A Journey in Service: Afterthought of the ‘Maradona’, say critics as IBB shares June 12 blame
24 February 2025 |
5:05 am
Contrary to the decades-old perception that General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) ushered in the era of a corrupt and moneybag political class, the accused has stated that cleansing the Augean stable to birth a new democracy and country was his primary mission between 1985 and 1993 that his reign lasted.
• June 12: ‘I was outflanked by more formidable forces against civilian rule’
• ‘Annulment was to save Abiola, Nigeria from another civil war’
• ‘Elected governors, corrupt politicians should as well take the blame for June 12 saga’
• Admission is an afterthought, Nigerians, activists react
Contrary to the decades-old perception that General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) ushered in the era of a corrupt and moneybag political class, the accused has stated that cleansing the Augean stable to birth a new democracy and country was his primary mission between 1985 and 1993 that his reign lasted.
In his recently launched memoir, the 83-year-old former Head of State wrote that the political class has always been dodgy and needed to be sanitised by his transition government on the road to returning the country to suitable civil rule.
The mission, according to the author, was informed by lessons learnt in the aftermath of “General Gowon’s perceived error of judgment when he changed an agreed-upon handover date to civil rule in 1975” and General Olusegun Obasanjo’s hurried handover to civilians in 1979 – both of which were mistakes.
Despite his noble intention and extensive work by the transition committee over the spate of five years, IBB, however, with regrets, underestimated the alleged animosity of Sani Abacha and co. to civil rule and their eventual annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election – “without my consent”.
Unimpressed by the veiled self-exoneration in the June 12 turning point in Nigeria’s political history, Nigerians have described IBB’s account as an afterthought that mirrors the ex-military junta’s earned moniker: Maradona of the Machiavellian order.
It will be recalled that Babangida ruled as military president from 1985 when he orchestrated a coup d’état against his military and political arch-rival, Muhammadu Buhari.
With deft manoeuvring that frustrated and banned the established political class, he presided over the turbulent prelude and eventual conduct of the presidential election of June 1993, which unexpectedly recorded a significant display of national unity among Nigerians to elect Moshood Abiola as their president.
The pulsating ray of hope and perceived dawn of a new democratic era was, however, abruptly scuttled by the military government, opening the floodgate of widespread protests that retired IBB in August 1993.
His eight years in power, also known as the Babangida Era, is infamous as one of the most controversial Nigerian political and military history, characterised by a burgeoning political culture of corruption.
In his autobiography, titled: A Journey in Service, Babangida has chapter 12 dedicated to the “Transition to Civil Rule and the June 12 Saga” account of events. He said, with the benefit of clarity that often accompanies hindsight, “Looking back now, the June 12 saga was undeniably the most challenging moment of my life and, in certain respects, one of the most painful. If I had to do it all over, I’d do it differently.”
He recalled that in their determination to ensure that they got things right, “we were convinced as a new administration that we needed to restructure the political terrain in its entirety before handing it over to a politically elected civilian government”.
Besides the activities of the Political Bureau that went around the country to aggregate political views on a viable future, the political cleansing mill led to Decree 25, which extended the ban on political activity to all politicians and public officials, including military and police personnel, who had held political appointments between 1960 and 1983 and had been found guilty of any offence.
There was also a ban from seeking or holding public office for the duration of the transition on those public officers who had held public office but were not guilty of any offence. Finally, under the Decree, all serving and retired military personnel were barred from standing for elective office until after the transition.
Despite the enmity the ban generated, seven years of political experiments, the use of diarchy in the process, free banning and unbanning of politicians, search for the best election system, cancelling and reconducting primaries, shifting ground, and altering the transition date, Babangida said: “one of my biggest mistakes was failing to firmly secure the support and firm commitment of my military colleagues to the Transition programme from the beginning.”
“We completely underestimated the deep opposition to civil rule within the military’s top hierarchy,” he said. Reflecting 32 years later, he believed he could have handled Sani Abacha and the June 12 election outcome differently, doing “more to rein in some of the top military officers opposed to the transition process.”
“But the situation was volatile. As I stated earlier, apart from concerns about my safety, the army was so factionalised I feared that any overtly strong moves on my part could have led to a bloodbath of a military coup. I had sleepless nights, fearful that the situation could even degenerate into a needless civil war,” the general recanted.
His second major mistake was believing, “perhaps naively too, that we could genuinely create a new political class, what we called the ‘new breed’ of politicians, with no links to a discredited past”.
He noted that the plan “to create political parties that were people-oriented and free from the manipulative, overwhelming influences of moneybags and the old big-time politicians” failed, with presidential primary elections “heavily polluted” with the falsification of results that the candidates complained intermittently calling for cancellations, reelections, shift in transition date and indefinite rule by the military.
“However, faced with the circumstances of those moments, as President and Commander-in-Chief, painful as it seemed, I did what was in the country’s best interest, for which I take full responsibility.
“Although I am on record to have stated after the elections that Abiola may not have won the elections, upon deeper reflection and a closer examination of all the available facts, particularly the detailed election results, there was no doubt that MKO Abiola won the June 12 elections.
“Upon closer examination of the original collated figures from the 110,000 polling booths nationwide, it was clear that he satisfied the two main constitutional requirements for winning the Presidential elections, mainly majority votes and geographical spread, having obtained 8,128,720 votes against Tofa’s 5,848,247 votes and securing the mandatory one-third of the votes cast in 28 states of the federation, including Abuja.
“Unfortunately, the forces gathered against him after the June 12 elections were so formidable that I was convinced that if he became President, he would be quickly eliminated by the same very forces who pretended to be his friends.
