IBB’s Book Launch – A Parade of Shame and Shamelessness – By Okechukwu Ogboo

 

“How can a country defined by these pernicious tendencies and factors become a saner clime or an advanced country or a part of the developed world? Nigeria is a country where there is a disconcerting dearth of responsibility on the part of public servants, and there are no consequences for bad behaviours both in the public and private space”

PEGASUS REPORTERS, LAGOS | MARCH 12, 2025

With everything going on, many will agree that the only qualification one needs to become the so-called successful politician in Nigeria – whether in khaki or agbada – is SHAMELESSNESS. My friend, to whom I told the caption of this article in a phone conversation when it was a work-in-progress, quickly interjected. He said: “Okechukwu, wait a minute o o… Have you forgotten that Nigeria’s highly educated elites – Professors, Ph.Ds, Masters and Bachelors degree holders were in that hall?” I also cut in. I said: ‘Old boy, I know, I saw them. If life permits, I will do a piece on Nigeria’s warped and deceptive definition of education.”

It is difficult to describe the kind of people Nigerians are. I have long discovered that when one sets out on a journey to nowhere, he must always get there. That is why it is almost impossible to fault any description given to Nigeria and Nigerians by anybody. Some say Nigerians are very funny people. Some say they are the happiest people in the world. Others say they are the most despondent people on earth. Some say Nigerians are people who major in minors and minor in majors. Others say Nigerians are very unserious people. Some say Nigeria is a zoo and that Nigerians are animals living in the zoo country. Some even say that the conventional zoos are better than Nigeria because the animals in the conventional zoos, at least, stay properly organized in the corners and cubicles they are kept. Others also say that Nigerians are among the brightest, the most educated, and the most hard-working people on earth.

In fact, any description of Nigeria and Nigerians appears to work because Nigerians themselves do not even know how to describe themselves or what to call themselves. The late Ikemba Nnewi, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, once gave his description of Nigerians as people diseased with selective amnesia. Many have since extrapolated late Ikemba’s description of Nigerians. They opine that the amnesia is not just selective; it is collective and pervasive. So, what is my own description of Nigerians? Honestly, I don’t know. But if you press me further, I can hazard a guess. The ordinary or average Nigerian is not a bad person per se. To me, Nigerians have become a people so battered and criminally disoriented by forces within and without, especially by their so-called leaders, to the extent that they can turn any and everything on its head and turn around to regale in the so-called ‘Nigerian Factor.’ More on the ‘Nigerian Factor’ shortly.

Nigerians are quick to make beautiful and commendable references to other countries as saner climes, advanced countries, highly developed world, and stuff. But Nigerians have failed to realize that what makes those other climes saner, advanced, and highly developed is not rocket science. It is the deliberate effort and concerted commitment by a people to positively define themselves and hold unto that definition to continuously entrench respect for the rule of law, proper governance and leadership structures, and almost inviolable systems and sub-systems, ensuring that these work for the benefit of all the people or, at least, the majority thereof.

The voluntary and tenacious claim to citizenship and the proud parading of cherished patriotism are perpetually inspired by these factors, enabling citizens to behold boldly unto inherent national ideologies irrespective of political, social, religious, and economic affiliations. The words Responsibility and Consequences can be heard and understood as ordinary English words like other English words. But in Canada, for example, the words are not just ordinary English words. They are as important to Canadians as their lives. Right from the cradle, the words Responsibility and Consequences are used like breast milk to feed citizens. They grow with these words and their meanings; the words live in them, and they imbibe and demonstrate the words in every facet of their lives till death. They garb them as culture and tradition. If you land in Canada as an immigrant or a visitor, you have no other option than to talk, act and behave accordingly because the people have defined themselves by those words and hold unto them tenaciously. You must be a responsible citizen at all times, and must be held responsible for what you do and what you fail to do. And you must have it in your mind that there are, and must be, consequences for your actions and inactions, especially bad behaviours.

