IBB’s Game Plan   

Though many Nigerians see his renewed bid for the country’s presidency as no more than a joke, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida is serious and in fact desperate to rule Nigeria one more time

• Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Photos: Ishaq Nata Ala.

For the journalists who honoured General Ibrahim Babangida’s invitation to attend an interactive session held in his famous hilltop residence in Minna, the Niger State capital, the overriding opinion was that Babangida had not been seen in such mood before in about 27 years of studying and reporting the toothy General’s complex personae.

As against his well known preference for sophistry, Babangida was prepared to answer every question put to him. Indeed, before the session began, his media aide, Kassim Afegbua told the newsmen to ask any question they liked, “as it is a no-holds-barred affair”. Babangida seemed unfazed, even though many of the questions were unsparing. One of the editors reminded him of the fact that in 1987 while he was in the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC camp, a speech by Babangida pointed out that they (the young men and women on youth service) were the leaders of tomorrow. “But here you are, 23 years after and at 69, you still want to return as president of Nigeria. I am over 45 years old. You were about my age when that speech was read to us at the NYSC camp. Now, I ask: when will my generation get the chance to be the leaders you talked about in 1987?”

Babangida smiled and told the journalist: “Your generation is already ruling. Some of your age mates are governors today. So it is not true that your chance had not come. You are already ruling,” he said so dismissively that someone accused him of overconfidence.

Babangida desperately needs the press to back him as he seeks a second shake of the dice as Nigeria’s president. Apart from directly campaigning to the journalists who were his guests on 14 August, in his speech entitled: “Together We Can Build Our Nation”, he was profuse in his praise of the media. “You are a beacon of hope, the shining torch of enlightenment, the amplifier of codified messages, agents of policy formulation and dissemination, the watchdog of democracy, moulders of opinion and advocates of fundamental human rights. Truly, yours is no doubt a noble profession even though a thankless and hazardous one at that… The fact that your members have been able to hold the forte in the struggle for nation building without felling the apple cart, despite open assaults and risks to life, deserves kudos and accolades from all,” he contended.

Babangida’s minders say he is very confident that he will be the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2011 presidential election. He is sure that out of about 15 northerners who are interested in President Goodluck Jonathan’s job, the number will come down to three, namely himself, General Muhammadu Gusau, and former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar. He thinks that the other northern candidates in the PDP will stand down for him at the national convention of the ruling party, where its standard bearer will be chosen.

The calculation of the General’s strategists is that if the current isolation of President Jonathan by the powerful elements in the North continues, Babangida’s chances are very bright. Indeed, both Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Babangida expressed optimism last week that it is not going to be difficult for northern aspirants to achieve unanimity and present a candidate who can give Jonathan a bloody nose.

In the last three weeks or so, the North has hardened its stance on zoning, with key northern leaders who ordinarily would have sat on the fence advising President Jonathan not to contest, but respect the subsisting zoning agreement of the ruling party. Even radical politician, Alhaji Balarabe Musa of the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, has kicked against Jonathan’s ambition, affirming that PDP’s zoning agreement should be respected.

Babangida indeed told journalists that he had been involved in extensive consultations and that during his meeting with northern senators, it was resolved that they should all stand firm on zoning and that they should work for any northern candidate that emerges as the consensus candidate. Like Atiku declared in an interview with TheNEWS last week, Babangida disclosed that the northern governors have been told that any of them who went against zoning to support President Jonathan will be voted out of office.

Political analysts who spoke to TheNEWS last week argued that to have a single northern candidate running against Jonathan is ominous, to say the least, for the incumbent. Jonathan’s tardiness has encouraged Babangida and his supporters. “The President has surrounded himself with northerners like Ibrahim Mantu, who lost his bid to return to the senate, Jerry Gana and Jonathan Zwingina who cannot market him up North. And his refusal to officially announce whether he is contesting or not has encouraged his opponents to try to sow the seeds of skepticism in Nigerians.

Last week, Reuters published a story which alleged that the President was considering not running afterall. The intriguingly contradictory story drew the ire of Jonathan’s aides, who described it as sponsored. Some lines in the Reuters story looked like they were taken off the lips of Babangida’s supporters. For example, the story claimed Jonathan was considering not contesting because of the reluctance of many governors to pledge their support for him.

Last week, a Babangida supporter claimed that many governors had been flirting with Babangida while pretending to be backing Jonathan. “Their body is with him (Jonathan), but their heart is with IBB,” he claimed.

Babangida has been reaching out to the South-East, knowing he will most certainly not make any headway in the South-South. Though he is said to have a good number of foot soldiers from the South East, Babangida has had to reach into his bag of tricks to energise his campaign.

“I want to be a one-term president if I am elected the president of Nigeria. This is to buttress the whole idea of zoning by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. By 2015, I pledge to vacate the position to pave way for an Igbo President, as all I want for Nigeria is that one day a person from the South-East will be saddled with the position of leadership in the country,” Babangida told some journalists in a telephone conversation from his Hilltop Mansion in Minna, Niger State.

