The Echos From The IBB Book Launch -By Gozie Irogboli

The launching of the General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida’s (IBB) memoir entitled: A Journey in Service: An Autobiography, launched on Thursday, 20th February, 2025, has generated a lot of interest and furor from different quarters. And as I reflect on the reactions from a section of the Nigerian press, what readily come to my mind is the single story syndrome made popular by Chimamanda Adichie in a TED talk program in 2020. And I realized that one of the things common among single story promoters is that they employ different subtle and devious means including violence to sustain their skewed narratives and when their position is challenge, they fight back by any means necessary. 

There is no gainsaying that the story of events that occurred during the IBB’s era like most political events in Nigeria exists in a single story format all these while, with the narratives directed by those who think they have the exclusive right to direct public opinion to suit their parochial interest. So, by publishing his own story, the erstwhile Nigeria military president has made a bold attempt to try to correct the narratives and set the records straight and so those who want the skewed narratives perpetuated are rattled. Thus, the echoes from those quarters in reaction to the book is symptomatic of single story proponents fighting back to sustain false narratives. So, I must state that the din and vibrations arising therefrom are expected. Anybody who did not expect that is probably a stranger in Nigeria. And, of course, I do not expect them to agree with IBB especially when he deposed among other thing in his 420-page book that the January, 1966 coup was not an Igbo coup after all, contrary to the mischievous narrative peddled by those who live in perpetual fear of the Igbo man. 

In and out of office, IBB has been under intense media fusillade. And his critics are those with sclerosed opinion; who will never succumb to facts or reason, die-hard ethnic jingoists peeved by the IBB’s economic policies which they misinterpreted was designed to upend the economic dominance of a section of the country, the ultracrepidarian commentators, and their hear-say counterparts who depend on opinion leaders and fake activists for action. Among the self-styled activists, it is normal to criticize the smiling general. Any wannabee commentator seeking relevance would begin by attacking IBB and any activist and political pettifogger seeking self-rehab would try his luck at IBB and June 12. And to these bunch of critics they attribute all the nations woes including advance free fraud (419) to IBB. They forgot that 419 and brain-drain were some of the spin-offs of Buhari’s retrenchment policy of 1984. I will not be surprised too if they forget the origin of current scourge of kidnapping and banditry in Nigeria and accuse Babangida of it in future.

But, why the sustained paranoiac attack on IBB? What has he done wrong that has not been replicated many time over by the succeeding regimes? What did he do that can compare to Gen. Gowon’s culpable negligence and complicity in the massacre of scores of thousands of Ndigbo in the North between 1966 and 1967? What did IBB do that could compare to the mass murder of over 1000 defenseless civilians in Asaba by Murtala Mohammed in 1967? Or the destruction of Odi in Bayelsa or the Zaki Biam Massacre of 2001? Is there anything in IBB era that could compare to the reign of terror visited on Nigerians by the killer herdsmen and bandits under Buhari? What did IBB do that will compare to the state sponsored xenophobia and economic brigandage going on in Lagos at present or the subjugation policy that has brought misery and pains on Nigerians in the name reform? What did IBB do to compare to the wastefulness and rapine tendencies of the current regime? And what did IBB do that will be equal in effect to the Tinubu’s treachery that has incorporated poverty and insecurity as instruments of governance? What did IBB do that will compare Buhari’s fixation about ethnic dominance and spreading his killer herdsmen across the nation or that of Tinubu whose main interest is hijacking the nations revenue through a dubious tax reform bill? And yet our so-called public advocates and analyst chose to malign the smiling general and turn a blind eye to the others.

The annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election appears to be the most vexatious issue in the entire narrative. Babangida as a leader has accepted responsibility for that decision even though the circumstances that led to that was not entirely his but the agitators refused to be placated. The June 12 annulment story is unarguably the most coordinated single story fraud in Nigeria. The story has been contrived and embellished with so much spices so much so that many especially the younger generation have come to see it as the worst injustice that has ever happened in Nigeria. But is June 12 election annulment an act of injustice or poetic justice? They tell the story as if it was the worst thing that has ever happened in this country. Is it worse than starving children and pregnant women to death during the civil war in the name of all is fair in war or that of ceding Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroun just to defeat the secessionist Biafrans? Is the annulment of June 12 election worse than the electoral fraud committed by the Mahmoud’s INEC in 2023 that subverted the electoral will of the people? Is it worse than the coup that ousted a democratically elected government in 1983?

Obviously, one of the dangers of single story apart from creating hatred, prejudice and stereotypes is that it creates false consciousness. A phenomenon that makes one indulge in a struggle or activism that he knows nothing about or run commentaries on issues or events that he has intel about. When you hear the way some especially young people who never witnessed the June 12 saga talk about it with emotions, it is as if they are under a spell. This is the power of single story, contrived, distilled and forced down on the people’s consciousness.

The June 12 story as told by the proponents is annoying and misleading. They said it is the freest and fairest election ever in Nigeria. So what? And if so, whose credit is it? The credit rightly should go to the organizers – IBB, the president and Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, the NEC chairman and not the opportunist who used his military connection to ban other qualified candidates in order to make way for him to contest against a minnow. Again, I ask: if it is the best election ever in Nigeria why have they not adopted the process that made that election possible given that the June 12 activists are now the ones in power? Any adult who says that MKO Abiola was a democrat does not know what democracy is all about. Abiola did not die for democracy but for his treachery and inordinate ambition. It is unfortunate and ironical that the worst military apologist in Nigeria history was elevated to the status of the symbol of democracy in Nigeria. Does it surprise anyone why the Nigeria democracy is in shambles?