The systems and subsystems operate to provide all the information you need in order to know what to do and what not to do. The sacred cow and big man mentality, as obtains in Nigeria, is abhorred! In Nigeria, what do Nigerians define themselves with? Perhaps you hear of the ‘Nigerian Factor.’ If you carry out research into the so-called Nigerian factor (and you don’t really need a deep research), what do you find out and what do you see? You will see disgusting complicity of government agencies like the police and the military in terrorizing, brutalizing, and extorting the citizens. You will see hazardous and real impunity among the so-called leaders. You will find out that corruption is worn like a garb and has totally become a way of life, especially in high places. You will see the cornering of our common wealth by a handful of wicked and mean politicians just to satisfy their lavish and criminal lifestyles. You will see a country where politicians do not have to persuade and convince the electorate about voting them into power, but brag to your faces that they will snatch, grab and run away with power – and they always do and get away with it.

You will discover that the “might is power” tendency. You will see a country where academics, most of them in academia, will always rig scoundrels into political offices and turn around to cry about poor salaries and falling standards of education. You will discover a country where the judiciary has completely shifted from being the last hope of the common man in dispensing justice to become the fortress of only the wealthy and the criminal politicians. You will be confronted with a country where the highest law-making body that should be a mirror of factuality and seriousness on issues has become not only a mere appendage of the highly corrupt executive arm but a comedy cave where, like in the 10th Senate, the president is the chief comedian. Above all, you will see people who wrap themselves in the Stockholm syndrome – always ready to literally spread themselves on the ground for their abusers to step and march on. You will see the unending eulogization of the oppressors by the oppressed.

How can a country defined by these pernicious tendencies and factors become a saner clime or an advanced country or a part of the developed world? Nigeria is a country where there is a disconcerting dearth of responsibility on the part of public servants, and there are no consequences for bad behaviours both in the public and private space.

Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida is a retired army general and former military president of Nigeria. He participated in military coups before being the ring leader in the coup that ousted his predecessor in crime, Mohammadu Buhari, in 1985. He had killed scores of those whose coups had been unsuccessful before and after his own coup. Babangida was among the junta that executed Lieutenant Colonel Buka Suka Dimka and his gang in May 1976. He was the one who ordered the execution of General Mamman Jiya Vatsa and others in March 1986. He ordered the execution of Major Gideon Orkar and his gang in July 1990. Babangida is an unrepentant coupist, a murderer, and a bloody liar given the accounts of what had been in the public domain long before the launch of his book, and what is rapidly emerging after the book launch.

Before Babangida’s take-over of power in 1985, military juntas whose coups succeeded called themselves Heads of State and Commanders-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Their regimes were called Supreme Military Council (SMC). Babangida changed the nomenclatures in 1985 when he named himself the military President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and his regime became known and called the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC). Whether under military rule or a civilian democracy, military coups are outlawed in Nigeria. The violations of the constitution ought to, and should be, visited with serious consequences. Babangida ought to have been imprisoned or executed for coups and counter-coups he carried out in Nigeria. But in Nigeria, the rule of the game is that once you succeed in your evil and unconstitutional act, you are rewarded rather than punished.

The evil name Babangida started wearing – Evil Genuis – for his so-called Maradonic tendencies became a status symbol in Nigeria. Babangida perpetrated all imaginable and unimaginable evil and satanic deeds, including the institutionalization of corruption in high places, climaxing them with the annulment of the 12 June 1993 Presidential Election, freely conducted by Professor Humphrey Nwobu Nwosu, and clearly won by Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olaware Abiola. No consequence has ever been meted to Babangida for his uncountable criminal acts and bad behaviours! If Babangida was jailed or received any commensurate punishment for annulling a freely conducted and clearly won election of 12 June 1993, it is doubtful if the massive electoral frauds and stealing of electoral mandates that have been taking place in circles thereafter, especially in 2023, could have happened. Very doubtful! So, what happened in 2023, and may continue to happen in Nigeria, is clearly the result of condoning and rewarding evil, and embracing blatant violations of the constitution.

