The Final Chapter Of Babangida’s Memoirs

Ibrahim Babangida(IBB) is something of
an expert in struggling to remain in
the eyes of the media. And this
whole struggle is aimed at one
thing: legacy. He was recently
quoted as saying, “You won’t have
IBB to kick around again” while
alluding to his decision to quit
partisan politics. But that wasn’t the
first time he was “quitting”. He
quits whenever he foresees
impossibility in his quest for
ascension. Forget that denial and
just juggle before him the
opportunity to fly the PDP ticket and
watch him recant his I-am-an-old-
man flimflam.
Many years before now, (few years
after he was forced out of office)
IBB’s quest for a political comeback
was driven strictly by his super-
tanker-size ambition, but his quest
for it today is about legacy. I have
often said that Babangida is
interested in rewriting his checkered
history. Nearing old age and
anticipating a nearby entrance into
life’s departure lounge, the General
wanted to have access to the
presidency so as to be able to
swiftly change the overwhelming
perception of him as the architect of
modern day corruption in Nigeria.
Unable to achieve his dream, yet, of
being allowed to show penance from
the throne where he erected his
alter of transgressions, and having
seen the signs that the opportunity
may have slipped away forever, Mr.
Babangida plans a new approach.
He wants to write his memoirs.
Every now and then, we get hints of
his plan to do this.
Needless to say, memoirs are
published to tell the world the
author’s version of his stories. For a
ruler in the mould of IBB, it will offer
him the opportunity to correct what
he might consider past
misjudgments, misrepresentations
and misconceptions. I also imagine
he’ll want to give it a wide publicity
to reach as many people as
possible, all in a bid to be judged, in
the final analysis, the saint rather
than the villain he is. But that will
not fly.
IBB’s protracted battle to get a fair
verdict by history should serve a
lasting lesson to every Nigerian
ruler. History of any ruler or leader
(by now you would have observed
my reluctance to address any of the
contributors to the Nigerian malady
as ‘leader’) is actually written while
in office, by the ruler himself,
through his actions and/or inactions.
It is not written while out of office.
What is written out of office is more
of what the ruler did –or didn’t do –
when out of office. IBB wrote his
memoirs between 1985 and 1993.
And every one of us has a soft copy
of that in our hearts. Although I was
too little to know when he wrote the
first chapter, which is his palace
coup that toppled General Buhari’s
regime (the soft copy in my heart
has this as its first Chapter), I had
become conscious enough to see
him write the contents of the last
Chapter –except he writes the new
one I am about to propose –which
was that he left Nigeria in a state of
maximum entropy; where evil
bloomed and all our values totally
destroyed. The people who were
born the year IBB concluded his 8-
year memoirs are teenagers today.
They weren’t there when Dele Giwa
died, but they have read tons of
articles on how IBB’s government
refused to find those behind the
gruesome murder of the frontline
journalist. They have heard stories
of – and read essays on – how
Mamman Vatsa, Babangida’s
wedding best man and a
professional colleague was executed
by a regime which Commander-in-
chief IBB was. They also have heard
how scores of Nigerians died from
the chaos that set in after Mr
Babangida annulled the 1993
presidential election that saw the
Late M.K.O Abiola emerge winner.
Without risking being accused of
over flogging the June 12 story, I
dare push ahead with a repetition of
the reports from both local and
international observers – and
commentators – that the election
was, and still remains, the most
credible election held in this clime.
He must have been alarmed at the
rate at which corruption, the
institution he built, has grown in
leaps and bounds in just 19 years.
He must have been reading news of
how people steal billions effortlessly
in government without facing any
risk of being jailed. We also see the
same thing, and are even more
alarmed than IBB. We only know its
origin. We have read stories of how
it was watered by IBB.
Seventy percent of the people he is
targeting to read his memoirs are
35 years or less, and more than
half of them are less in age than
half the age of IBB himself; yet he
planned no future for them while he
ruled and reigned. In millions,
these young people are jobless, and
even higher millions of them do not
have access to good education; yet
his own children, last of whom is
part of the Nigerian less-than-thirty-
five-years population, had the best
education in the world and live in
opulence from wealth not acquired
through building and running a
successful world-class corporation,
but by plain accessing, in an
