GUARDIAN

January 26, 2008

IBB Can't Be Serious

Written by Reuben Abati, The Guardian

Retired army General and former Nigerian dictator, Ibrahim Babangida,
the man also popularly known as IBB, "evil genius", and "Maradona"
granted an interview to an internet news site: The Peoples' Magazine/
PointBlank News.com in which he purportedly argued that the government
that he ran between 1985 and 1993 is definitely better than former
President Olusegun Obasanjo's. The text of his interview has been
reproduced widely on the internet and in the local media. IBB
certainly can't be serious and he needs to be told so. His assumptions
ought to be exposed for what they are: hollow revisionism. And of
course this is not the first time that IBB would attempt to rewrite
history. Since his ignominious exit from power in 1993, he and his
many willing agents have tried every trick in the books to white-wash
his image and smuggle him into a nice corner of contemporary Nigerian
history.

This has taken the form of hagiographic books, passed off as
dispassionate intellectual analysis of the IBB era, a seminar
organised in Jos in 2000 titled "The Babangida Regime: Problems and
Perspectives of Interpretation" under the auspices of The Open Press
Limited and The African Centre for Social and Political Research, an
odious attempt in 2007 to sell the former President to Nigerians as a
possible candidate for another shot at the Nigerian Presidency, and
the existence of a stomach-driven coterie of IBB fanatics who cannot
make up their minds as to whether the man is truly a "prince", a
statesman or a "meal ticket". Give it to him: IBB is determined. He
wants a nice mention in Nigerian history. And he is working hard at
erasing whatever bad memories we may have of his eight-year reign as
Nigerian military Head of State.

But we should not give up too. Each time he tries to speak as if he is
addressing an audience of persons without memory, we should stick a
pin in his spin and ruin his balloon of deception. This time around,
IBB's main thesis sounds like something as follows. One, "I may be bad
but Obasanjo is worse". Two, "� am better than Obasanjo and the facts
show this to be true". Three, "inevitably history will be kind to me".
Thus, he wants us to compare and contrast. Of what use is one tyrant
measuring himself against another power-monger? Obasanjo may be going
through a rough patch with the Nigerian people after eight years in
which he missed the opportunity to deepen goodwill and win the people
to his side, but it is not for IBB to say so. He lacks the moral
stature to pontificate on the subject of integrity and good
governance.

Hear him: "What I would probably say is that I ran an administration
for eight years and during those eight years what accrued to the
Federal Government was about N565 billion. That is less than what was
accruing to the Obasanjo government in a year. What they were getting
in one year, we got less in eight years. And I know what we achieved
with that little amount of money in eight years. If I had that kind of
money, maybe we could have gone places. That I am absolutely confident
about and that is number one." No. the General is wrong. The issue is
not about the quantum of money in physical terms. What was the
inflation rate between 1985 and 1993 when he ruled Nigeria? What was
the exchange value of the Naira compared to what it was between 1999
and 2007 under President Obasanjo? By the time he does the
calculations, I leave that to him, it will be so clear that indeed,
Obasanjo did not necessarily get more money. And even if he did, the
question on both sides should be how the funds were managed. IBB
considers himself a better manager of resources. That point cannot be
proven by simply pointing to a difference in figures, using a volatile
Naira and fiscal reality. And by the way, what did he achieve? I shall
return to this presently.

But hear him again: "Number two, the world is made to believe that my
administration institutionalised corruption. Now, we know better who
institutionalised corruption. So, I am grateful to God and may be,
history will eventually vindicate me.... History will give us credit
that every other thing people are talking about concerning reforms
started during my administration" ... If history were a human being,
it would sue IBB for defamation! Let him leave history alone. His
administration not only institutionalised corruption, it is certainly
one of the legacies it passed on to future administrations. I concede
however that the Babangida administration made some serious efforts at
reform. He managed to put together a team of very bright Nigerians who
had great ideas about how to open up the economy. When you read the
IBB governance documents even today, you cannot miss the quality of
thought that went into the design for example of the privatisation
agenda, trade liberalisation etc all of which were the major reforms
carried out under General Babangida.

But two things stood in the way of that administration: corruption and
power abuse. IBB ended up being regarded as the most corrupt leader in
Nigerian history. His economic policies which read so well on paper
failed; rather than activate the policies as development mechanisms,
IBB was more interested in creating a cult of personality which he
sustained recklessly with public funds. When he assumed power, Nigeria
was a rich oil producing nation, by the time he left in 1993, Nigeria
had become the 13th poorest nation in the world. This was the mess
that Obasanjo and the return to democracy was meant to correct, but
Obasanjo, IBB's senior in the army, bungled his own chance or the task
proved too enormous for him. IBB says in the same interview that "we
military men are always very smart". Smart? Always? Between him and
Obasanjo, I wouldn't say so.