I am begging Nigeria’s brand of history not to distort these facts. Babangida was, and is being, rewarded all the way to his old age. The practice of rewarding evil in Nigeria recorded another climax on 21 February 2025 when the launch of Babangida’s book took place at the prestigious Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja. He calls the book “A Journey in Service – An Autobiography.” Ibrahim Babangida confessed and admitted during the launch of the book that the 12 June 1993 Presidential election was clearly won by M.K.O Abiola, but that he annulled it under pressure from certain quarters. He specifically mentioned the late General Sani Abacha as the man to be blamed for whatever led to the annulment. Or did he even say that it was Abacha that annulled the election but that he is accepting responsibility for Abacha’s deed? Besides being rewarded instantly on that day with over =N=20 billion for the evil confession, the occasion was graced by Professors in all fields of study, Ph.D. holders in all fields of study, Masters and Bachelors degree holders and other professionals in core professions in Nigeria.

In fact, the book reviewer is a professor of law and former Vice-President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. He also doubled as the Master of ceremonies at the occasion. Past Nigerian Presidents and their former Deputies (vice presidents) were there too. I can’t mention all their names in this piece. Suffice it to say that Dr. Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, the man that literally walked on the blood of M. K. O. Abiola to become Nigeria’s President in 1999, and turned around to announce that Abiola was not the messiah Nigeria needed, was there too. Dr. Yakubu Dan-Yumma Gowon, the most unrepentant genocidist and human bloodsucker, the man who could easily have avoided the shedding of the blood of millions of Nigerians between 1967 and 1970 but didn’t, was also there. To me, Obasanjo, Gowon, and the man who hosted them to his book launch, Babangida, are among the worst destroyers and ruiners of Nigeria. It was a shocking gathering of most of the most unpatriotic persons who masquerade as Nigerian patriots and leaders.

In attendance also were the fronts of the vultures popularly called captains of industries and commerce in Nigeria – the AGIPs. They were all there, parroting and grotesquely recounting their bizarre verses and satanic lies as ever. Babangida blamed the late General Sani Abacha for forcing him to annul the 12 June 1993 general elections. The vultures who were gathered at the event clapped and applauded to a funny and vicious admission of a monumentally heinous and unconstitutional act by a former military president of Nigeria, 32 years after he lavished tons of Nigerian taxpayers’ naira and resources to conduct the election. In Nigeria’s electoral history, that election is still adjudged the freest and fairest. So, what reason(s) can ever justify that evil and unconstitutional act? Can such a thing ever be contemplated in those countries we are quick to refer to as saner climes? Are you still surprised that Nigeria, as currently constituted and structured, may never move an inch further in the trajectory of progress, development, and advancement?

Perhaps, this is the time to quickly remind the guy in Aso Rock today, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is engaged in an unending globetrotting and wasting of our resources seeking legitimacy, that it will be timely for him to come out now to apologize and resign his position as president, for the mayhem and stealing of electoral mandates that occurred in 2023. Nigerians will gladly accept his resignation and apology now as genuine and hearty. It may even go a long way in reassuring Nigerians and entrenching the genuine pathway to reconciliation and development, and ultimately telling ourselves the truth about how Nigeria should be structured to achieve peace, good life, and happiness for everyone.

Who says that going our ways as different but friendly sovereignties won’t be the ultimate solution if genuinely and peacefully discussed? Coming out years after to babangidize the situation with dubious confessions and pretentious acceptance of responsibility will be absolutely unhelpful. The voice of the world, including that of Nigeria’s most celebrated authors and writers, could not stop Babangida from killing his closest friend and best man during his wedding, General Mamman Jiya Vatsa, and others in March 1986. But only the disagreement of General Sani Abacha was enough to ‘force’ Babangida to annul the best election in Nigeria’s history. In the process, the winner of that freest and fairest election was killed, and Abacha, who will never have any opportunity to defend himself, also died mysteriously. What a tragedy!

