A vainglorious distortion of history, otherwise it should have been titled ‘A Journey in Disservice’.
IBB can hardly have a superior in the roll call of Nigeria’s most horrendous leaders. He was far more than the man who truncated Nigeria’s freest and fairest election or the ruler under whose watch Dele Giwa, one of Nigeria’s finest journalists, was parcel-bomb-assassinated. Babangida was also a terror who hunted journalists like petty thieves and common criminals.
Many journalists ended up in jail, some in exile, some in lifelessness, some in joblessness and others in guerilla practice, having to sneak out in daylight and nightimes for editorial meetings that were convened in some of the most unthinkable places, including garages. Apart from the newspapers he shut down (TheGuardian, Punch, Vanguard, Concord etc), others went out of business as advertisers seeking to not irk the government avoided them like plagues.
IBB’s ruthlessness extended to rights defenders and even students, many of whom were repeatedly arrested and incarcerated, and for lengthy periods. The Evil Genius excelled in everything anti-public interest. His economic policies backfired spectacularly, and he was as corrupt as the rest of them.
Had the public not violently protested his annulment of the 1993 election, Babangida would have turned out another Paul Biya (Cameroon president from 1982 till date). Many Nigerians lost their lives in the protests that ousted Babangida from power; do not piss on their graves by entertaining any conversation about IBB’s ‘service’.
I hope that while he is still alive, IBB still has just one person in his circle who can remind him his was a life in disservice to Nigeria, or at best ‘A Journey in Self-Service’!