IBB Reforms? It was the Babangida administration that introduced a
Structural Adjustment Programme through the back door as it were, and
completely against the wishes of average Nigerians. SAP as it is
otherwise known was a prescription for chaos. It impoverished the
Nigerian people as poverty grew wings and damaged the people's lives.
By the time IBB took over in 1985, Nigerian universities were among
the best in the world. Teachers and students came to Nigeria from all
over the world to teach and study. University lecturers were
confident, the schools were well-equipped.

By the time the IBB government withdrew education subsidy and also
began to victimise the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the
country's education system began to fail. We have not yet recovered
from this. Yes, IBB encouraged the private sector, and under him there
was an explosion in the banking sector. Every family, anyone at all
who had access to the Presidency got a banking licence or an
importation licence. This had no real effect of deepening the economy
but it created a few more millionaires and billionaires and turned the
Nigerian economy into an arena for speculators and middle men. This
was one of the things former President Obasanjo tried to correct when
his government through Soludo's Central Bank introduced a policy of
consolidation in the banking sector.

Who institutionalised corruption? Accountability and transparency were
foreign words under the Babangida administration. IBB was known as a
"generous President" who doled out money at will to buy loyalty.
People flocked around him not because they wanted to make a
contribution to statecraft but more because they were sure of getting
their own share of the national cake. Today, there are many Nigerians
with dubious wealth who will readily boast: "�BB made me." Ask them to
explain what contributions they made to Nigeria, they don't know and
they don't care. Before IBB can speak about integrity, let him answer
questions about the Okigbo panel report. The Pius Okigbo panel
indicted the IBB government for misappropriating the $12. 4 billion
dollars Gulf oil windfall in 1990. Babangida's response was that
"development is about spending money". The Okigbo panel report has
since been declared missing! Under IBB, NNPC accounts were mismanaged.
Because his government was a military government, he was not
accountable to anyone. Indeed, many of the young Governors and ex-
Governors now looting the treasury with reckless abandon are the
children of the IBB era. Under IBB, the average Nigerian was taught
that it was alright to "misapply" public funds! The worst form of
corruption under IBB however was the abuse of power evidenced by the
murder of Dele Giwa, the assault on human rights, and above all the
annulment sf the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. By 1993, IBB had
plunged Nigeria into chaos. Nigeria became a pariah nation. Abacha
came along. The people lost hope. The people's insistence on
democratic rule by 1999 was a cry of anguish against the pain that the
IBB government and its immediate successors had inflicted on the
people.

In 2007, IBB had flown the kite about the possibility of his return to
power as a civilian President. There were billboards all over the
country and campaigns in the media and pretensions about the building
of an IBB political machinery. In his Peoples' Magazine/PointBlank
News.com interview, IBB says the reason he did not eventually run for
President was because "� would not like a situation at my age and
having been the President before, maybe, to now see me competing
against somebody I considered a brother, somebody I considered a
friend." In other words, he shelved his ambition because he did not
want to be seen to be competing against the present President, Umaru
Yar'�dua.

I hasten to say that the main reason IBB hid away in his Minna mansion
was because that gambit exposed the scope of public animus against
him. The entire Nigerian civil society was up against the IBB for 2007
project, with the exception of course of those for whom the campaign
was a meal ticket and an opportunity to be relevant again. The
expression of outrage was widespread. Joe Igbokwe and Peter Claver
Oparah wrote a book titled 2007: The IBB Option. A group of Nigerians
also set up a web site: babangida.com/">againstbabangida.com (still running) which
they describe as a project by CITIZENS FOR NIGERIA... to stop Ibrahim
Babangida from ever ruling Nigeria again." IBB also says one of the
reasons he supported Obasanjo's candidature in 1999 is because the man
cannot be intimidated by the media. Wrong. The Nigerian media at home
and abroad intimidated Obasanjo and forced him to abandon his Third
Term agenda, more or less the same way the media has continued to
intimidate IBB to accept the truth.

That IBB is now one of the public assessors of the Obasanjo government
must be seen by Obasanjo himself as a tragedy of monumental
proportions. Obasanjo is at his lowest depths. He is being kicked by
anyone with a foot. His humiliation is completely self-inflicted.