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Many people have this tendency to say sorry or give apologies for what they did deliberately. But an apology is “an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret”. The act for which an apology is later given must have been done with an error or by mistake. Not an act that was done after at least three or more meetings called, deliberations, and decisions agreed upon, and then the act was executed. Just like the annulment of June 12, 1993, elections were done deliberately. No apologies were needed, necessary, or sufficient.
Talking about the annulment of the June 12, 1993, Presidential Election in “A JOURNEY IN SERVICE” by former Military President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB), and during his Book Lunch, he made an open confession to serious electoral crimes or commissions during and after the 1993 presidential election presided over by him, IBB and his government. Besides writing them down in his book, he came down from the hilltop to Nigerians and took full responsibility for all the government’s actions and
inactions in the preparations, conduct, annulment, arrest, and death of the Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party Alhaji Moshood Kashinmawo Olawale Abiola (MKO) who won the election, but was denied, and the death of many other people, or the exile of some many others.
He also confessed it was one of his close aides, an officer under him, the late General Sanni Abacha who pushed him into the most heinous crime against Nigeria, Nigerians, and Democracy. If this story was true and correct, that was the height of cowardice demonstrated by a General IBB who was so feared for his perceived courage and boldness in power. He was seen never to fear any action coming from any source even Abacha or the whole of Nigeria’s Military. Please, which is true, was IBB so cowardly or just not telling Nigerians the truth as a General about the June 12 annulment of the elections? The greatest untruth told by IBB is that he annulled the election in the “supreme national interest” of Nigeria. Did he equate the Northern Nigerian interest with the Nigerian interest? Or was he just not telling the whole world of the true story of June 12? After all MKO and Abacha are no longer alive to say what they know about the annulment. But there are other witnesses still available.
The reason given by IBB for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections is for the national interest. He said, “We acted in the supreme national interest”. Is this true or a big lie? Does that include the interest of the millions of voters in Nigeria who knew who they voted for and were eagerly waiting for the election results? Or, was it the personal interest of the IBB?
So, a confession, an admission to crimes deliberately committed, and an apology just like that? And that would be the end? And the case closed? So, if a man committed a Bank robbery or murder years ago and now dares to come out openly to confess, takes full responsibility for the offense, and narrates in a book and organizes a book launch speech about how he committed the crime, that will be all?
The actions and inactions of someone that resulted in the death of a presidential candidate who won a national election, his wife’s death, the collapse of one of the biggest business empires in Africa, the deaths of thousands of Nigerians, and the collapse of democracy in the biggest black man’s country in the whole world. Nigeria has not had any opportunity near that of the democratic elections before or after. The confessions have now been written by professional writers and bonded into a big book and the President, ministers, former presidents, head of state, and royal fathers were invited to the book launch. Does this acceptance of guilt and open responsibility to rape on Democracy, nullified all the infringements on the elections? Is IBB above the Nigerian and international laws?
For his open but belated confession and apology, IBB was rewarded with more than a whopping N17 billion while millions of Nigerians are suffering hunger and thirst in the bastardized economy and government, and with the inflated foreign exchange mechanism which started under the IBB Structural Adjusted Programs (SAP), as a Head of State.
The donated billions are for a proposed “Presidential Library Project”. It is on record that it is Babangida after he overthrew the military dictatorship of General Mohamed Buhari he declared himself “Military President”. This is an aberration and a misnormal in Nigerian political history, instead of Head of State. But he later denied Chief MKO
Abiola the rightful constitutional Presidency the Nigerians voted him for. Should he go scot-free without trials?
The donors for what I will call “The IBB Library”, include Abdul Samad Rabiu, N5 billion, topping the list of those present at the book launch event attended by President Bola Tinubu at the Congress Hall of the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, FCT. Nobody can announce the presidential donation. The second person is Aliko Dangote, who donated N2 billion and pledged to add N2 billion annually over the next three years, bringing his total to N8 billion. While former Army Chief of Staff and Minister of Defense TY Danjuma pledged N3 billion. Arthur Eze also supported the project with N500 million.
But nobody can usurp the right of voters and the Constitution to confer a Presidential title on himself without an election. IBB was plain and simply a dictator who answered a President illegally. He and nobody can turn the illegality into legality. The charade of Transcorp Hilton Hotels is a disgrace to the Constitution and the constitutionalism that Nigeria embraced after the IBB murder of democracy.
There is one man alive today, Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the Chairman Electoral Commission who conducted the June 12, 1993. Did IBB forget him in his book? Was he too insignificant to be interviewed for his book? What of the Cabinet Members of IBB still living or the Babangida Boys who served and outlived the “stepped-aside” of IBB? As the Military President, the C-in-C, and the Chairman of the Military Council nobody was over and above him in the military dictatorship.