This, according to him is necessary to finally heal the wounds inflicted on the eastern part of the country by the Nigerian civil war. “After 2015, the presidency will move to the East, as I will love to see an Igbo emerge as president. My reason for having this desire is to put an end to polarisation in the country…I am optimistic that when a president of Igbo extraction emerges, the eastern part of the country which has not had the opportunity of leading the country since the civil war will now completely feel more Nigerian,” the man popularly known as the evil genius said. Implicit in the statement is the delusion of grandeur with which the former military ruler has couched his attempt to return to the Aso Rock seat of power so far. Clearly he is trying to cash in on the persecution complex that dominates the heart of many Igbo sons and daughters.

The self-styled evil genius badly desires to gain support of the South-East and has been courting the region since he began his attempt to regain the presidency.

About two months ago, Babangida was able to get former Biafran leader, Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu to publicly pledge the support of the region for him after a visit to the former warlord. Apart from this, the magazine also learnt that Babangida has been promising the Igbos that he will make an Igbo man his Vice-President if he is able to get the PDP ticket.

Indeed, the recent declaration of former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu for the PDP is said to be a step in this direction. Kalu, who has been frustrated thus far in his desire to secure official membership of the ruling party, openly flaunts his closeness to Babangida and is regarded as one of the foot soldiers of the former military president in the South-East. Though the former governor has not publicly identified or given his support to Babangida’s ambition to return to Aso Rock, it is generally believed that he is waiting in the wings to run alongside him. In addition, this magazine also learnt that various hurriedly formed groups, out to get their own share of Babangida’s  huge campaign budget have been approaching the former military president with claims that they will deliver the South-East to him.

One of such groups which tagged itself the ‘South-East Strategic Alliance’ recently published an advertorial in which it rolled out some of the things it said Babangida did for the South-East when he held the reins as military president, as a way of convincing their kinsmen to support the Minna-born General’s presidential ambition. The group described Babangida as the first president to appoint persons from South-East  to prominent positions as well as being the first to create states in the region. Critics, however, faulted this claim with the fact that Alex Ekwueme was vice-president under the Shehu Shagari administration (1979-1983), while the administration of the late Murtala Muhammed carved out Imo and Anambra states.

“IBB has promised to hand over to an Igbo man in 2015 after he has finished a one-term presidency. The question to ask is: is the presidency his birthright? Is it not obvious by the statement that the man is still suffering from a military affliction of “I will hand over to XYZ” as if the rest of the people are just the rubber stamp they have reduced us,” one Chike Orjiako wrote in response to Babangida’s promise to the South-East in one popular website. “Babangida’s promise to serve for only one term if elected and that his successor will come from the South-East zone, may signal an 11th hour conversion to altruism,” Journalism lecturer and columnist, Olatunji Dare said in the 12 August edition of his column published in The Nation newspaper. He added that the statement by Babangida that he will install a South-East president is another demonstration of the fact that the former military president is yet to imbibe democratic values: “But it may just as likely be an unwitting signal that, as in 1993, he and he alone, not the electorate will choose his successor.”

It is apparent that Babangida does not enjoy the support of his fellow retired General, Olusegun Obasanjo. But IBB’s strategy is to continue to draw attention to the fact that in all spheres of life, the Obasanjo regime was a failure, and that Nigerians were better off during his (IBB’s) time. He emphasised during his interaction with media men two weeks ago that in every area, he ran the country better than the governments that came after him.

“With all the money they made in eight years they could not solve the problem of electricity. Couldn’t they have gone for nuclear power to solve the problem? They spent $16m on power, but they have nothing to show for it. What I got in eight years was what they earned in two years, but there is nothing to show for it… Without sounding superfluous, from North to South, East to West, there are visible landmark achievements to underscore my contributions to national development and growth of our fatherland… like Sir Winston Churchill I say, give me the tools and I will finish the job for you,” he boasted.

However, while not a few will agree that Nigerians were better off under Babangida than under Obasanjo, IBB lends himself to easy attack by flogging Obasanjo because he was the one who imposed Obasanjo on Nigerians in 1999 with the active connivance of other serving and retired Generals like Yakubu Danjuma and Abdulsalami Abubakar, who was head of state at the time.

In continuation of his Obasanjo bashing, Babangida claimed that the Obasanjo government was only copying his policies. “Look, I am proud of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). If you see this NEEDS (National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy) that they have come up with, it is more like SAP. I came up with Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission to reduce discontent in the oil producing areas. Because it was created by Babangida, they merely changed the name to NDDC, it is still performing the same functions,” he said, ignoring the damage that SAP wrought on Nigeria.

