Remarks made by the FCT Minister Senator Bala Muhammed that all presidential aspirants from the Northern part of the country should withdraw and allow President Goodluck Jonathan to contest are not only sycophantic but unfortunate, former military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida has said.

Speaking through his Media Assistant, Prince Kassim Afegbua, Babangida said rather than concentrate on tackling the numerous challenges facing the FCT, the minister has engaged in pedestrian propaganda aimed at mobilising support for Jonathan.

Afegbua told THISDAY yesterday that rather than blame the minister, the system that produced him should be called to question.
[b]"We were expecting the FCT Minister to roll out the achievements of the present administration which he is a part so that Nigerians could begin to assess their performance in office rather than spending tax payers’ money to organize rallies and summits in the name of drumming support for the undeclared intention of President Goodluck Jonathan .

"It is high time President Jonathan called these characters to order because they are simply overheating the system by their sycophantic indulgences. We have since gone past the era of ‘million-marchers,’ such cheap and very pedestrian propaganda to make an impression about an issue.

"This is the age of reason, of service-delivery and positive governance, of ideas that can drive the world, and not an era where hard earned resources are depleted into pockets of sycophants, political jobbers, hirelings, courtiers, jesters and hired crowds.
"With the prostrate nature of our economy, we should begin to reflect on how to bail out the country using uncommon courage, wonderful initiatives and plausible methods to confront the challenges.[/b]
"We expect to see the Federal Capital Territory developed more than how former President Babangida left it. We desire to see more infrastructural development and improved security services. These are challenges that should agitate the mind of the FCT Minister, and not going about organizing rallies and summits in the name of drumming support for our "LOVELY" President," he added. Meanwhile, a pro-IBB group Ndigbo Political Development Initiative, has urged the people of the south-east zone to support the North's bid to retain the presidency in 2011 as a way of bolstering Igbo's claim to the top job come 2015.

doyin13:

This is obviously Kaseem Afegbua talking. . . .

Babangida is nowhere near this witty.

doyin13:

This is obviously Kaseem Afegbua talking. . . .

Babangida is nowhere near this witty.

Solomon227:

Depilot call the cops IBB is about comitting suicide. He cant just go on any longer! Where were u wen the Devil was matching on journalsists in his regime? where were u when tv and radio stations were being shut for pointing out the Vampire's innumerable sins, where were u when human right activists were being taken in and out of jail on the Carnibal's order?. Now he is enjoyin the freedom of speech he denied millions back then. Suddenly he is now a saint and his opponents devils. We all know he has killed b/4 and ready to kill again but we shall this time we shall stand up against d Demon, battle him to d ground until he committ suicide. MKO,Vatsa, and Dele Giwa blood are crying for revenge and die must the evil genius!

Yoruba:

When IBB's media assistant releases a statement;inversely, IBB is the one who did.

doyin13:

This is obviously Kaseem Afegbua talking. . . .

Babangida is nowhere near this witty.

Yoruba:

When IBB's media assistant releases a statement;inversely, IBB is the one who did.

sunboy:

lol , the smartest, best politician Nigeria and the Military ever produced.

anonimi:

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
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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!!!

It's a shame to Bala Mohammed. Only God knows, how much of public money has gone into his so called rally for 'the support of Goodluck Jonathan'. Anyway, one can blame him, he is a product of a failed system

eros:

Can someone volunteer to be a suicide bomber and kill this man called IBB already so that Nigerians can have some peace in the political terrain?

Goddex:

Seun, how much did IBB pay you?

rasputinn:

Ah ah,so cos that his leg disease aka radiculopathy gave him some breathing space he is busy claiming glory for journalistic pieces put together by his hungry slaves like Kaseem Afegbua,I pray IBB dies soon and very soon