaking obliquely a few months ago in Babangidaspeak, he threatened
that when he would speak on the June 12 annulment issue, Nigeria would
shake to her foundations.  In an interview in late May, 2004, on
Channels TV, Babangida spoke on the June 12 issue, and no feathers were
ruffled.  Instead, Babangida admitted toothy smile and all, that he
made a mistake but that he did it in the interest of Nigeria. 
That was the same argument Mariam Abacha used when asked about her
husband’s loot stashed away in his foreign accounts.  She said her
husband was saving the money for Nigeria. On hindsight, we got some of
the money back didn’t we?  That is more than can be said about
Babangida’s loot and the political turmoil he plunged Nigeria into
since his selfish, irresponsible, June 12 annulment. 
 
On why Babangida ignored all pleas not to kill Mamman Vasta, the master
dribbler said that Vasta’s death was a painful decision for him, but
that he had no choice in the matter, because he was following military
rules, and he did it in the national interest.  But Vasta, his fellow
infantry soldier and childhood friend, was hurriedly killed and his
body dumped in a mass grave on the night of the announcement of his
sentence, (i.e. early morning of 5th March 1986), to prevent last
minute pleas for reprieve.  Acid was poured on the bodies, including
Vasta’s and burnt, so one must ask, was the rush to kill Vasta and burn
his carcass sanctioned too by the military laws?  The whole thing
smacks of envy, apart from being hideous and barbaric. Babangida used
the phantom coup allegation to remove or marginalize the Middle Belt
military top brass in his government. 
 
Babangida said that he brought Obasanjo back to power to stabilize the
polity.  What he was not telling, was the apparent deal between the two
of them not to probe each other in power.  Otherwise, why would
Obasanjo ignore the bigger rogues to vigorously pursue the return of
Abacha’s loot of a mere US$5 billion relatively?
 
Babangida on the Channels‘TV interview said he wants to return to power
to correct Nigerian problems because he has been there before. 
 
The man has no shame.  Our most critical problem as a people is the
rampant and systematic looting of our treasury by our successive
leaders. Babangida was no exception, and he is being accused of the
biggest loot of all, so, is he now saying that he wants to voluntarily
refund whatever he is being accused of diverting from our coffers while
in power?  I have written personally to him before to do this, and he
did not answer.  He does not have to return to power to help Nigeria
pay off her staggering foreign debt. 
 
In a country of over 140 million people, what makes Babangida think he
alone deserves to rule for perhaps seventeen or more years?  What is he
bringing to the table now if he never had it in the first place? Don’t
we deserve better than our past illiterate leaders who could not
differentiate between the national and their private purses?
 
Of all the Nigerian military dictators, Babangida was the most
desperate for power, and for attempting to hold on to it for life,
apart from being the most flamboyant, cunning, callous, ruthless and
deadly, about how they went about achieving their goals.  Babangida
grew on Nigeria slowly and quietly, with a deceptive toothy smile.
 
Babangida first came into serious political reckoning with Buhari’s
misleading coup of December 31st 1983.  In reality, power was seized
for the opportunity to destroy documents relating to the NNPC’s missing
USA$2.8 billion oil money, and punish all those involved in the
unraveling of the scam.  Politicians and critics, including Fela
Anikulapo-Kuti, notorious for clamouring for the exposure of the oil
money rogue Minister of an earlier military epoch, were locked up
without trial. 
 
After consigning the vexatious matters that brought him to power to
administrative oblivion with the help of Shinkafi, his Secret Service
guru, Buhari announced his readiness to quit office.  Idiagbon, as
Buhari’s lieutenant, naturally insisted on taking over as head of state
from his apparently prematurely retiring boss.  Babangida, who was
Chief of Army Staff at the time and a member of the Supreme Military
Council, insisted it was his turn to rule because he had been involved
in virtually every military coup.  The quarrel split the Supreme
Military Council members almost equally behind the two principal
combatants.
 
Akilu had just returned from a military training in India at the time
and Babangida recommended him for appointment as the head of the Secret
Service.  Idiagbon by-passed Akilu and slighted Babangida by not
consulting with him to confirm the new head of the Secret Service from
the army.
 
