By Tonnie Iredia
On Thursday, February 20, 2025, former Nigerian military president, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida IBB was in the news again, 32 years after he left office. Many leaders gathered to witness the launching of his book “A Journey in service: An autobiography.” It was the first time a large crowd of personalities gathered around the former leader that many often called the evil genius. If there was anything that may have made those who never met him join to ascribe evil to him, it was his handling of the presidential election held in Nigeria on June 12, 1993. But was he a genius? Those of us who had any contact with him during his presidency would answer in the affirmative.
IBB was more than an encyclopaedia. If a person, no matter the age and status was lucky to meet him, whatever was discussed within a few seconds would be remembered and reproduced verbatim by IBB two decades later. Here is my 1991 experience. I visited my son who was at the time a new student at St Gregory’s College Lagos. At the end of the visit, I could not immediately leave the area because IBB’s convoy was passing through the same road to Dodan Barracks the then seat of power. At the school gate IBB suddenly ‘alighted’ to exchange banters with fellow citizens. When it got to my turn, the then president asked me many personal questions including my presence there having watched my press conference in Abuja, the previous day on arrangements for the next set of elections in the transition to civil rule political programme. I was at the time the spokesperson of the electoral commission but never knew IBB before.
A few years later, our new electoral office in Abuja was commissioned, where I met IBB again. He asked for my son by his first name and also enquired about my two daughters I had indicated were in school in Benin. He commended me for effectively coordinating my family without failing in my duties which he described as excellent. I remained in shock for another hour thereafter as I didn’t quite remember our previous meeting at St Gregory’s. IBB was therefore a leader that no one could lead by the nose. Every report the electoral commission sent to him was digested in a jiffy while asking questions that often sent us back to our drawing board. The rumour that he didn’t want to hand over power was to me rather cheap. One day, he asked if we had any challenge; his immediate response to our answer that we were short of some 20 boats for logistics in the Niger Delta area was a directive that 40 boats be made available to us within a week because he didn’t want any hitch in the arrangements for elections.
For a person like myself who saw IBB as a smart, decisive and energetic leader, I have never believed that he wanted to or did annul the June 12 election because the events leading to that unfortunate end to the contest did not follow IBB’s modus operandi. Between 1987 and 1993, he courageously made several changes to the transition programme. He banned certain Nigerians from participating in the electoral process, he dissolved all the 13 political associations and instituted a two-party system with the Social Democratic Party SDP and the National Republican Convention NRC as the only two approved channels for contesting elections. Indeed, he later cancelled the rancorous presidential primaries of the two political parties without delegating the unpleasant jobs to anyone or allowing changes to the transition programme to take the form of circumlocution. It is unfortunate that at the end some inside forces ‘outflanked’ him.
I was responsible for pasting approved election results on the bill boards erected in front of the electoral commission’s headquarters. Till today, no one told me who directed that I should be stopped from further pasting of new results. Some great friends in the commission merely asked me to be more watchful, whatever that meant. At the time the commission was ‘stopped’, it was no longer possible for Bashir Tofa, the NRC candidate to garner more votes to cover the huge gap between him and MKO Abiola the leading candidate. What is more, the NRC polling agents already had all the figures from the states which were being collated for public viewing. For some 48 hours before the electoral commission was dissolved, the burial ground silence around the commission made me feel that Babangida was no longer in charge and that those seeking to take over were reluctant in coming clean with their agenda.
When IBB stepped aside, the reality was that he resigned because the path that his military colleagues were pursuing had become unbearable just as such aides had become ungovernable. At first, we heard they were arguing that Abiola was not acceptable to the military, until we told a few ‘spies’ in our commission that Abiola’s votes in the polling units in all military locations were overwhelming. Thus, the end to June 12 was melodramatic. I always smiled whenever anyone mentioned annulment to me because I never saw any official statement annulling the contest. Colleagues in the media who claimed they saw one confessed that it was an unsigned terse statement attributable to an amorphous presidency. I took last week’s apology by IBB to be a regret by a leader who lost out in a palace coup.
To me therefore, June 12 was never officially annulled. What was done is not too far from what still happens in today’s Nigeria in which an election is announced by some people as postponed to the consternation of the independent national electoral commission INEC. The latter then attempts to cover up by taking control and trying to keep the process going. Last week’s revelation by IBB that the annulment of June 12 was done by Abacha did not surprise me. I would however add that Abacha was not alone. He was no doubt supported by some daring military activists, another word at the time for suicide squad that never cared if they died in action. By 1993, there were many political soldiers who didn’t really believe in an end to military rule. Along with them were other top leaders including traditional rulers who actively worked against the realisation of the June 12 verdict as testified to by an eyewitness, Professor Omo Omoruyi.
There is much that the nation can learn from IBB’s book. The first is the principle of vicarious liability that has been missing from Nigeria’s political lexicon. It refers to the act of leaders taking responsibility for the actions of those under them. A leader does not have to have sanctioned what his aides did before taking blame for things that went wrong during his tenure. If things go well, leaders take the credit, they don’t turn around to say I didn’t actually approve that, hence they should also take blame for failures. It is for this reason that I see IBB as having sown the seed of leaders accepting blame for wrongs done under them. Sambo Dasuki, National Security Adviser NSA during Goodluck Jonathan’s administration was later held for some infractions that occurred during the tenure of his principal. He claimed he was instructed to do what he was detained for. Jonathan ought to have spoken.
The immediate past governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele was said to have unilaterally changed the nation’s currency which brought untold hardship to many citizens. Many Nigerians watched former President Muhammadu Buhari saying earlier that he approved the change. While Emefiele can be appropriately sanctioned for any wrongs he did in the process, Nigerians deserve an apology from Buhari for the hardship that they went through as a result of the implementation of the poorly executed government policy. This would finetune leadership responsibility in our country. Leaders who deprecate being asked to apologise for poor governance on whatever aspect will be more aware of the need to supervise well to avoid future apologies.
So much was in IBB’s book but everyone’s focus was on the June 12 election because politics is all that interests Nigerians. It also explains why politicians who are over patronized are the only people smiling to the banks during our precarious downturn. However, there are many other people – professionals and technocrats that are better positioned far more than politicians to help the nation grow. No one says anything about such patriots or heroes. It is good that the wrong done to Abiola has been roundly condemned; but does anyone remember Humphrey Nwosu who led the team that conducted the internationally acclaimed best election in Nigeria’s history?