unfettered manner, our national
treasury.
I would advise the General to save
himself the Labour of scribbling
down lines that may end up in just
his library, those of his equally
stupendously wealthy coterie of
friends and allies –who he shared
the Nigerian wealth with – as well as
the shelves of big bookshops. The
memoirs will not be read by 99.99%
of Nigerians who feel, and rightly so,
no need to own two copies of the
same book. If the new memoirs is
coming as a newly edited version of
the soft copy in our minds and
heads, we suspect the truths in the
copies we have may have been
deleted and replaced with
falsehood. This is part of the
reasons we will not bother ourselves
with the new copy. It will be
doctored.
Yet Mr Babangida can get our
attention. We’ll want to read
something new if we hear today
that IBB has come up with the
details of how himself and his
friends mismanaged the Gulf War
Oil windfall. We will be interested in
having him explain to us how he
became the first billionaire former
Head of State and set bad example
for the rest after him. Was it the
savings from his salary as a general
and “President”? Which business
was he running before he became
the Head of State to justify such
volume of wealth? Did he win
lottery? Was he a football star in the
mould of Lionel Messi, Christiano
Ronaldo and Samuel Eto’o? Was he
into international wrestling? Was
Babangida a basketball star playing
in the NBA? We are curious. We
want to know.
There are reports of Babangida’s
expansive estates in Alexandria
Egypt, as well as his secret
ownership of substantial shares in
Julius Berger Nigeria. There are
others of his stakes in Globacom
and, of course, his major roles in the
Oil and Gas sector –judging by
Professor Tam David-West’s
revelations, late last year, on how all
the President’s after Buhari became
oil dealers. These reports form parts
of the contents of the soft copies of
the memoirs of IBB we already have.
We see no reason to believe the
usual refutation that will be coming
in this doctored memoir. We see his
lifestyle. We see the way he flaunts
the wealth. No story of ‘I am not
wealthy’ will sell. IBB must
understand this.
At 71, with rich children, several
investments and heavy bank
accounts in all the known strong
international currencies, IBB has just
one last opportunity to add the very
last chapter to the original memoir,
not the one he wants to write. Let
him return Nigeria’s resources to
Nigeria! At the departure lounge, he
must bear in mind that there are
neither real estates nor Oil and Gas
businesses to buy in the world
hereafter. There won’t be any need
to erect a hilltop mansion, neither
will he need some set of Arabian
settees. No human needs a dime
while leaving this life. I strongly
recommend that Mr IBB returns
90% of all that he took from us and
keep the rest to tend to his old age.
He should include in what he wants
to return his interests in all the
known and unknown companies
with which he warehoused the ill-
gotten money. On surrendering the
wealth to President Jonathan – who,
by the way, is writing his own
memoirs at the moment –he should
advise him against stealing of public
funds and state-protection of
corruption. He should open the eyes
of the President to the vanity of
desire and the transience of power.
IBB, in that sober moment of
making restitution, should enjoin
the president to be the Nigerian
president and not an Ijaw man who
is ruling Nigeria. He should call the
attention of the president to the
danger of leaving the nation’s
youths uneducated and leaving the
poor uncared for while government
officials cart away bulk of the
nation’s resources both legally and
illegally.
Babangida has seen it all, and any
advice he gives during or after the
time he returns our billions will not
be seen by any Nigerian as a cheap
talk to score some political point; it
will be viewed seriously. Mr IBB has
the opportunity to do this.
And lest I forget, while submitting
the money, Ibrahim Babangida
should warn the present
administration sternly on the
consequences of not using the
money to lift the citizens from
poverty and disease. He should call
their attention to the pains of a
supposed leader in retirement
watching kids who should be
eternally grateful to him for
empowering them hiss in disgust
each time his name is mentioned.
He should teach the president that
in the end, long after the praises of
sycophants have waned into
oblivion, the ruler is left to the
verdict of his conscience.
This is the only act that would cause
us to, first, update the memoirs in
our hearts, and secondly seek to lay
our hands on the hard copy Mr
Babangida will be publishing to
make sure this final chapter was
captured properly.
And if his Excellency wouldn’t mind,
I would like to propose a title for this
all important chapter of his memoir.

‘In Tears, I Returned It All’

By Chinedu Ekeke