Gloria Okon was arrested at the Murtala Mohammed Airport trying to
smuggle cocaine out of the country.  Gloria claimed to be a courier for
the family of one of the two high ranking military officers deeply
involved in the Supreme Military Council’s palaver.  Gloria was quickly
smuggled out of the country and a carcass burnt beyond recognition of a
human body, was left in her prison room to deceive the authorities.  As
Gloria’s drama was playing out, Abiola brought a large consignment of
banned newsprint into the country, forcing Idiagbon to insist on the
arrest of Chief M.K.O Abiola.  
 
All sorts of calamitous events kept rolling out at the time, including
the arrest of one Ikuomola for trying to smuggle a large consignment of
cocaine out of the country.   He indicted a son of one of the Dantatas
and they were both tried and sentenced to death.  The Dantata family
mounted pressure on the Supreme Military Council to commute the
sentence to life.  The issue heightened the division among the Supreme
Military Council members, with the Gloria Okon’s high ranking military
benefactor, siding with the Dantatas naturally.
 
Idiagbon insisted that if poor people found with cocaine could be
punished with death sentence, why should the rich and affluent be
spared?  Idiagbon also wanted the lawyer, (a Rivers state chap who had
received some four million naira as legal fees on the case at the
time), to be shot along with the drug barons for benefiting from the
evil.
 
The schism between Idiagbon and Babangida totally paralyzed the Supreme
Military Council and it could no longer function.  Idiagbon forced
compulsory leave on Babangida, under close surveillance with tapped
telephone lines and all. Chief M.K.O Abiola saw the opportunity to save
his neck from the newsprint saga by teaming up with his friend,
Babangida, and he provided the seed money for a coup.
 
Through the facilities of Abiola and the Dantatas, Yar Adua was brought
into the picture to help influence the Saudi Arabian monarch to extend
a special invitation to Idiagbon as a guest of the monarch, to perform
the 1985 Lesser Hajj in Mecca.  Idiagbon felt greatly honoured by the
invitation and took with him to Mecca, most of his supporters on the
splintered Supreme Military Council, including Mamman Vasta.
 
With Idiagbon (who was the head of the Buhari’s regime in every sense
of the word, and was very popular because of his transparent honesty,
patriotism, and discipline), out of the way, Buhari (who was ready to
vacate office anyway), was picked up like a helpless chicken at Doddan
Barracks, and dumped in jail.  Idiagbon, against the coupists’ advice,
returned home a people’s hero, although locked up for several months
too by Babangida.
 
The day after Babangida’s coup, I attacked it on the front page of the
Sunday Punch newspaper, as a ploy by the (IMF and the World Bank) to
marginalize the naira and destroy our economy, and Babangida was
described as a snake by nature and a stooge of the West.  The Editor of
the Sunday Punch and his deputy at the time, Ayo Osintolu, and Bob
Opone, respectively, were suspended from their jobs.  Ayo for six
months and Bob for three.  I was unemployed as usual at the time, so,
Babangida was handicapped about how to deal with me immediately.  I
heard later that I was blacklisted for all future government contracts
and positions, even though my secondary school classmate Rear Admiral
Aikhomu (rtd) eventually became Babangida’s deputy in office.  I never
tried to find out.
 
Because of my reputation as someone you could persuade with superior
argument but impossible to bribe out of his conviction, my best friend
who was like a twin brother to me at the time, Com. Wole Bucknor (rtd),
was detailed to plead with me to drop any further development of the
IBB matter.  Their strategy was to admit to me that my observations
were absolutely correct but that Babangida meant well for Nigeria. 
With Babangida’s antecedence, it was difficult for my friend to
persuade me, but Nigerian newspapers in general at that early stage of
the regime, were a little scared to publish and be damned. 
 
Luckily, it did not take too long for Babangida to begin to reveal his
secret agenda.  He had removed Idiagbon/Buhari from power to douse the
heated allegation at the time about illegal drug links and to help the
IMF/World Bank ruin the naira and open up the Nigerian market as
dumping ground for American and European junk and decadence. The
marginalization of the naira suited Babangida’s Machiavellian streak to
blunt prospects of mass protests with abject poverty, hunger, and basic
survival pre-occupations.   For example, the terroristic power of
massive foreign exchange loot in a private hand, is limitless as a tool
for forcing pauperized populace to acquiesce to the self-perpetuation
antics of a potential despot.
 
