@ poster, it pains me as well when never I read about IBB on the bid for 2011. really we need to do all we can to stop him. IBB is noting but a gammer and to me I call him OLD FULL and we NIGERIANS have the right to stop him. in additions am going to print this out and make photo copy as much as I can to give it to people to read so maybe those who are calling for IBB can have change of mid. GOD BLESS NIGERIA !!!!!!!!!! author=rasputinn link=topic=491573.msg6515145#msg6515145 date=1280991504]

IBB For President: An Exercise In Futility

It pains me to the marrows anytime I read IBB’s useless and unwanted stories on the pages of our newspapers and magazines concerning his presidential bid in 2011. I get offended, and feel totally devastated that we still allow the hopeless, shameless, and the bloody dictator to grace the front pages of our newspapers and magazines, talking nonsense and forcing me to remember the tragic pains and sorrow of yesterday which I copiously documented in a book for posterity.

I have cursed the day IBB came to power in Nigeria because that was the day all the devils in the world landed in Nigeria, and the centre could no longer hold as anarchy was loosed upon Nigeria.

If Nigeria is not a failed nation that works for those who failed it, tell me the reason why IBB at 70 will want us to vote for him as president in 2011? Do you promote somebody who scored zero in all subjects in an examination to the next class? If Nigeria has not excelled hopelessly in several dubious departments, no newspaper or magazine worth its salt in Nigeria will allow its front page to be used to celebrate a man that ruined and destroyed Nigeria, a man deficit in honour, deficit in character, deficit in integrity, a man without shame, a man who cannot be trusted.

There are thousand and one reasons why IBB must not preside over any serious office in Nigeria again, even as a local government chairman. Just like General Abacha, IBB’s tenure was characterised by sectionalism, state sponsored killings, crass sycophancy, brazen mismanagement, arrogance, violent rule, nepotism, deception, press gag, destruction of judiciary, destruction of democratic institutions, stigmatization of Abuja, violation of international protocol and diplomacy, looting of national till, reducing Nigeria to a pariah nation, annulment of free and fair elections, suppression of pro-democracy and human rights activists, putting Nigeria in a state of war, setting ethnic groups against one another.

During his administration, he violated Nigeria’s secular status, created dubious millionaires and billionaires overnight, destroyed Nigerian armed forces, sowed seed of discord among 150 million Nigerians, wasted 40 billion Naira in a Transition Programme he never believed in. This list is endless!

Make no mistake about it, whatever Nigeria is going through today was kick-started by IBB in 1985 and he sealed it up on June 23, 1993. Since June 12, 1993 Nigeria has not held a free and fair election and it may continue to elude us if the likes of IBB is not brought to book.

Until we have the courage, the boldness and the political will to deal with the enemies of Nigeria, the world will continue to laugh at us. No nation rises above its potentials. The nation is what the leaders have made it and I do not care whether those leaders were civilians or military men.

In body language, IBB may be pretending that all is well, trying to be fearless and unperturbed in the face of mounting criticisms against his inordinate ambition but beneath the bravado is a man whose past hunts him to hell.

My good friend and wonderful writer Olaitan Ladipo once educated us on the English expression of the words whistling in the dark. He says ‘it is all about someone walking alone in the forest at night, whistling as he goes along. He is whistling so that people will think he is not afraid, whereas the real reason he is whistling is because he is afraid’.

In all this, I have one advice for IBB: withdraw from the race now and go and join others in searching for the man that will lead Nigerian out of crisis you created in the first place. Do not deceive yourself. Nobody goes to the market to purchase a basket thinking that he or she can use it to fetch water. Even the basket seller knows it is an impossible task. The truth is that Nigeria has moved beyond the likes of IBB. Actions carry consequences!

http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2010/08/03/ibb-for-president-an-exercise-in-futility/

[quote][/quote]

I blame past admin for not striping him of his ill gotten wealth.

The Babangida years

By Tolu Ogunlesi
April 17, 2010 10:36PM

In his first New Year Days speech as military president, months after deposing the Buhari-Idiagbon government in a bloodless coup enthusiastically welcomed by Nigerians, Ibrahim Babangida declared: I wish to reaffirm that this administration does not intend to stay in power a day longer than is required to lay the necessary institutional framework to bring about a better and more stable Nigeria. Babangidas bonhomie (its trademark an endearing gap-toothed smile) - in stark contrast to the stern, unsmiling façade of Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor - made it easy for him to be believed.
The distinction between the two regimes in fact ran much deeper than personality quirks. Babangida, in action, proved to be the complete antithesis of his predecessor. He threw open prison doors, setting free hundreds of 3rd republic politicians convicted and jailed by Buhari. He repealed the obnoxious Decree No. 4 of 1984 with which the Buhari regime had shackled the media. He promised to run an open administration that is responsive to the yearnings and aspirations of all the people - a departure from the high-handedness of the Buhari/Idiagbon era.
One of his first actions as military president was to allow Nigerians to decide, through public debates, whether to accept the $2.5 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan the Buhari government had been negotiating for.
After the terror of the Buhari years, Nigerians appeared to have found a statesman in military uniform.

