By Alaba Yusuf
Just like yesterday, 21 years ago, I was privileged to lead a crew of three media men that accompanied former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, GCFR, on a 3-day Diplomatic Visit to Ghana, on the invitation of that country’s then President, John Agyekum Kufour. Mid 2005 it was.
We lodged at the famous 5-Star M-Plaza hotels and suites. From where we visited Ghana’s presidential retreat haven of Akosombo, a naturally serene hilltop forest camp overlooking the 63 years old hydro power dam that supplies electricity to the country. We also paid homage at the Osu Castle, an ancient slave depot living with agonising mementos of the obnoxious history of medieval merchandising in humans. We also toured the Volta Region, and later the nation’s seat of power in Accra: the State House.
Meanwhile, my main takeaway from the trip was the public appreciation of General IBB by the ordinary citizens of Ghana who lined up the streets everywhere we went, waving and clapping hands in loud applause: thanking the ex Nigerian leader for his role in the creation of ECOMOG, a subregional interventional military force that quelled the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia, respectively.
I also seized the rare opportunity to interview the cerebral military president famously tagged ‘Maradona’, in the fashion of late Argentine global soccer star, the ever dribbling and controversial Diego Amando Maradona.
On anger management and why IBB hardly responds to brickbatts and innuendo from his detractors, the gap-toothed and soft-spoken General revealed his lifelong philosophy, a legacy he inherited from his late Uncle, Mallam Adamu, who raised and cautioned IBB as a youngster:
“Don’t fight your seniors, because elders are not to be insulted; don’t trade insults with juniors, because they don’t have the experience that you have; and don’t fight your mates, because there will always be places to meet.” This appears to be the myth behind the man IBB. His human relations strategy is top notch. Always smiling. Yet dead serious. What an enigma.
Eighty five years for a soldier, a statesman, and a student of power, is not just an age. It is an archive. A living library of Nigeria’s modern history:IBB.
Today we celebrate General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, GCFR — IBB. The man from Minna who, for better and for worse, shaped the Nigeria we live in now.
IBB joined the army at 19. He fought in the Civil War. Carries a bullet in his body that has caused him radiculopathy and wheel-chair bound. He commanded troops. He understood command, risk, and loyalty. IBB is indeed a charismatic character and a sagacious leader.
What set him apart was intellect. He was not just a general of guns. He was a general of ideas. Coup plotting, counter-plotting, strategy — he read the terrain of Nigeria the way a surveyor reads land. He knew the terrains like the map of his palm.
That is why, in 1985, he took power with the promise to “right the wrongs.” Nigerians were tired of chaos. They wanted order. He gave them 8 years of it. Culminating in mixed feelings and puzzling results.
IBB the reformer attempted to restructure Nigeria. Love him or hate him, you cannot tell Nigeria’s story without his fingerprints: “Evil Genius” a popular newsmagazine once labeled him in the 80s.
He deregulated the banking sector. Introduced the Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP, though painful, which opened the financial sector. The banks we use today were born in that era.
He also created 11 new states. Took Nigeria from 19 to 30. He argued then, and still argues now, that Nigeria is too big to be run from one center. IBB was possibly came ahead of his time!
The General liberalized the media space. Private radio and TV began under him. That paved the way for Raypower fm, AIT and others.
On infrastructure, he constructed the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos. He moved the nation’s capital from Lagos to Abuja. Invested in National Housing. MAMSER. DFRRI. The idea was: take government to the grassroots. IBB had great vision for the country and worked hard to actualize his lofty dreams.
He believed in a guided democracy. Structured. Phased. With institutions before personalities. He created the idea of New Breed Politicians and categorized them into two major parties: SDP and NRC. The late MKO Abiola contested as Presidential flagbearer of SDP against his counterpart Mallam Bashir Tofa of the NRC.
But the annulment of the 1993 elections ruined his great democratic dream. No tribute to IBB is honest without June 12, 1993. It remains the wound and the lesson. An election adjudged the freest.
IBB himself has, in recent years, expressed regret. He has said what many already knew: MKO Abiola won. His memoir is worth reading.
That admission matters. Because in Nigeria, leaders rarely look back. To admit error at 85 is to teach the next generation: power without legitimacy is borrowed, not owned.
Today, IBB remains an Elder Statesman @85.
He is no longer in uniform. He is in kaftan. Receiving visitors in his hilltop home in Minna. Advising presidents. Arguing for dialogue. My last encounter with him was during the homage-paying visit by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, where I presented my biography “WITHIN SIXTY” to him. There is a chapter in it titled “The Secret Code of IBB”
So at 85, IBB has become what many soldiers never become: a reference point. Young politicians visit him not for money, but for memory. For the story of how Nigeria was managed, mismanaged, and kept together.
He has outlived his critics and his contemporaries. He is now an institution himself. A living legend.
In sum, General Ibrahim Babangida is a paradox that Nigeria must live with. He expanded democracy’s tools and annulled its biggest test. What an irony?
He built institutions but personalized power.
He liberalized the economy., though incurred debts.
Nonetheless, he has also fought to keep Nigeria one during turbulent years. He thought big. He thought structurally. And at 85, he is still thinking.
On this day, one cannot canonize him. But acknowledge his immense and impactful contributions to nation building.
Happy 85th Birthday to General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. May your remaining years be in good health. May Nigeria learn from both your triumphs and your mistakes. As a leader, you mentored others to grow.
A country that forgets its history is doomed to repeat it. And a country that honors its elders, even the complicated ones, is a country growing up. Eighty five candles and salutes to the Generals’ General, the Great IBB.
Chief Alaba Yusuf writes from Abuja