Chidi Amuta

A giant question mark seems to hang over the Nigerian political landscape. Everybody seems to be asking everyone else this single question: What is going on? Suddenly, all seems quiet and clueless from the choir of government. The affairs of state seem frozen into a humdrum of routine and miserable predictability. There are no new excitements. No new programs and policy initiatives. Behind the ritual of state affairs, the usual FEC meetings, the goings and comings of the presidential motorcades and the boring unintelligible pronouncements of ministers and other senior officials of state bearing fancy titles, you get a feeling that perhaps government is not at home. But this is only in the zone of governance and policy formulation and implementation. Yet the urgent concerns that fired the minds of the people at election time remain largely unaddressed.

For an administration that is not quite yet two years old, the present barrenness of ideas and programs is not only disturbing. It is tragic. Worse still, for an administration that has finally branded itself as engaged in a reform of the economy, the dearth of ideas can be worrisome.

Let us admit that a few big things have been showcased. There has been a grand fanfare about an Alaskan highway that will stretch from the beaches of Lagos to the pristine sands of Calabar. Hundreds of thousands of bags of rice and beans have been distributed among state governments for onward distribution to hungry people. A hurriedly assembled student loan scheme has been shoe-horned into place without any serious thought as to how the loans will be recovered.

The Tinubu government insists that it is on a reformist path. The essence and definition of this reform orientation is to unleash an avalanche of hardships on the people. A litany of taxes, price hikes, tariff hikes, levies and surcharges on practically everything that means anything to ordinary people has been imposed. Gasoline prices have since multiplied manifold. The deregulation of the Naira exchange rate has since thrashed the Naira exchange rate towards its present struggle to catch a breadth. Nearly every price of every service or good that means anything to anyone has skyrocketed to a level where most Nigerians have resigned themselves to fate. People have since learnt to live life by the day and take what each day brings as their lot, often turning their eyes only to bare essentials.

The lack of new ideas and initiatives in the area of governance and policy has been counter balanced by sporadic dress rehearsals in the area of political activity at the level of the legislature and the states. Of course political life allows no vacuum. In the absence of concerted effort and purposive   momentum, something happens. The political space has in recent weeks assumed a mix of comedy and potentially dangerous drama.

At the Senate, a female senator popularly called Natasha has seized centre stage. She has accused Mr. Akpabio, the Senate President of doing what weak men with access to big money and immense power often do in high places. Mrs. Natasha has accused Mr. Akpabio of sexually harassing her. Her evidence for now remains scanty and doubtful. The relevant Senate committees have used technicality and legislative bureaucracy to befuddle what is ordinarily a straightforward ethical transgression at the height of power in the Senate.

Even the simple procedural tidiness to bring forward her accusation properly before the relevant Senate committee has been flawed by a bit of carelessness on her part. Her sympathizers and those of Mr. Akpabio have since thronged the premises of the National Assembly, desperately angling for public attention.  No one is sure where this charade could lead. But the brickbat has led to Natasha’s hasty suspension for six months by the ethics committee of the Senate. The public is perplexed that a Senate that is known for tardiness in more serious matters of state legislation was in such a hurry to suspend Natasha in a matter of hours.

The uproar is not yet over in spite of the suspension order. If Madam Natasha does manage to advance a serious enough substantiated allegation against Mr. Akpabio, then the Senate President could find himself quite busy untangling his lofty apparels from a woman’s complicated underpants.

For now, there is no certainty as to what the Natasha situation is all about and where it could lead. Some say it is politics. Others insist it is a business deal to wring some cash off the vaults of the allegedly loaded Akpabio. A minority feel Akpabio is too fond of the sniff of highly polished and perfumed womenfolk that he can hardly resist their lure. Ready evidence is drawn from his untidy encounters with Ms. Joi Nunieh, former Managing Director of the NDDC.  The odium of that earlier scandal is still heavy in the air of the current drama.

For whatever it is worth, the Senate’s Natasha versus Akpabio absurd theatre is just one sign that the Tinubu presidency is running out of steam and ideas. A political space that is serious with urgent national issues such as we have in abundance would have no time to waste on matters of pants and bras in highly placed places. The Natasha distraction is just one big evidence that our political life as a nation is fast running on empty.

Elsewhere in the states, governors and power moguls are busy testing their nerves in advance of 2027. In Lagos, factions in the drama of political incumbency and succession tested each other’s nerves. House Speaker Mr. Obasa had taken a casual vacation abroad. On his way back to the country, he found that there was no royal welcome awaiting him at the premises of the Lagos State House of Assembly where he had been holding sway as a powerful Speaker and de facto political emperor. Before he could unpack his bags, his colleagues had impeached him in absentia and elected Mrs. Meranda as Speaker in his place.

