By Kingsley Moghalu
“I was very surprised,” my friend said over the phone, “to see your endorsement of General Ibrahim Babangida’s autobiography—and on the front cover, no less.”
“And why are you surprised?” I asked.
“I thought you were a democrat,” he replied heatedly. “This man was a military dictator!” He then launched into the June 12 debacle: the annulment of the 1993 presidential election results and the truncation of the military government’s own transition programme.
I smiled. “Babangida led Nigeria for several years at a time when military rule was the fashion across Africa and democracy the exception. He must be judged, as must all the uniformed leaders of that era, in that historical context. More importantly, if you have read the book you would have seen that IBB expressed deep regret for truncating the democratic transition in 1993 and accepted full responsibility. Looking backwards, he wrote, he was wrong and should have acted differently.”
Babangida’s memoir is important for our country’s historical accounting, and I was honored to respond positively to the former military leader’s invitation to comment on it. Keen historians and students of history will surely appreciate that within the span of 18 months, three former military rulers including IBB have published their memoirs. Memoirs, like leadership, are not necessarily popularity contests. They are recollections plus perspective.
IBB used the opportunity of his own memoir to complete the historical accounting for his part of our national story with finality and clarity. It was a good thing that he confronted the challenge head-on. Time is a great healer of wounds and a master contractor in supplying new perspectives on historical narratives. Importantly, Babangida also had the courage to correct the erroneous impression that the January 1966 coup—the first in the country’s history—was an “Igbo coup,” a narrative that went beyond individual responsibility to assign collective ethnic guilt for the first of several tragic events that year. As General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (Rtd), GCFR, turns 85, the 1993 election annulment remains an inevitable aspect of his legacy. Having dealt with it — and the January 1966 coup — he should be at peace with himself. His legacy, however, encompasses far more.
With the sad exception of Gen. Johnson-Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, Nigeria’s first military Head of State, Nigeria’s former military rulers have all enjoyed long lives. Former President Muhammadu Buhari, also a former military ruler, passed on more recently at 82. There are three reasons why this longevity is a blessing. First, it has afforded them a golden opportunity to reflect on their times in power and on what they did right or wrong. Writing a memoir is only part of that process; memoirs can sometimes serve self-justification more than unflinching self-assessment and can leave important questions unaddressed. I believe IBB’s memoir passed the test of honest self-examination.
Second, a long life has enabled these elder statesmen to enjoy the immense prestige that accompanies being a former Head of State or Government—a satisfaction that runs deep in human psychology. Third, and perhaps most important in our contemporary context, longevity has given them all, IBB included, the chance to observe first-hand the undebatable decline of the Nigerian state over the past several decades, a decline that accelerated in the past ten years.
Remember that these ex-generals seized and exercised power in their thirties and forties. They have now spent decades as former leaders. Remember, too, that they made huge sacrifices—as did many other compatriots—to “keep Nigeria one” through the civil war of 1967–1970. It is important to assess the state of the Nigerian state itself: How far have we come? Is Nigeria truly one today? Does a country exist simply for the sake of existence and mere survival? Or does it exist to thrive—with consistent, measurable progress toward genuine nationhood, unity of purpose, and citizens who are steadily better off and “flourishing,” measured by GDP per capita rather than the anaemic GDP growth numbers I have called “the Fallacy of Economic Man”?
Babangida, with his sharp strategic mind—and with shrapnel from the scars of battle still lodged in his body—will doubtless be ruminating over these deep questions. Or at least he should. The burden is not his alone. He belongs to a historical cohort of men who had the rare opportunity to govern and to move the country forward.
IBB was unique as a military ruler in several respects. He catalysed development and governance through deliberate political engineering. He possessed bold, futuristic ideas—such as the two-party system he decreed, one “a little to the left” and the other “a little to the right,” in a country that stood mainly on an ethnic tripod and therefore needed contests for power based on ideas rather than tribes. These ideas shaped events instead of merely reacting to them. From all accounts, he plotted his way to power. Not for him the “Not My Will” scenario—profound as that was. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida demonstrated the power of human agency and calculated risk-taking as foundational elements of transformative leadership. Had he resisted the internal, turn-by-turn politics of the military and handed over to a democratically elected government in 1993, there would have been no contest over who has been the greatest head of government in Nigeria, civilian or military.