“While I accept that the unfortunate denial of his mandate amounted to a subversion of the will of the Nigerian people, I was petrified that if Abiola got killed, it could lead to a civil war. Having participated in one civil war, with all its horrors, pains and devastation, I wasn’t prepared to see another,” Babangida said.
But beyond remorse mixed with the blame game, some Nigerians felt that the ‘Maradona’ did outclass himself into the dead-end and should have only himself to blame for the June 12, 1993, tragedy.
Sadiq Abacha, son of former military ruler Sani Abacha, said that he was proud of his father’s legacy, and no amount of diatribe would change that. He said despite constant criticism from Nigerians, history would remember his father as a better leader.
In a social media eulogy, Sadiq asserted that his father was the subject of envy and silent deceit but maintained that distractors would not succeed.
“The man Abacha, you have always been the one they envied with silent deceit. History shall remember you for being a better leader, no matter how much they try to put you down.
“As a son, I am most proud of you today. You indeed are the man they wish they were half of,” he wrote. Human rights advocate and former chairman of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, questioned why Babangida waited until all members of the 1993 Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) had died before portraying himself as a “passenger” in the decision to annul the June 12 presidential election.
Member of the Abiola family, Hafsat Abiola-Costello, however, welcomed the confession by the former military leader, acknowledging that MKO Abiola won the annulled June 12, 1993, presidential election.
Abiola-Costello stated: “For those that kept expressing doubt that Nigerians had spoken so decisively on that day, I’m glad that General IBB’s admission that MKO won the election can now lay the matter to rest.” She added that MKO might have been the symbol of the Hope ’93 campaign, but June 12 was about more than one man; “it was about the promise of Nigeria that would deliver for Nigerians.”
Expressing her disappointment over the annulment, she described it as an unjust action that cut short a historic moment. “It’s sad that such a galvanising statement as the breakthrough vote for MKO should have been truncated by an unjust annulment,” she said.
The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), in a statement by its President, Debo Adeniran, said it received with a heavy heart the admission of the “infamous June 12 notorious fact by the former military ruler.”
“His belated public confessions regarding his role in the illegal annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election is an attempt to hoodwink the unwary Nigerians to believe that the mischievous dictator meant well by the brazen sociopolitical and moral assault he unleashed on them by the inglorious act.
“Although we had viewed the June 12 election as unfair, going by all the shenanigans that preceded the election. These included the prevention of willing political associations from transmuting to political parties; creating political parties for politicians; banning and unbanning eligible politicians from contesting in the election; the creation of political structures, programmes and manifestos for politicians and imposition of alien ideological leanings on Nigerians.
“General Babangida’s belated admission is not only an affront to the principles of democracy and justice but also a clear acknowledgement of his direct involvement in an act that plunged Nigeria into years of political turmoil, civil unrest, loss of lives and properties and inestimable economic hardship. It should, therefore, be regarded as a coup d’état to the administration of M.K.O Abiola, who was robbed in broad daylight and denied the opportunity of savouring his well-deserved victory at the polls.
“In light of this, we call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to immediately order the prosecution of General Babangida for crimes against humanity and for orchestrating a coup d’état that subverted the democratic will of the Nigerian people.
“This prosecution should not be difficult since the chief plotter has confessed to these crimes in public and in writing as published in his bloody book that could have been ‘A Journey into Perdition’ mistitled “A Journey in Service,” it added.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) also accused Babangida of attempting to exonerate himself from the annulment of the June 12, 1993, election fiasco. MURIC Executive Director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, yesterday, said during his autobiography launch, Babangida, popularly known as IBB, did not appear sober and even went a step further to blame others for his regime’s actions.
“Former military head of state, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (rtd), popularly called IBB, presented his memoir titled ‘A Journey In Service’ to the public at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja on Thursday, 20th February, 2025.”
“We of the Muslim Rights Concern hereby totally reject all attempts by the former military dictator to exonerate himself from the annulment of the June 12, 1993, election fiasco. The former dictator should stop blaming others for all that happened. We assert emphatically, unequivocally and categorically that the buck stops at IBB’s table. We reject his alibi.
“We hold IBB responsible for the failure of Nigeria to cultivate a sustainable, visionary and dignifying political culture having annulled the fairest, freest and most peaceful election in the history of Nigeria,” Akintola said.
He described the day IBB presented his memoir as a sad day for genuinely patriotic Nigerians “as it was the day Nigerian leaders decided to disappoint the masses by hero-worshipping a former dictator, a tyrant and a numero uno enemy of democracy”.
He said, “Nigeria was at the edge of the cliff when the duo of Buhari and Idiagbon came to rescue the nation from general indiscipline, corruption and avaricious greed. We were getting it right when IBB came from nowhere to topple that corrective administration. That was the beginning of our descent back to the abyss of pitch darkness.
“IBB incarcerated Buhari and refused to allow him to attend his mother’s funeral. The lives of many innocent Nigerians were wasted during the IBB-Abacha totalitarian military misadventure. Clement Akpangbo, Bagauda Kaltho, Justice Ikpeme, Alfred Rewane, etc were sent to the beyond. The streets of Lagos and Ibadan were filled with dead bodies.
“Yet the height of heartlessness and callousness was the assassination of the winner of that monumental election, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (MKO) and the killing of his wife, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola.
“MURIC strongly condemns the public show of spite, chagrin and insensitivity at the Transcorp Hilton, venue of IBB’s book presentation. It was not only audacious. It was also outrageous, nauseating and provocative. Salt was added to injury. IBB is not sober.”
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