The ball stops at the IBB table. To annual and not annual, he had the final say and nobody else. Who went to court to stop the election? And which judge delivered the judgment of the election at midnight? And who delivered the verdict of the court’s judgment to the government? After the presidential election was concluded and MKO won the elections, the most democratic in Nigeria, why did IBB not announce the collated result and announce the winner but go to for the annulment of the election then? In his so-called apology after 32 years can he define the so-called “supreme natural interest” that prevented him from announcing the collated and completed results, which were eagerly awaited by Nigerians who already knew that MKO won? The TRUTH of the story of the annulment of the June 12, 1993, election was not told by General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida. This truth will not be silent forever.
According to the promoters of the undeserving IBB Presidential Library, it is designed as “a national institution that will serve as a repository of Nigeria’s arts, political, and military history.” They said the “library would preserve the evolution of leadership and governance in the country, especially during Gen. Babangida’s eight years in political office.
The political and military history, leadership, and governance, which they want the library to contain are those nobody would want the next generation to know about like the love letter to an ace journalist Mr. Dele Giwa in 1986 that charttered the life out of the young brilliant investigative journalist. He was allegedly investing in a drug case in which one Gloria Okon was alleged to be a condict pipe for a top drug baron. Oh, maybe it could be about the 1992 loss of 159 youthful promising officers who lost their lives in a military C-130 crash in Ejigbo in the suburbs of Lagos.
The assassination of Dele Giwa introduced political assassination to Nigeria’s politics which claimed the lives of over 1000 people between 1996 and 1997. Victims include Bola Ige the Minister of Justice who was murdered and did not see justice. Funso Williams, Ayo Daramola, Kudurat Abiola, and hundreds of others throughout the country. Was it the use of “Brown Envelope” a dignified name for bribes that came to be added to the Nigerian lexicon during his time?
Or is it how Nigeria surreptitiously became a member of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) without Nigeria ever being referred to as an Islamic or Christian country socially and constitutionally? All Heads of State before IBB had managed to hold Nigerians together but carefully never to allow the dominance of one religion over the other. General Murtala Mohamed and his deputy General Tunde Idiagbon were in power as Muslims never took Nigeria to OIC, yet Nigeria welcomed them. But IBB was too bold and audacious to create the embers of hatred for the two main religious beliefs in Nigeria which never existed before him. But after the IBB forced IOC on Nigeria, blood has been in the streets, farms, mosques, churches, schools, and just anywhere in Nigeria with innumerable lives lost by so-called jihad fighters. Was this the “supreme national interest” IBB referred to for the annulment of the June 12 elections? If it was, that was his self-creation. IBB is not worth a kobo of money and labor to build a Presidential Library because he was never democratically elected, as a Nigerian President. His library if built would be home to cockroaches, lizards, and cubwells in the future. He was not entitled to it.
The Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta is the only deserving Presidential Library in Nigeria today. That is very good and appropriately named after a former constitutionally and democratically elected president. President Mohamed Buhari also is qualified for a Presidential Library possibly in Daura in Katsina State but surely NOT IBB in Minna, Niger State. This and future generations would be able to see the difference between the men and the boys with democratic eyes. Gold should be sold to those who know the value.
President Bola Tinubu ran away into exile with many other Nigerians during the June 12 mayhem and death caused by the IBB and the killer squad of Sanni Abacha. They attended the event but could do nothing but indirectly accept the actions of the IBB during the June 12 annulment of the 1993 elections. What would they have done if they were not in the government? I leave the answer to the readers. But President Bola Tinubu compromised his democratic values by attending the fundraising for an illegal Presidential Library for an illegal President.
However, the IBB has now been rewarded with over N17b in addition to the trillions he personally, possibly accrued in his “Journey In Service” during his 8-year “Presidency”. What would be going on in the hearts of the victims or some of the people who were maimed or the families of those who died in the fights for the June 12 Presidential actualization? Another unanswered question.
Does IBB deserve the N17 billion generated during his book launch in his overflowing bank accounts, national or foreign? There is nothing good the incoming generation going to learn from his library. There is nothing good to learn about killing a childhood friend and a best man during his marriage. There is nothing good in the annulment of the best-conducted Presidential election worn by an acclaimed and well-known friend. There is nothing good to learn in the most serious political crises that took the life of a democratically elected president, his wife, and his business. There is nothing the new generation would want to learn from a man who had the chance to write his name in letters of gold but chose mud.
The living today are aware of the intrigues and obvious corruption that littered the road to “A Journey in Service” and would not be interested in a future influenced by the despicable history of a Maradona IBB. If he could make thousands of wealthy billionaires by allocating Oil wells to them, he must have been stupendously wealthy and become a trillionaire through the Oil flowing in other lands other than the hilltops of the Niger State. Instead of building an IBB Library, the N17 billion collected could be part of the amount of Restitution to be paid to the victims of the June 12 annulment of 1993 elections by General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida.
Where are MKO Abiola and the other victims of June 12 today? Some lay cold in their last place of eternal rest, silenced forever by the hands that silenced them and their efforts and sacrifices no one remembers but their villains eulogize to high heaven after their victims are gone. Those who are alive and in government are silenced by their political ambitions and the grafts in their pursuit. But let us all remember that our God is just and free. No sinner will go unpunished here or there. No one can be just and wiser than God, the all-seeing and the all-knowing.
Just my opinion.
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