On taking office in 1985 he appointed a stellar cabinet that included weighty minds, intellectuals and professionals: Olu Falae, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, Chu S.P. Okongwu, Kalu Idika Kalu, Tam David-West, Bolaji Akinyemi, Abubakar Alhaji, Rilwanu Lukman, Bola Ajibola, Gordian Ezekwe, and fine soldiers such as Generals Alani Akinrinade and Ike Nwachukwu. Babangida was a leader who first asked, “Who has the competence and can get this job done?” rather than “Is he Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa or Fulani?” He was confident enough to work with independent-minded intellectuals and empower them to help shape and execute policy. This is often the missing ingredient when “politics” supplants both leadership and governance. The country turns round and round in, well, political cycles, but real development remains far. IBB co-opted even critics of his regime and of military rule by offering them opportunities to contribute to national progress through “water-no-get-enemy” appointments. Thus the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka accepted the inaugural chairmanship of the Federal Road Safety Corps, and the renowned educator Tai Solarin became the first Chairman of the People’s Bank of Nigeria.
Babangida recorded huge achievements in infrastructure. He constructed the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos and effectively moved Nigeria’s federal capital to Abuja, building Aso Rock Villa, the National Assembly Complex, the ECOWAS Headquarters, the International Conference Centre, and a long list of other projects. He created important new institutions: the Federal Road Safety Corps, the State Security Service, the various national intelligence services, the National Directorate of Employment, and the Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure. He also created eleven new states: Akwa Ibom, Katsina, Abia, Adamawa, Delta, Edo, Enugu, Jigawa, Kebbi, Osun and Taraba.
He launched the controversial Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), anchored on currency devaluation, trade liberalisation, privatisation of public enterprises, and phased subsidy removal on petroleum products and agricultural fertiliser. While SAP registered some formal successes, the wider view is that it failed to achieve its core objective of creating stable, diversified and sustained macroeconomic growth. The principal reason was that a massive pivot toward a diversified, export-led industrial base never accompanied the liberalisation of currency and trade. Oil revenues remained the mainstay of the economy. Forty years later, they still are. The SAP was also inevitable because of the economic management failures of earlier regimes. Had Nigeria demonstrated strategic foresight and established a well-endowed sovereign wealth fund during the oil-boom years of the early 1970s, any later liberalisation would have been more measured and the social disruption less severe. In the absence of such a buffer, and with the collapse of oil prices that left the country with very little foreign reserves, SAP was not an option—it was an imperative.
In foreign policy Babangida was a strong and effective leader who projected Nigeria’s power and influence even amid domestic economic difficulty. He established the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), which helped stabilize Liberia and Sierra Leone during their civil wars. His administration created the Technical Aid Corps under Foreign Minister Bolaji Akinyemi, later pivoted to “economic diplomacy” under Ike Nwachukwu, and secured the election of Chief Emeka Anyaoku as Secretary-General of the Commonwealth against the former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.
I first met General Babangida about twenty years ago in Geneva, where I was living and working as a senior United Nations official. I was introduced to him by his wife and former First Lady, Maryam Babangida (may her soul rest in peace). The resourceful former First Lady, famous for her Better Life for Rural Women Programme, was active in international humanitarian circles at the time, and I advised her informally on her engagements. On being introduced to the former Head of State I asked respectfully, “So what keeps you busy these days, Sir?” “Oh, I just follow this woman around,” he replied, pointing to his wife with a smile. I found the response disarming and could not help laughing. He was pleased to learn that I was from Nnewi. His face lit up: “That’s the same hometown as my very good friend Chu Okongwu.” Thus began a longstanding relationship from which I have learned much. A couple of years ago, after I had just finished a CNN interview, the retired general called and asked, “Kingsley, how are you?” “Your Excellency,” I replied, “bodi de inside cloth, Sir.” It was his turn to laugh—hard.
I wish General Ibrahim Babangida, Elder Statesman, many more years of healthy life.
Prof. Kingsley Moghalu is President of the Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation (IGET Academy) and CEO of Sogato Strategies LLC, a Washington DC-based geopolitical risk and global strategy advisory firm.