By Tony Eluemunor
First of all, I hereby wish Gen. Ibrahim B Babangida (rtd) a most happy 80th birthday anniversary. I say this from the bottom of my heart. I sincerely wish I could reminisce about the laudatory and gay experiences of this Reporter, who in April 1986 became State House (Dodan Barracks) Correspondent for the leading newsmagazine of that era, the Newswatch. As experiences go, I could focus on, say my first trip to Abuja, for the 1986 Independence Anniversary. There was no Aso Rock Presidential Villa State House then. A few flats in Wuse Zone Three, very close to the Halli Brothers junction was what could then be called the State House.
It was in one of the rooms there that I overheard a telephone conversation that later became consequential in Nigeria. Babangida’s Number Two man, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (rtd) asked his media aide how things were in Abuja. The aide related to him that a new programme for the anniversary activities had just been released, and that instead of Ukiwe going into the parade grounds (in Area Ten) directly before the military President, that in the new one Ukiwe would enter the parade grounds before the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Domkat Bali, and then Gen Ibrahim B Babangida (rtd) would come in.
I heard Ukiwe say clearly: “In that case then, I will not come to Abuja. It had been agreed that I will not be attending purely military activities, where Gen Bali would be the Number Two after the President. But he too will not attend non-military activities, where I will be the Number Two to the President”. And because Ukiwe failed to attend the 1986 Abuja ceremonies, he was cashiered.
Yet, to write about such would be a disservice to Nigeria. This is especially so as some persons have started a calculated attempt to, by sheer force, browbeat all of us into forgetting the disaster Babangida brought on the nation when he annulled the June 12, 1993 election. Beneath that in order of consequence lies his smuggling of Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) and his introduction of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) into the country.
Recently, there has been a burst of activities in the Nigerian firmament as Gen. Ibrahim B Babangida’s associates try to paint the legacy of his eight- year long administration in a favourable light for his 80th birthday. But all their efforts may be as fruitful as deodorized bullshit; it will still smell and appear nasty.
Those same associates of IBB, may not remember it now, but they and their champion had a chance to work out a wholesome legacy but that did not matter to them as they pursued their narrow-minded and personal interests, as against the interest of the nation. They were sure and autocratic footed in their despotic ways, disdaining all attempts to call them to order or to walk in another direction.
The result is that for almost 30 years Babangida has remained alive to see his name being used as a bye word for nothing wholesome. Before I go into the intricate details, I must take journalistic notice that soon, President Muhammadu Buhari’s associates will also ask the citizenry to be magnanimous enough as to grant Buhari stratospheric pass marks concerning the way and manner he ran his administration. In fact, Buhari said recently that he hoped history would be fair to him. On reading him, I wondered if he does not know that the moment he assumed office as President, he started writing his personal and his administration’s history. Attempting to change that history after he would have left office would be akin to someone blowing against the wind. Even Babangida himself has shown us how to judge Buhari; he said that compared to is successors’, (and that includes Buhari’s), his own anti-corruption record appears angelic. Ah ha!
So, what I have for the likes of the newspaper columnist and Economist, Mr. Dele Sobowale, is serious pity, as he attempts to present Babangida in more favourable light. It is a mission impossible.
I know that the likes of Sobowale have argued that it is satanic to judge a man whose presidency spanned all of eight years on just one act; his annulment of the June 12, 1993 election. Some have even argued that 28 long years have passed since 1993 and so Nigeria must have had several opportunities since then to correct that mistake, no matter how costly. To such people I have only a reminder: “ä fool does not know the gravity of an offence”. IBB and Dele Sobowale are no fools but verybright minds, and so they should know the gravity of that terrible offence. There is another reminder; societal wounds are difficult to heal. I sincerely wish that the present leaders should take this lesson to heart and begin to correct their mistakes, because the since 2015, Nigeria’s unity has been steadily shredded.
Unlike coup speeches, Independence Anniversary addresses are often well-prepared documents and are signpost for the future. On October 1, 1995, IBB pointed out four main problems with the Nigerian economy which he had to tackle. One; “Decrease in our domestic production while our population continues to rise”. But did the domestic production increase under IBB? No, is the answer. Many manufacturing plants began to close under Buhari’s military administration owing to a lack of raw materials. But this industrial sickness turned an epidemic under IBB. And that trend has yet to be reversed.
Two; “Dependence on imports for both consumer goods and industrial raw materials”. Yes, IBB vowed to change that trend, but he failed woefully. That failure has been replicated by every succeeding administration.