He hardly understood what hit him. He began to feverishly work the phones to call the most important numbers in the politics of Lagos state. An atmosphere of instability and uncertainty enveloped the Alausa secretariat of the state government especially the precincts of the House of Assembly. Two hidden hands were pulling the strings of the Assembly leadership apparently in a dance without a name. The impression that the hands of the state governor were behind the ouster of Obasa was palpable. But then, he was ousted by a vote by 30 out 35 members of the house. He was clearly unpopular among his colleagues, accused of many sins including high handedness, arrogance, insensitivity to the needs of the other members. Obasa was rumored to be disrespectful of the youngish popular governor.

The counter narrative was that Obasa did not need to pay the governor much attention since he seemed to have the ears of a higher political deity in Abuja whose wish is the law in the affairs of Lagos. Uncertainty reigned in Lagos for weeks. Obasa sat home and kept threatening to reclaim his speakership toga at the appropriate time. An emboldened Obasa threatened to invade and overrun the Assembly premises in a bid to reclaim his throne.

The state police command initially took over the premises. Legislators stayed away. Workers who were doing the biddings of the new speaker were rounded up and taken away by the police. No one knows whose orders the State police commissioner was obeying or enforcing. A few days down the line, the state police commissioner lost his command and was sent off into anonymity by higher police authorities. The hidden hands replaced the police presence at the Assembly premises with goons of the DSS who made it obvious that they were not in Alausa to play silly games with local politicians.

A few days later, an emboldened Mr. Obasa returned to the Assembly premises in a triumphant march to stage a comeback to the office of Speaker while poor Mrs. Meranda was placated with the lowly innocuous office of Deputy Speaker.  There was no obvious change in the disposition of the majority of the Assembly members. The simmering crisis in Lagos seemed to have been ‘nicely’ resolved. But the political signals seemed quite loud and obvious.

Lagos politics is not likely to be the same in the rest of the present tenure of both the governor and his president boss and enabler. We have just seen a hooded dress rehearsal of what might happen to the ruling APC in the state come 2027.  Many say that the president showed his hands in the insistence on Obasa as Speaker for reasons that many are too frightened to name. Days after the resolution of the crisis, a heavy overhang of dejection was detectable on the faces of opposition legislators who did not like Obasa’s tenure and the manner in which he was reinstated or re-imposed. If this disquiet lingers and flows into the contest for power and supremacy in Lagos in 2027, then the governorship succession race in Lagos is likely to be slightly bumpier than before. It is likely to be more than a wrestle and more of a civil war. Even more frightening is the use or abuse to which the security agencies are likely to be put by political gladiators.

In nearby Osun State, a more gruesome drama of political existence played out.  The famed dancing governor of the state was not in any laughing, singing or dancing mood. He needed to take over the grassroots by staging an impromptu local government election process. A challenge was lurking in the dark opposition APC led by the former governor who happens to be a cousin of the President. Another former governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, had similarly fallen out of favor with the former governor, now Osun’s man in Abuja. Proxy wars among the followers of these gladiators was expected and did take place nastily. It went bloody and claimed a few casualties in the Osun countryside. But the dancing governor and his gang swept the polls. This is merely a dress rehearsal of what lies ahead in the state come 2027. Osun promises to be a theatre of blood and nasty sweat for many reasons. They say it is the actual home state of the president who has never stepped forward to claim ancestry. Nor has he disowned the immediate past former who claims to be his cousin and seems still bitter about his sacking by the dancing governor and his train. For now, the dancing governor could resume his dance steps while rehearsing for the fire next time.

Rivers state is a somewhat different and more tragic instance of politics in the absence of development and governance. The state seems to have settled into the status of a place where there is hardly any governance or development since the last two years or so. Since Mr. Nyesom Wike reluctantly handed over the keys of the government house in Port Harcourt to Mr. Fubara and relocated to Abuja as Tinubu’s emperor of Abuja, the state has hardly known an unbroken week of peace, sanity let alone any semblance of governance and normalcy. Politics has taken center stage in the lives of the people. It is not the politics that promotes development, good governance or healthy partisanship. It is the political equivalent of warfare. Impeachments and threats thereof. Multiple court cases and foolish litigations. A state legislature that has been burnt down or demolished or both. Local warriors brandishing ancient amulets and invoking primordial myths and loyalties. Free brandishing of dangerous weapons in the centre of Port Harcourt while trade, commerce and public service take a back seat. Political contractors and habitual trouble makers have seized the political space and come to town in occasional menacing war dances and rehearsals of ancient battle dance.