Babangida’s first pronouncement in power was to shock the nation by
adopting the civilian title of president.  He did this because of a
secret personal ambition kept to himself, to transit into life
president in the mould of Presidents Nasir of Egypt and Eyadema of
Togo, and also because of his agreement to make Chief Abiola his Vice
President for collaborating over their 1985 coup.  Abacha kicked
against Abiola becoming Vice President because he was eyeing
Babangida’s seat in a possible future coup of his own and wanted to
remain the defacto next in command, in military terms, for eventual
easy take over excuse.  
 
Babangida promised Yar Adua a short-lived military transition after
which he would hand over power to Yar Adua.  That was why Yar Adua kept
boasting during the early stages of Babangida’s regime, that no force
on earth could stop him becoming the next president of Nigeria.  This
prompted Obasanjo’s statement at the time that Yar Adua must have
forgotten something at the state house.
 
Babangida was so single minded, self-centered, and power-drunk, he
single-handedly forced OIC membership on Nigeria without respect for
our supposed religious secularity. He used every means imaginable to
assert his power.  Spiritual, criminal, everything was fair in his
ruthless power game.  The gods of the Marabouts became privileged
guests at Aso Rock, lacing it with severe witchcraft, which was later
vigorously sustained by Abacha. 
 
If the physical failed, the metaphysical was handy in the human blood
bath for power.  Blood was the language in the cultish game for total
control.  Fear gripped the land.  Who was going to be the next victim? 
Life was scary and worthless.  I bet, corridor of power social acolytes
of the time like the Arisekolas, Adedibus and the Akinyeles, could
write blood-cuddling masterpieces on the mysteries of the season. 
Assassinations were rampant, sophisticated and comprehensive,
incorporating bombings and dare-devil forages.  Media houses were burnt
or closed down, and critics of government were murdered, incarcerated
or hounded into exile.  Plane loads of promising young army officers
lost their lives in questionable circumstances.  Others appeared to
have been sacrificed in distant land civil wars. 
 
The Ejigbo military Hercules crash that killed an elite corp. of army
captains and majors returning to their Jaji training base, is a typical
example of the terrible human carnage visited upon us at the time by a
desperate tyrant bent on holding on to power indefinitely at all
costs.  The plane was doctored and it crashed a few seconds after
take-off from the Murtala Mohammed airport.  No rescue attempt was
ordered or made until 24 hours after the crash and even then, the
inadequate facilities of a private company, (Julius Berger), were
relied upon.  Forty-eight hours after the crash, a warm body was still
found suggesting that some lives could have been saved if rescue
operations had commenced minutes after the crash.
 
Apart from the needless assassinations of possible opponents and rivals
for power, there were totally senseless ones too, such as the death of
Murtala Mohammed’s first son immediately after visiting the seat of
power.  It was generously reported in the press at the time.  The
allegation was that during the friendly, private visit, the young man
was asked if he would be prepared to do a job.  The young chap said he
could not say until he was told what the job was.  When told that he
was to help facilitate the elimination of Chief Abiola, the young man
said he couldn’t because Abiola was like a father to him.  The host
then quickly dismissed the suggestion as if it had been a joke and
asked how the young man travelled to the state house.  “By private
car,” the young man said.  “You are going about without security?” the
host asked, pretending to look alarmed, and detailed some security
officers to escort the young man to his Minna destination.  The body of
the young man was later that day found in his car on the route between
the seat of power and Minna.
 
Bongos Ikwe’s son by a girl friend, who later married Oga, also lost
his life in suspicious circumstances. Bongos, in press interviews at
the time, denied knowing his son’s mother who, in fact, is the junior
sister of Bongos’ best friend and music partner on an RKTV programme in
the early 60s.  Despite denials, Bongos’ most popular recorded song ‘O
Mariana’ could not conceal the anguish of the jilted lover. 
 