Tough times that lasted

By 1985, Nigerias foreign debt had ballooned to $18 billion, up from $3.4 billion in 1980 (it would rise beyond $30 billion by the end of the 80s), and external reserves had dwindled to less than $2 billion. Oil prices had been in freefall for 3 years running, and in January 1986 they finally fell to less than $20 per barrel, a record low since the start of the decade.
To his credit Babangida made all the right noises about revamping the economy. In his Independence Day 1985 speech, barely two months old in office, he declared a state of economic emergency for the next 15 months. That speech went on to lay down a comprehensive plan for economic reconstruction.
This plan included a moratorium on new foreign debt, promotion of agriculture and industrial development, restriction of importation to essential commodities, financial sector reform and privatisation.

Populist leanings

IBB was a master of the populist move - ambitious government programs targeted at tackling poverty, and empowering rural dwellers. His government churned out program after program, in a bid to actualize his promises to run an inclusive, people-facing government. In 1986, Babangida launched the Mass Mobilization for Self Reliance, Social Justice, and Economic Recovery (MAMSER).
In 1987, the Directorate of Food and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI) was launched to promote agriculture and transform Nigerias rural landscape by providing modern infrastructure. Other Babangida creations include the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND), Peoples Bank of Nigeria (PBN), National Board for Community Banks (NBCB), Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), National Planning Commission (NPC), and the Urban Development Bank.
No other Nigerian government presided over such substantial expansion of government bureaucracy as the Babangida administration. In time, the fiscal prudence that Babangida espoused vanished: billions of naira were sunk into an endless transition programme, and in the early 90s, 12 billion dollars worth of windfall crude oil revenue (courtesy of the rise in the oil prices due to the Gulf War) could not be accounted for.
Mr. Babangida also came to perfect the art of dispensing patronage through political appointments (mostly targeted at leading members of the opposition) and a far-from-transparent allocation of lucrative oil blocks.

A man whose words mean nothing

Mr. Babangidas contradictions eventually overwhelmed his reputation so that when, in May 1993, the activist and lawyer Gani Fawehinmi described him as a man whose words mean nothing to him, evidence of this littered his eight years in power.
Only months after vowing to run a government by consultation with the people, Mr. Babangida in 1986 surreptitiously - and unilaterally - took Nigeria, an avowed secular state, into full membership of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), a body which describes itself as the collective voice of the Muslim world.
Mr. Babangida lamented the large role played by the public sector in economic activity with hardly any concrete results to justify such a role.Ironically, over the course of the next five years, he would go ahead to supervise an unprecedented expansion of government. And despite his deference to the wish of Nigerians to reject the IMF loan, Mr. Babangida went ahead to implement some of the Funds most drastic requirements - a devaluation of the naira, and removal of subsidies, chief of which were the petroleum subsidies.
Mr. Babangida promised Nigerians that the belt-tightening was sorely needed: the painful injection that would usher in vibrant economic health; the mandatory dark lining before a cloud of prosperity. Those reforms, which he christened Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), came into effect in 1986, with a far-from-pleasant impact on Nigerians. Purchasing powers dwindled, inflation rose, and the obliteration of the middle class began. In 1989, SAP riots rocked the country, as Nigerians had finally had enough of economic reforms which silver lining they waited in vain for.

Greatest failings

Mr. Babangidas greatest failings were however in two key areas: his human rights record, and his political transition programme. In December 1985, a group of soldiers, which included his close friend, Mamman Vatsa, were arrested on allegations of plotting to topple the 4-month old Babangida government. After Vatsa was convicted and sentenced to death, Mr. Babangida assured a delegation of distinguished writers (Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and J.P. Clark), which had come pleading for mercy, that he was determined to do everything in my power to save (Vatsa).
Hours later, Vatsa and the other alleged plotters were executed.
As opposition to Mr. Babangidas rule grew, so did his intolerance for dissent, so that he routinely shut down or proscribed media houses; and harassed journalists, civil society and labour groups using the instruments of state (the State Security Service, Directorate of Military Intelligence and the Police).
In 1986, five students of the Ahmadu Bello University were murdered when mobile policemen invaded the campus to quell anti-IMF protests. He also promulgated a series of draconian decrees targeted at quelling all opposition, and on occasion did not hesitate to deport foreign critics (University lecturer Patrick Wilmot and journalist William Keeling).
In October 1986, frontline journalist Dele Giwa was murdered by a letter bomb in Lagos. Preliminary police investigations stated that senior officers of Mr. Babangidas intelligence services, who had hounded Giwa in his final days, had questions to answer regarding Giwas death. The mystery of the Giwa assassination remains unsolved till date.