Yet, the vultures, ruiners, liars, kakistocrats and plutocrats whose obscene presence graced the launch event clapped and applauded to the evil confession and admission raced in unwarranted braggadocio. Ibrahim Babangida did not really apologize to Nigerians on the other side of the divide – the perpetual victims of his evil acts. Beating one’s chest to dubiously accept and confess to evil acts does not amount to deeply and heartly apologizing to the victims of the heinous crimes. Perhaps, a second book may be coming from Babangida, and during the launch of it another confession may be made about who killed Dele Giwa.

Even though Nigerians suffer from incurable collective and pervasive amnesia, I believe they are waiting! A Nigerian, Mr. Dele Farotimi, was manhandled and thrown into a dungeon, and tons of funny legal cases were instituted against him by some of the destroyers and abusers of Nigeria’s judicial system, simply because he wrote a book – NIGERIA AND ITS CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM – in which he exposed them. But Ibrahim Babangida launched a no-brainer work where he merely bragged about what has been in the public space – the evil himself and his cohorts perpetrated – and he got some grotesque applause and billions of Nigerian naira from some of the liars and ruiners of Nigeria who were gathered in that hall of shame on 21 February 2025. But for the strange docility of the Nigerian people, hundreds of legal cases ought to be flying into the courts now against Babangida and those he unwittingly exposed in his book and by his dubious confessions, including Gowon, Obasanjo and Danjuma, for the trauma, dehumanization, injuries, injustices, and death suffered by millions of Nigerians and a section of Nigeria, as a result of the evil deeds of these evil men.

On second thought, however, one may not blame Nigerians much for not filing cases in courts because there is no judiciary to rely upon to dispense justice in Nigeria. What was lied about and tagged an Igbo coup was quashed by a top army officer of Igbo extraction who later became the first military Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi. But in July 1966 – six months after the January 1966 coup – Major Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma (as he then was) and his gang tied General Aguiyi-Ironsi with a rope onto a running rough military vehicle and dragged him on the rough surface till he died; all in the name of revenge for the so-called Igbo coup. The July 1966 coup was masterminded by Bridadier Muritala Ramat Muhammed (as he then was). Danjuma and his gang also killed the then-military governor of Western Nigeria, Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, who was hosting General Aguiyi-Ironsi in Ibadan at that time, for insisting on protecting his guest. The same T. Y. Danjuma, now a state-made multi-billionaire businessman, was there at the hall of shame on 21 February 2025. He was the co-chief launcher of Ibrahim Babangida’s book and donated =N=3 billion to his friend in crime for confessing that he annulled the 12 June 1993 freest and fairest elections in Nigeria. Again, the vultures and ruiners of Nigeria clapped and applauded. In the saner climes we are always quick to make reference to, 99% of those in that hall of shame on 21 February 2025 should be in long jail sentences without parole. In fact, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) ought to have commenced a back audit function to ascertain their sources of wealth and the tax they paid, or ought to have paid, over the years to justify their obscene wealth. These guys merely steal and share our resources among themselves and use our common wealth to gather and cheer themselves up at any dodgy opportunity. You will never see a gathering of such persons to have purposeful conversations about and around the issues bedevilling Nigeria and its people, and proffer solutions that must include restitutions on their part.

What are Babangida’s positive achievements in his so-called “A Journey in Service …?” I don’t know of any. I would like to challenge Nigerians to refer to all the interviews granted by Ibrahim Babangida since he stepped aside and left Aso Rock in August 1993, including whatever narrative that is contained in his book, and tell the world what they heard and read. All you hear Babangida recount as his achievements are the coups he participated in, the coups he survived, and the one he fully led and “succeeded” to become Nigeria’s military president in 1985. No more, no less!

Okechukwu Ogboo, B.Sc., MBA, CIM, FCA. Calgary,
Canada. +1 587-707-1973

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