Perhaps the most stupid, irresponsible and callous murder of them all
was that of Dele Giwa.  The death was a classic example of desperate,
high-handed, dirty and mean, under-the-carpet cover-up state
terrorism. 
 
Dele Giwa‘s problem was that he stumbled on some documents about Gloria
Okon in London and after interviewing her, threatened to publish the
story while allegedly letting it be known that he could be persuaded to
withdraw publication with a cash bribe of US$21m plus N200m. 
Alternatively, he was ready to settle for the position of Information
Minister, which Tony Mommoh was occupying at the time.  Dele Giwa’s
blackmail unfortunately misfired unlike an earlier one involving Mr.
Lawson, the founder of the Nigerian Grail Movement who was alleged to
have been arrested and locked up in London for money laundering
problems.  Mudashiru, the military governor of Lagos state at the time
of Lawson’s travails, was alleged to have stopped the publication of
Lawson’s story by bribing Giwa with the land and C of O of the
Newswatch plaza.
 
Dr. T.C. Nwosu, the renowned Nigerian author, and I, came out in
defense of Mamman Vasta, (when he was arrested for coup plotting), in a
joint statement published as a news item at the time, in the Nigerian
Guardian newspaper.  We said it was a lie to accuse Vasta of trying to
stage a coup to take the IMF conditionalities.  This was the first time
anyone, (civilian or military), would come out openly to defend an
alleged coup plotter in Nigeria, and Vasta who was our friend and
colleague in the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), took our
support to heart, and arranged for some documents on his kangaroo trial
for coup plotting to be smuggled out to us.
 
One of the documents we received was on Gloria Okon.  We could not use
the information in Nigeria at the time because no newspaper would dare
publish it, so I arranged for Ejike Nwankwo, my bosom friend, to take
the documents to his senior brother, Chief Arthur Nwankwo, who was in
political exile in London at the time.  The idea was for Arthur Nwankwo
to have the Gloria Okon’s story published in the Manchester Guardian,
but Arthur decided to delay publication until he could use the immunity
of the Nigerian Senate, which he was aspiring to join in Babangida’s
best time as a member, to make the story public.
Senior members of the Ministry of Information, and of the Daily Times
at the time, and a director of Newswatch, were not totally ignorant
about what was going on in Babangida’s government.  In fact, Abacha at
a point, asked the boss of the Ministry of Information to frame up Dele
Giwa.  The boss being a principled and die-hard journalist, argued that
it was difficult to frame up journalists. 
 
Babangida’s boys went ahead to frame up Giwa anyway.  Three days before
they killed Dele Giwa, Col. A.  K. Togun, the deputy Director of
Babangida’s State Security Service (the SSS), invited Giwa to his
office and accused him of involvement in the importation of arms while
linking Giwa with other persons alleged to be trying to stage a
socialist revolution in Nigeria.  At the meeting, agreement was
reached, and Babangida, through his emissaries, promised to meet Giwa’s
terms. Two days before Giwa’s murder, Akilu allegedly phoned Giwa’s
home to ask for direction because Babangida’s ADC “has something for
him, an invitation or something.”
 
Dele Giwa allegedly invited the overseas editor of Newswatch at the
time to be around. Obviously, Giwa took the president’s promise more
seriously than his colleagues at the Newswatch.  This was why, when
Giwa received the parcel and confirmed that it was from the President,
his guest’s first reaction was to dash off to take cover in the toilet
adjacent to the room where Giwa opened the parcel bomb.   The guest
escaped death by the whiskers and blasted eardrums.  Tagum, when asked
by Airport Correspondents on October 27, 1986, about Giwa’s bombing
inadvertently confirmed the blackmail reason for Giwa’s death when he
said: “We came to a real agreement and one person cannot just come out
and blackmail us.  I am an expert on blackmail.  If a motorcycle man
suddenly dashed in front of a car and the driver kills the motorcycle
man, another motorcycle man who was there would not say the motorcycle
man who dashed in front of the car was wrong.  He would say the driver
killed him, not that he killed himself”
 
Naiwu Osahon renowned author, philosopher of science, mystique, leader of the world Pan-African Movement.

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