Another point of criticism is the IBB’s Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). There is no space in the essay to burrow into the Nigerian economic history to explain the circumstances that gave birth to the program or explain in details the elements of the SAP but suffice it to say that the opposition to the program is purely politically motivated. The program designed to reduce unproductive invest in the public sector, reduce dependence on import and oil revenue and open up the economy for private sector participation even though was scathingly criticized did not fail. Interestingly, all the governments that came after the regime have not found any alternative to the much-criticized program almost forty years after but have continued with the program albeit in the crude form. As I have observed elsewhere, the Babangida’s SAP program was sabotaged by those benefiting from the unproductive investments in the public sector, opposed by ethnic warlords who felt that the status quo will be tilted by the SAP program, criticized and attacked by media hirelings, pretenders and charlatans masquerading as right activists. That is why those who attacked IBB’s privatization and commercialization policy clapped and cheered as Obasanjo indulged in wholesale merchandizing of our national assets to his cronies and kinsmen in the name of privatization. The same people who criticized the IBB’s appropriate pricing of petroleum product hailed Tinubu’s reckless removal of petroleum subsidy without cushion as a bold decision. Those who criticized the general’s liberalization policy are enjoying the services of the the numerous private institutions that are products of the policy. Those who attacked IBB for the policy of reducing unproductive investment in the public sector have seen the effects of wastefulness in the government of today. How do you compare the SAP policy to the Tinubu’s ersatz policy of renewed hope and mass impoverishment? And yet those who remained taciturn in the face mass impoverishment of the people have the effrontery to criticize the one who designed a policy to diversify the economy.

Again, the Babangida critics have accused him of the murder of Dele Giwa. Well, much as I do not support murder, I am still curious as to why a Yoruba man would want to know who killed Dele Giwa but will not bother to ask who killed Bola Ige or Funso William? Was Dele Giwa more important to the Yoruba than Bola Ige and Funso William? And why would an Igbo man join the Yoruba in asking who killed Dele Giwa when he has not inquired about who killed Chuba Okadigbo? Why would an Ijaw man ask who killed Dele Giwa when he has not asked who killed Chief Aminasoari Dikibo or Harry Marshal or taken those who committed mass murder at Odi to ICC? It is the single story effect!

Perhaps, the hypocrisy of the IBB’s critics is amplified in the criticism against the execution of Mamman Vatsa who was implicated in a military putsch. Are they saying that IBB should have spared Vatsa because he was his friend and executed his co-conspirators? If IBB is accused of treachery in authorizing the execution of his childhood friend, what about his ambitious childhood friend who plotted to overthrow his government?

Some of the critics accuse IBB of publishing his story when most of the key actors of that era are dead. This is obviously ridiculous. Are they saying that he has no right to publish his own story since some of the dramatis personae in the June 12 saga are dead? That some of the actors are dead does it invalidate the veracity of his accounts. And even if all are alive will it stop the criticisms?

Nevertheless, I must state unequivocally that the criticisms hauled at Babangida do not in any way diminish his achievement while in office. To me, his 8-year reign cannot be appraised by few isolated incidents twisted out of proportion by ultracritical commentators. If the achievement of his regime is juxtaposed with that of the others, his would stand head-and-shoulder above the rest. And yet these critics present the amiable general as if he achieved nothing while in office as the head of state. But, again, I am not surprised at that. Criticism in Nigeria Press is directly related to performance unlike elsewhere where criticism is inversely related to performance. Does it surprise anybody why those who pummeled Goodluck Jonathan and branded him clueless despite his achievement kept mum while Buhari rode roughshod on Nigerians.

However, I am not in any way claiming that IBB is a saint; far from it! As a human being, he has his flaws and foibles. My grouse with his critics is that they are not fair to him. This clearly means that they have oblique intentions which I will not treat here for paucity of space. For the same reason, I may not dwell on IBB’s achievement in office. I have tried to highlight that in one of my earlier essay entitled: IBB and the Rest of Us. It is also not about Abiola’s misrepresented democratic credentials. I have made that clear in one of my articles entitled: Nigeria, June 12 and the Celebration of Nullity.

Clearly, if IBB could rake in as much as N17billion from his book launch 32 years after leaving office, it means that his liberalization policy that opened up the economy for private sector participation was a huge success. And if Buhari and Tinubu were to launch presidential library today, who will donate to it? Is it the herdsmen, the bandits, the area-boys or the kidnappers? Or the impoverished Nigerians masses waiting for N50,000 unconditional cash transfer? I bet the only donors would be their stooges in government offices stealing from the government coffers. 

To me the major lesson from the furor generated by the book launch is the danger of relying on a single story. Nigeria obviously need to be liberated from the scourge of single story syndrome that has held the country hostage for a long time. This is one of the greatest problem bedeviling the post-civil war Nigeria. We have seen the debilitating effects of single story in the country: creating hatred, mutual suspicion, disunity, instability, insecurity and violence. The electoral blunder of 2015 that brought in a terrorist regime in Nigeria is the fallout of the single story syndrome. 

Finally, I must state that rather than vilify General Ibrahim Babangida, he should be praised for his courage, candor, humility, sense of responsibility and patriotism by writing his memoir and setting the records straight. We should recognize and emphasize his numerous contributions to the development of the nation.

Gozie Irogboli 

(goziei@yahoo.com)

An economist, banker, a novelist and public policy analyst