Babangida knows it is going to be difficult for him to win in any part of the South-West because of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election won by Bashorun Moshood Abiola, who came from the area, but he is not giving up. He fancies his chances in the area because, according to him, “Nigerians are Godly people who embrace the culture of forgiveness.”

But given the way students disallowed him from campaigning in Ibadan recently, the gap-toothed armoured General must be mistaken.

Indeed, in a press statement on the occasion of the former dictator’s birthday, spokesman of Afenifere Renewal Group, Yinka Odumakin said contrary to the false impression the political renegades of Yorubaland are giving to him, the South-West geo-political zone is going to be Babangida’s political waterloo in 2011 as against the swing zone they claim it is. Odumakin condemned the statement credited to him that the South-West is going to deliver victory for him in the 2011 elections “in spite of the many crimes he has committed against the country in general and the zone in particular.”

Last week, TheNEWS survey across the country yielded the fact that only President Jonathan can stop Babangida in his tracks. But there are concerns that Jonathan’s procrastination and perceived non-performance is causing many potential voters to be indifferent to him. “People are bored with this government. This is an election year, yet you can hardly notice the difference. Jonathan is not pulling his weight. Secondly, by adopting the Abacha tactics like organising paid rallies, he is doing himself a lot of harm,” an analyst argued. Yet, many fancy Jonathan, with the support of governors to pick the PDP ticket; which could force Babangida to move to another party. The General, it would be recalled,  boasted a couple of months back that he could win the presidential election without using the PDP platform. Yet even if he gets the presidential ticket of a rival party as he has been considering, Babangida will face a formidable battle from General Muhammadu Buhari, which would split northern votes and favour Jonathan.

With serving governors like Olagunsoye Oyinlola of Osun State, Murtala Nyako of Adamawa, Gbenga Daniel of Ogun and some others already in his pocket, Babangida would be a shoo-in for the PDP ticket if Jonathan is scared into believing that he is merely being led on by the governors who have pledged their support for him but will ditch him at the primaries. If Jonathan stays the course, however, IBB will work hard to poach some of the governors the president relies on for support. To break their ranks Babangida will encourage some of them from the north to join the presidential race.

Perhaps the most effective strategy Babangida is sticking to is using all kinds of people to harass and intimidate Jonathan into withdrawing from the race for the presidency in 2011, with the warning that the president would suffer a humiliating defeat if he decides to run. With him out of the way, the self-styled evil genius would easily brush every opposition aside.

Babangida thinks he would not find it difficult to raise money to finance his campaign. He claimed to have made a lot of rich men and women who could come to his aid in time of need.

“Because [as Military President] I did not demand bribe from them they will back me when I need them to,” he said. He hopes to work on the traditional institution in northern Nigeria to support his candidacy and mobilise the masses on his behalf. He still remains close to many of them because he hugely patronised them while he was in office.

Because he is very desperate this time, analysts posit that it will take a very strong effort to stop Babangida. In the view of Kano-born President of the Movement for Justice in Nigeria, MOJIN, the masses have to be mobilised to stop Babangida, otherwise “the man who put us in the mess that we find ourselves today will regain the presidency.”

Two weeks ago, in a speech he read to journalists in Minna, Babangida declared: “I have mastered the art of democracy and learnt how to apply it better… IBB is back with a lot of new policies that will drive Nigeria’s plural society under a new federal system that will cater for the needs of various nationalities for equity and unity.” All that chest thumping will not impress his critics.

Yet, in the view of Col. Gabriel Ajayi, Babangida should be discouraged from contesting the elections, having ruled Nigeria as president for eight years which amounts to two terms in office.

His logic was that during the military regime, there was a constitution, and that what the military did was to suspend and not abolish it. In other words, the military, as Ajayi explained, did not operate martial law in Nigeria. He added that General Aguiyi-Ironsi, the first military head of state, said on 16 January 1966, that the military was suspending certain parts of the constitution relating to the office of the President, the establishment of the office of the Prime Minister, a process that subsequent military heads of state always re-echoed when they took over.

According to Ajayi: “So, if the constitution had been abolished, there would have been no court, we would have been ruled by military courts and tribunals. It means every other institution of government has to be re-enacted by decree, but the military regime was on, all the institutions of government established by the constitution were in place.” He added that this was the reason that during IBB’s period, the presidency was there, the judiciary was there, and what would have been the legislative arm was the Armed Forces Ruling Council.

Were soldiers who took over power not Nigerians? Ajayi wondered. This is to say that the period they ruled is part of the political history of Nigeria, otherwise, the past military rulers would not be recognised as members of the Council of State. “If Tinubu can spend eight years and you say he is now disqualified, is it because General Babangida wore uniform? Is he no longer a Nigerian?” Ajayi asked, adding that the “only condition I can say that IBB can take another eight years is for the National Assembly to pass a law to void the period of military rule and say it never existed in Nigeria.”

—Babajide Kolade-Otitoju, additional reports by Oluokun Ayorinde and Eromosele Ebhomele