Mr. Fubara, poor governor, has been kept busy by Mr. Wike and his cohorts who have been busy picking and choosing godfathers and elders and changing them like nasty underpants. In turn, otherwise respectable state elders have found themselves changing allegiances and alliances with the contending partisans depending on which faction sends them the fattest bundle of cash under the cover of night.

In all of it, the politics of bad manners has taken over Rivers state at the expense of normalcy, development and the normal business of governance. If indeed Mr. Fubara survives his first tenure without impeachment that would probably be his most spectacular achievement in office. When the story of Rivers state between 2023 and 2027 is written, it would simply be that there was a governor that occupied the office but was never allowed to govern the state for one day.

In the latest round of judicial somersaults on the politics of the state, the Supreme Court has just ruled that the state be denied the statutory federal revenue allocation. The reason is ostensibly that the embattled governor has used the judiciary to exclude the majority of state legislators from the legislative functions of the state. As a result, he has had an Assembly of 5 pass the state’s 2025 budget into law while the majority of law makers were legally excluded. The Supreme Court’s argument is that our democracy was never designed to be without a legislative oversight.

The 23 Local government chairpersons have similarly been declared null by the Supreme Court, necessitating fresh Local Government elections now scheduled for some time in August. As matters stand now, the political future of Rivers state is more uncertain than it has ever been.

Taken together, these political motions without movement have provided the Tinubu presidency with a growing camouflage of activity in a polity with an embarrassing degree of governance and policy inactivity. Worse of all is the near absence of intellectual stimulus and original thought on even the most mundane problems confronting the nation. Nothing kills a nation than addiction to boredom and humdrum.

Chidi Amuta

Even after three decades of his untidy retreat to his Minna hometown, Babangida never forget the ‘public’ debts he owed to Nigerians. He owed Nigerian history an expose on his turbulent leadership. He owed the Nigerian populace an insight into his personal enigma and enduring charisma. He also owed us a personal perspective on the worrisome things that happened under his watch. Above all things, Babangida owed a personal recompense and reconciliation with Nigeria on the political headache of the June 12, 1983 elections.

Through the public outing of his long awaited memoir – A Journey in Service – Babangida has settled nearly all his outstanding liabilities to his fellow citizens. In addition to previously unknown details of ‘what happened’, he has finally come to a personal resolution of and reconciliation with the outcome of the contentious ‪June 12 election. Abiola won. His election was annulled by Abacha’s hidden hands of limitless power ambition.  Nigeria survived. Above all, he (IBB) has survived into ripening old age to look back and tell the story himself. Professional trouble makers and history manglers have been deprived of an opportunity to end the Babangida story in malignant tales.

Three decades is long enough time for a man to exhale after leading a sweltering marathon in Nigeria’s turbulent power waters. It is time enough for actors and spectators to have calmed down and taken a respite. Anger would have turned into resignation. Vengeful partisans would have handed the entire matter over to God in a nation where the divine has the final say in all matters political.

The man of power himself should have reflected on the roads he couldn’t travel and the paths that he and even the angels dreaded to try. Babangida led us through troubling times and a treacherous landscape of existential problems. The times were hard and the options daunting in every direction. Our treasury was nearly empty as almost all leaders had turned dealers and fled with our common treasure. Our economic dance had no name. Nor could we look money lenders in the face and say: ‘please help a prodigal nation.’

We resolved by public acclaim after nationwide debates to retreat inwards in search of homegrown solutions. Harrowing reform was the name of the only option left. IBB showed us a new path, a hard road never before traveled. A free market economy of citizens chained under martial rule! Capitalism without capital and without freedom, rebuilding an economy under a retreating state and a frightened citizenry,

Babangida has spent three decades and more as one of us. He has watched history roll along. He may have lived through his errors and watched others ride the waves of his triumphs. His ultimate nemesis, Buhari, has come and gone, renaming his major pitfall – June 12 – into a historical milestone of political advantage. The nation has learnt new names, new dance steps under new leaders. Wobbly as it is, Nigeria has survived as a democracy.

Despite the passage of time, however, something about Babangida has remained constant. His personal allure, the instant electricity of his name, the countless myths about the kind, gentle and smiling general at once capable of incredible compassion and unequaled humanity but readily credited with unthinkable atrocities. The Machiavellian Prince that left the throne but still elicits love but also compels chilling fear.

