Former Nigerian dictator Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida is reportedly jittery about the prospect of being sued in a US court following revelations by Saharareporters that he and his family are in California to be with his dying wife, Maryam.
Maryam Babangida is terminally ill of cancer at the University of California (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles.
The rumor mill in Nigeria is that Mrs. Babangida has died, but one of our sources said the former First Lady remained under intensive chemotherapy and pain therapy in the intensive care unit of the UCLA cancer treatment center.
Sources close to Babangida told Saharareporters that the former dictator joined his wife a few weeks ago. Last week, Mr. Babangida, a retired general, and his children were summoned to Maryam’s bedside as her condition deteriorated.
“She has turned blacker than charcoal,” said a family source who saw Maryam last week.
Mohammed Babangida, the first son of Maryam, returned to Nigeria two nights to brief members of the extended family about the condition of his mother in L.A.
Before her departure for treatment, Mrs. Babangida had handed over control of her businesses to her sister, Jumai King. Most workers in her bakery and “elite” school thought she was still around and coming to work daily as her look-alike sister took care of business.
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A source close to General Babangida told our correspondent that the former dictator is deeply worried that his life would be complicated if somebody sued him in a US court.
Babangida has been accused of framing up his former friend, General Mamman Vatsa for a coup in 1986. Vatsa was subsequently executed after a sham trial before a military tribunal. The former dictator is also believed to have authorized the sending of a letter bomb that killed Mr. Dele Giwa, one of Nigeria’s foremost journalists. Mr. Giwa was assassinated in October 1986 when the bomb exploded in his study while he discussed with his newsmagazine’s London correspondent, Kayode Soyinka.
“The general is worried that, with his presence in the US exposed, human rights lawyers might sue him under the Aliens Tort Act,” said our source. The source added that Babangida was scared that a lawsuit in the US could hold him directly liable for the human rights abuses perpetrated under his watch as Nigeria’s military ruler from 1985 to 1993 when pro-democracy activists drove him out of power.
Babangida is holed up in an apartment in Los Angeles with some of his children as they cater to their dying matriarch.
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