An interminable journey

A maddeningly convoluted transition programme, whose terminal date soon became a mirage - first 1990, then 1992, and then 1993 - is one of the most significant things Babangida will be remembered for.
Early on in his administration, Mr. Babangida inaugurated a Political Bureau to kick off, as it were, the national debate on a viable future political ethos and structure for our dear country.
The political bureau was soon followed by a Constituent Assembly, which in 1989 fashioned a new constitution for the country.
Also, in 1989, he created, by presidential fiat, two political parties, the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention. Then in 1991, he released a controversial list of prominent politicians whom he said were banned from participating in the transition programme.
In October 1992, he cancelled the results of the parties presidential primaries, causing new primaries to be held in March 1993. And then in June 1993 he annulled the results of the presidential elections, presumed to have been won by billionaire businessman MKO Abiola.

This was the final straw
.
By this time, Nigerians had finally had enough of his shenanigans, and violent protests forced him to step aside on August 27, 1993,My colleagues and I are determined to change the course of history, Mr. Babangida told Nigerians in his maiden speech as Head of State, on August 27, 1985.
By the time he reluctantly relinquished power exactly eight years later, he had achieved that goal, far more successfully than he, or anyone else, could ever have imagined.

Source: Next
====================

The Holy Book says "my people perish for lack of knowledge".
Will you allow 150m of us (Nigerians) perish or will you ALSO forward this article on the (mis) deeds of our self-proclaimed "evil genius" to all Nigerians that you know
Will you help confirm "maradona" IBB's claim (in Germany in the 90s during one of his radiculopathy treatment trips) that we, his fellow citizens are "docile" (MUGUs) by not sharing this mail
Find a way to get involved at all levels- local, state and federal- this election period for a better Nigeria!!!

After reading this various posts,i can conclude that Babangida has a Ph.d in corruption studies

Akosbaba:

After reading this various posts,i can conclude that Babangida has a Ph.d in corruption studies

Brother IBB was bone with corruption, and noting to offer than corruption as well
God bless Nigeria

IBB for presido!!! like it or not, he rulez, Jo-boy suck, he is not man enough to be president cos he takes orders from one old otta farmer

i agree [img]http://s07.flagcounter.com/count/DymW/bg=ffffff/txt=ffffff/border=ffffff/columns=1/maxflags=1/viewers=3/labels=0/[/img]

what.lyf:

IBB for presido!!! like it or not, he rulez, Jo-boy suck, he is not man enough to be president cos he takes orders from one old otta farmer

Sincerely speaking, while IBB does not deserve to rule Nigeria again after his mis-adventure of 17 years ago, Goodluck needs to clearly assert himself and prove that he is capable of steering Nigeria's precarious ship from the rocks; so far he is yet to convince doubting Thomases that he has the guts, beyond the goodluck and goodwill, to run Nigeria and tackle the various mafias that are strewn across the polity.

From his political history and records all the way from Bayelsa, and given the type of man that he is, it may be too much to expect that he would go into any bitter power struggle and fight doggedly to wrest Nigeria from the hands of the various cabals in Oil & Gas, Power, Rail, etc. In fact, I think he is being mentioned simply because of the power of incumbency & the zone he comes from and not because of his rare achievements or what he stands for.

This is why Goodluck should identify a credible Nigerian (North or South), that has the ability to launch an onslaught on our common problems, to whom he can hand over. Please such Nigerians should not include IBB or Atiku. History would remember him for this. Goodluck knows in his heart that he is not cut for the dog fight of Nigerian politics.

We should cast our net wider and stop making this 2011 as a straight fight between Goodluck and IBB.

Which IBB are we talking about? Pls I need to know.

@ bb.luv, Ibrahim Badamusi Babangida

@ pukkah, you are so right,

Bleep IBB

Me no go forgive ibb

@What.Iyf, Thanks, For letting me know that it is that cruel man again.
So this what our Nija wants to turn their presidential seat to. Anyway it is business IBB wants to more money by frustrating
the citizens and that is why I dont feel like coming home. WHEN WILL NIJA CHANGE FOR GOOD LIKE OTHER COUNTRIES?

Jonathan should excercise his control of the party machinery at the national level to frustrate the crook called babangida