Above all, Babangida’s personal attraction and a certain public acknowledgment of his political genius has remained in tact. Politicians seeking national acknowledgment seek him. Those wanting to command access to power levers look for him. Those seeking recognition as political notables pay him homage. Those in want of the magic of political wisdom have made pilgrimage to his Minna home.

His Minna retirement home has remained something of a favorite destination for political pilgrims. Younger political gladiators in search of relevance, older political animals seeking to test their own relevance, regional leaders seeking a national acclaim and audience have gone to seek his blessing. He has remained something of a political oracle and universal counselor.

IBB’S tenure and time with us have remained alive for these years. People did not give up hoping for the story of those days from the man himself. The reasons behind the persistence of demands for a Babangida memoir are many.

The questions that have lingered are mostly about matters unusual that happened in the Babangida days: abnormal ways of dying; difficult ways of surviving and living; coups and runouts of coups and counter coups; impossible rules of governance. And yet, the man at the center of it all was constant, smiling, infinitely humane but stern as the professional warrior he was trained to be.

Rulership under him etched new rules and explored unfamiliar paths. It became a dance, a drama of hard choices: a man in full military gear that insisted strangely on being called ‘president’ without resigning his military commission; the msn who in the storm of the Cold War insisted that Nigeria should go:  ‘a little to the right and a little to the left’, a man who enabled elected governors to rule under a martial president; a military ruler who allowed an elected legislature to thrive under ultimate garrison decrees. A master of multiple speak and the wisdom of Delphic ancestry: ‘we do not know those who will succeed us but we know those who will NOT succeed us’!

The public outing of Babangida’s memoirs – A Journey in Service– is deserving of the national splash we have seen. Everything about IBB is news, sensation and headline. This is for good reason. In the growing pantheon of our former leaders, Babangida elicits the greatest anxiety and much deserved excitement. No memoir of a former leader has been and is likely to be so long awaited.

Why the anxious wait? The man’s actions in power deserve no less. He was an original author of the impossible. An army general who seized power, suspended the constitution but insists on being called President and genuinely in love with presidential democracy. A practicing Moslem who insisted that the ideal Nigerian family size should be a couple with four children. A dictator who ruled by decrees but committed himself to a rigorous democratic reform process. To rule by decree and allow elected local governments, state governors and an elected National Assembly.

The Babangida memoir is therefore a comprehensive answer to many lingering national questions but rendered as a string of varied personal stories of an individual life turned into national history. There are multiple stories in this master tale. The primary personal narrative is about his early life. It is story of a young lad who was orphaned at 14 and for whom School was a surrogate home. It is the story of proceeding to high school in Bida where he became classmates with people with whom his later life and career became intertwined. Gado Nasko, Sani Bello, Sani Sami, Mamman Vatsa, Mohammed Magoro, Garba Duba and others. It is the story of a boy who was good in sports and also had obvious natural leadership qualities. He was greeted by the envy of some peers and the obedience of many mates. These lives became more intertwined as most of these young boys later opted for careers in the military. They were inspired by among others young Capt Yakubu Gowon. They went ahead to head different areas of Nigeria’s military establishment.

The other story is that of his career path in the military, his involvement in the series of military coups that altered the history and course of the nation. His instinct for coups was so ingrained that many observers have said that his ultimate exit from power in 1983 was perhaps a self-inflicted coup.

The major tragic chapter of the IBB story is his combat experience in the civil war. His battlefield injury in Uzuakoli and subsequent recovery ended in a decision to get married. Easily the most touching aspect of his war story is the breach with colleagues who fought on the Biafran side.

There are sub stories in this narrative that raise the temperature of the story to near tragic catastrophic dimensions. His bare handed encounter to disarm Col. Dimka after the assassination of Murtala Mohammed. There was also his narrow escape and survival following the Orkar coup. These aspects of the IBB story come close to fictional suspense crime stories.

The major story of public interest is Babangida and the drama of power incumbency. In this crucial part, the many unanswered questions come into view. he touching accounts of the death of Dele Giwa, the trial and execution of Mamman Vatsa, the dreadful night of the  Orkar coup and the unfortunate crash of the military C-130 aircraft all come together as instances of the bad things that could happen in a season of power.

Babangida renders his account with the consummate ease of a master story teller. The difficult accounts of state action and the unattractive business of policy are made to be readable. He animates the landscape of the story with anecdotes and recollections of the human angle of difficult national decisions. In this memoir, there is hardly any name calling, hardly any contentious arguments. The audience is drawn into serious national issues by the allure of a very human story.

In the end, A Journey in Service becomes a shared experience between a national audience and the author as a heroic figure in a national experience of epic proportions.