Three; “A grossly widening gap between the rich and the poor.” That gap became really accentuated for the first time during IBB’s regime and has only worsened afterwards.
Four; “The big role played by the public sector in economic activities with hardly any concrete results to justify such a role.
In that speech IBB announced a ban on the importation of maize, rice and vegetable oil to “shift attention from buying and selling syndrome ad parasitic services …to increased total real production, rising labour productivity and greater efficiency in investment”. Please, could anyone point out in which way IBB’s regime succeeded in any of the above points.
In his 1986 Independence Anniversary speech, IBB promised to: 1; Restructure and diversify the productive base of the economy to reduce dependence on the oil sector and imports. 2; To achieve a fiscal balance of payments viability over the medium term and 3; to lay the basis for a suitable non-inflationary growth over the medium and long-term. Did he succeed?
New Year day 1986, IBB increased petrol pump price from 20kobo per litre to 39.5 kobo; a near 100% increase. That introduced Nigeria’s to IBB’s legacy – Structural Adjustment Programme. I am not an Economist but I am ready to debate any pro-IBB Economist on the effects of SAP.
Yet, SAP had actually started on January 27, 1986, when IBB introduced the Second-tier Foreign Exchange Market (SFEM). In two weeks flat the value of the Naira fell by 66%. In January 1985, the N1 fetched $1.2. Within five months of SFEM, five Naira bought a dollar, at the official rate and it was N7 to $1 at the parallel market. The 5.4 pre- SFEM inflation rate surged to 10.2 within a year.
Since then, the economy has been crashing and crashing. Let nobody tell me about the Third Mainland Bridge or the Rural Life for Women but instead tell me how IBB grew the economy and jobs. My challenge is mainly directed at Mr. Dele Sobowale for he is an Economist. Sobowale and the other Babangidaists would be ready after that to join me in revisiting the June 12, 1993 election annulment and the result of IBB’s smuggling Nigeria into the Organisation of Islamic Countries.
Babangida has not apologised to Nigerians for foisting SAP on the nation. He has not appologised to the nation for smuggling Nigeria into the OIC and thus added, by that singular act, the religious divide that is tearing Nigeria apart today, into the age-old ethnicity issues. Now ethnicity and religious divide have turned Nigeria into a killing field.
Then there is the Babangidanomics which was hinged solely on SAP. He has not yet appologised for it. Not even when ani-SAP riots broke out in May 1989 did he plead with Nigerians or try to seek a better route to economic paradise for Nigeria. He berated Nigerians then, saying that the rioters were merely using SAP “as an excuse to wage war against the government in order to destroy the credibility of the military institution”.
A month after that, at the inauguration of the Armed Forces Consultative Assembly on June 5, Babangida told critics of SAP that he would not change the direction he was taking Nigeria to economically because: “This administration is committed to the programme because there is no viable alternative. We cannot and should not abandon this programme midway because the pains of trying to re-introduce it at a later stage will be worse than the current pains”.
And he actually said this then, to justify the SAP decisions: “The reports we have received and which we would like the opponents of SAP to know is that the prevailing situation in Nigeria is by far better than in any other African country. It is even better than the condition in most Third World states”.
Did Babangida bother to listen to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN)? Actually, Babangida listened to nobody. Had he a listening ear, he would have heard MAN’s complain in August 1988, that capacity utilization was a lowly 35 percent “because of inadequate and inefficient infrastructural facilities, high interest rates, especially for the small and medium-scale manufacturing enterprises, sharp increases in the cost of imported inputs arising from the devaluation of the Naira”.
And on top of all the social and economic and religious problems Babangida unleashed on Nigerians, he annulled the freest and fairest election in the land to date. And what is his excuse: that he was forced to do so or there would have been a violent overthrow of the civilian regime that would have resulted. Haba, IBB, haba, have you forgotten the person who said, proudly, satiated with power, that his critics should remember that “we are not only in government; we are in power?” Why didn’t he use that power to retire the coupists if he knew what they were up to? Instead, he used the power to annul an election. IBB is 80 years old. I will respect his age and even pay due homage. That is why I am seeking soft ways of telling him that even his Number Two man, the late Augustus Aikhomu was not aware of his decision to annul that election. The Military High Command did not know. His spokesman, Duro Onabule, did not know. His political advisers such as the late Prof Omo Omoruyi did not know.
IBB annulled that election because he wanted to remain in power. And for that, he owes Nigeria an apology.
PS:
First published on Aug 15, 2021, this piece is being republished in response to the recent launch of IBB’s autobiography, “A Journey in Service”.
