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Shagaya’s False Military Tradition By Anthony Akinola
By virtue of his own misjudgement, June 12 should be one day of the year Gneral Ibrahim Babangida would always wish had not come. For it was on June 12, 1993 that his ego got finally deflated and Nigerians became united in acknowledging his hypocracy. Babangida had successfully pretended until that day to be what he was not – an honest and patriotic leader.
Of course some of us knew much earlier in his leadership career that he was distrustful. Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem argues in an article that Babangida’s palace coup of 27 August 1985 might have been sponsored by the IMF, not least because the general himself had stated emphatically, in his maiden speech, that his government was determined to break the IMF deadlock. This writer was all along sceptical of his programmes, particularly the imposition of a two-party structure and his make-belief construction of political party offices. Only God knows how many multi-millionaires emerged from that corruption-enhancing project.
The truth about June 12 is that it was the culmination of Babangida’s desperate efforts to hang on to power, other options having expired. Remember the shifting of goal posts and postponement of election dates? Of course there was also this instalmental banning from participation in the democratic process of politicians who had weight in their respective constituencies. Chief Moshood Abiola is generally presumed to have won the annulled election but who was this Bashir Tofa who challenged him for the presidency? I had to phone a friend at the time of writing this article to be reminded about his first name!
There was also the General Sani Abacha factor. It was believed by many that an Abacha dictatorship was only a matter of time; in fact, there was talk of a pact existing between Babangida and Abacha to that effect. The presidential election of June 12 was always doomed and Chief M K O Abiola eventually died an untimely death at the hands of his erstwhile friends. One lesson of June 12 is what one Kenneth Edokpayi, a brilliant political science scholar once said that “the same military warlords who readily dispense wealth hardly extend their generosity to political power”.
But what of the “revisionism” that has been going on here and there? On June 8, the tenth anniversary of General Abacha’s demise, three former rulers (Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdusalam Abubakar) conspired to insult the intelligence of Nigerians. They said General Sani Abacha did not steal public money, which means all those monies retrieved from his American and European bank accounts belonged to some one else! Many may not “begrudge” General Ibrahim Babangida espousing the virtues of corruption in public but what of General Buhari with all those perceptions of honesty and integrity about his person?
Perhaps the more profound attempt to revise history would come a few days later, on June 12, when Professor Humphrey Nwosu, erstwhile chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), launched his much awaited book on the historic crisis. The manner he chose to launch the book could hardly have been that of an author who wrote an independent work. His choice of Chief Ernest Shonekan as chairman and Ibrahim Babangida as guest of honour, aroused the suspicion of many Nigerians. Chief Shonekan was the immediate beneficiary of the annulled presidential election while General Babangida remains the culprit in the eyes of most Nigerians. There is therefore this assumption that Professor Nwosu might have been used as a part of the crusade to re-present Babangida to the public.
General Babangida is said to have intensified his criss-crossing of Nigeria. His face is said to have become ubiquitous at weddings, birthday parties and funerals. He was said to be more visibly disturbed by the death of Chief Lamidi Adedibu than the children and young wives of the deceased. Babangida is said to be doing his best to pacify the angry people of the South-West geo-political zone which felt aggrieved by Abiola’s misfortune. Babangida may be winning; recently, the influential Awujale of Ijebu-Ode, Oba Sikiru Adetona admonished the Yoriba to forgive the general whom he regarded as a good human being.
The assumption that Babanbida might not have abandoned his presidential ambition has been recruiting more proponents. The uncertain health of President Yar’Adua fuels the fear that he might not complete his term of office – a situation which could mean the North would insist on holding on to the presidency based on the PDP’s zoning agreement. However, Senator John Shagaya was quick to dispel the prospect of a Babangida presidency and had this to say in a recent interview. “I don’t think he will aspire to be President, more so as the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua was a colleague of his. And President Yar’Adua was the junior brother. The late Yar’Adua was a man we all loved. We also have a military tradition that you don’t take over from a junior. So he won’t take over from the late Shehu Yar’Adua’s junior. This is because I know the man (IBB) and the profession of the military. Let him contradict me. And as a statesman and former officer of the military he can’t take over from a junior” (The Guardian, June 22, 2008).
Nigeria’s history is recent and there may be evidence that the military tradition Senator Shagaya was talking about does not exist. First, President Yar’Adua was never a military person and bringing him vicariously under that frame does not make much sense. Secondly, there have been examples of senior military officers succeeding junior ones, or wanting to do so.
Maybe Senator Shagaya will remember that Major-General (as he now is) Adeyinka Adebayo was a full Colonel when he succeeded the murdered Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi as governor of the defunct Western Region. When General Babangida and Professor Nwosu contrived their nauseating “Option A4” formula which mandated prospective presidential aspirants to begin their quest from the ward to the national level, General Yakubu Gowon was one of those gullible Nigerians who fell for it. Assuming Babangida was sincere and Gowon managed to scale the hurdle, would the latter not have succeeded him? Babangida was only a colonel when General Yakubu Gowon was toppled on July 29 1975. And what of the most recent example of General Olusegun Obasanjo succeeding Abdusalam Abubakar in 1999? General Abubakar was probably a middle ranked officer when Obasanjo vacated office voluntarily in 1979.
General Babangida need not contradict Senator John Shagaya because the job has already been done for him. A valuable service has also been rendered to the senator because being the author that he is, he needs not be reminded that ill-informed assertive statements pose intellectual danger to young students and the reading public in general.
Even if Shagaya’s assumed military tradition exists, he needs to be reminded here that the democratic culture has no place for it. General Babaginda should be free to seek the presidency wherever the oppurtunity presents itself, as June 12 is also entitled to continue to stand between him and that important institution for the rest of his life.
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