IBB and his greek gift to Buhari
By Adamu Muhammad Nababa
The recent revelation by the ANPP presidential flag bearer for the forthcoming April 2007 general elections in Nigeria, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), that General lbrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd), alias IBB has indeed helped him to clinch the ANPP ticket by persuading other ANPP presidential aspirants at the convention to step down for him is quite amazing. Isn’t it? To me, perhaps amazing is not the right word to describe how I feel on reading Buhari’s interview in the Sunday Trust of January 7Th, 2007, but bewilderment.
My feeling is based on the fact that since toppling the 20 months old government of Buhari in August 1985, I have never made out anything said or done straight forward by IBB or his infamous eight year rule, except looking up to him as an embodiment of contradiction, deceit and one who imposed a monument of corruption and manipulation. Thus I was really afraid for Buhari’s candidature and the cause he represents which has today earned him widespread support and respect. Now, to credit IBB with the success of Buhari’s emergence - true as it is, because Buhari himself admits it -I am afraid that it is not a hand of friendship extended but rather something akin to a Greek Gift for which Buhari, his party and supporters should take with a pinch of salt. However, it is my fervent hope and prayer that IBB meant no mischief but merely trying to learn the rope of being a man whose words are his bonds.
Let me be quick to say some of the things that must have made me feel the way I feel, refusing simply to believe that IBB helped Buhari out of genuine conviction in the Buhari cause, democracy or national interest. To begin with, IBB was the principal architect, planner, executioner and beneficiary in the coup that brought down Buhari’s government in the morning of August 27th, 1985 on grounds of uncompromising attitudes, and rigidity on the part of Buhari. If the coup was foiled, IBB might be sent to the gallows as he did to others like late Vatsa and late Gideon Orkar. Since then, IBB has never taken Buhari as worthy of anything in Nigeria’s affairs.
IBB, perhaps more than any Nigerian, helped Obasanjo to become Nigeria’s civilian president in 1999. The effort was purely for selfinterest and not in any way borne out of patriotism or the desire to entrench democracy in Nigeria. Speculation was rife that IBB had a memorandum of understanding with President Obasanjo that in 2003, IBB would step in. Rightly or wrongly, President Obasanjo expressed interest in continuing from 2003 to 2007 and IBB publicly declared that since President Obasanjo would run, he wouldn’t contest against his senior. Meanwhile, Buhari launched himself into partisan politics in 2001 and IBB did not even acknowledge his entrance as a triumph for democracy or even noted that a Daniel has joined Nigerian murky political waters.
Throughout the travails that Buhari went through since April, 2003 general elections, IBB has never expressed even a tacit wish of a goodwill to Buhari. And on the approach of 2007 general election, starling with primary elections, IBB was clearly on the loosing side after falling out of favour with his senior Obasanjo. IBB was really shocked for being outwitted by Obasanjo and in what he was to write the president as reason for withdrawing from the PDP primaries after proffering some frivolous reasons; he revealed that he found himself in a “moral dilemma”! Well, a moral dilemma indeed! And for which IBB has always been since 1985 when he unjustifiably toppled Buhari’s government and failed most woefully in doing better. The only use for which the eight years of IBB were put was that he made stupendous ill-gotten wealth and entered his name as a former Nigerian leader. Besides that, he discredited himself for life and earned the anger of Nigerians for putting them through hardships and uncertainty.
Whatever effort IBB must have put in making Buhari to clinch the ANPP presidential ticket, I am sure Buhari’s impeccable record of service to his fatherland helped him more than any other factor and it is the same factor that will make or mar his becoming the president of Nigeria in the forth coming general elections.
Finally, I wish to say that IBB rushed to help Buhari to save the little that is left of his reputation after his humiliation in the PDP and not because he is interested in Buhari becoming a president. After all, he had pledged in his letter to President Obasanjo to support either Aliyu Gusau or Umaru Yar’Adua. So, he should now tell us why he wants Buhari and what he would tell Umaru Yar’Adua whom he admitted in his letter is like a junior brother to him. Isn’t blood thicker than water? I think IBB is only playing games as he is used to, so Buhari beware, politics is really a dirty game.
Nababa wrote in from Warawa LGA.