March 14, 2010
I read with great concern and amusement the deliberate attempt made by Mr. Amuta in the above-referenced article to set the stage for grand revisionism and for the ultimate emergence of a messiah in the person of Mr. Ibrahim Babangida as the savior and leader of Nigeria. This rejoinder is both to reflect our understanding of the undeclared intent of Mr. Amuta’s piece, and to state the facts exactly as they are.
I read with great concern and amusement the deliberate attempt made by Mr. Amuta in the above-referenced article to set the stage for grand revisionism and for the ultimate emergence of a messiah in the person of Mr. Ibrahim Babangida as the savior and leader of Nigeria. This rejoinder is both to reflect our understanding of the undeclared intent of Mr. Amuta’s piece, and to state the facts exactly as they are.
While kites are being flown all over by the Babangida people, it is significant that Mr. Amuta, who has earned a reputation for seminal commentary on the Nigerian condition, failed to declare his pro-Babangida leanings that inspired the job description he arrogantly laid out for the next president of Nigeria. It is a fact that Mr. Amuta was appointed by Mr. Babangida as a commissioner under the defunct Directorate of Food, Roads, and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), one of the early vehicles of systemic looting in Nigeria. Mr. Amuta has since then, remained a factotum for the over-rated man in Minna. The universal acknowledgment of the decay in the land should not be lazily exploited to insult our collective intelligence. There are far more decent outcomes than handing Nigeria over to Mr. Babangida and his group of lazy and clueless usurpers.
The article clearly captured the shameful game being played out across the country on account of president Yar Adua’s evident incapacitation to discharge that high office. The lack of transparency and integrity in handling this very situation is reflective of deeper pathologies that afflict Nigeria. It is equally a sad commentary that facts are gleefully being twisted to exploit the fault lines of ethnicity and religious affiliation. For the avoidance of doubt, while the structural integrity of the country cannot be taken for granted, it is equally mischievous to interpret all views that deviate from the mainstream of stupidity and indecency as clamours for disintegration. Decent people must be heard in the country; the people who threaten the unity of the land are those who, for various reasons, have elected to distort facts or failed to discharge the oaths of their offices by impeaching a clearly incapacitated president. There is nothing personal about this; it is amusing that our impostor-leaders choose when to accept God’s Will and when not to. People who treat women shabbily in their households have suddenly surrendered Nigeria to a demented and unelected woman.
Mr. Amuta’s analysis ends with a declaration that the only person who must replace Yar Adua must be a National Security Expert, with proven experience in that field as well as both domestic and international stature. His prescription is predicated on an assumption that Nigeria currently runs the risk of disintegration if his Avatar fails to be persuaded to rescue us. We need to deconstruct this formulation in a structured manner. In the first instance, Mr. Babangida is not a National Security Expert, by even a generous stretch. Nigerians have a penchant for exaggeration and distortion. This man was among a group of barely-literate young men who joined the ethnic militia that passed for the Nigerian Military in the 60’s. With a Grade 3 GCE as his highest educational achievement, Mr. Babangida clearly does not merit the carefully-cultivated persona as an intellectual. Having participated, with his ilk, in the regrettable war against Igbos, they speedily rewarded themselves with high-sounding military ranks and over-starched uniforms. This same crop of poorly-qualified individuals have seized the political space for over 40 years, and have engaged in an orgy of shameful recycle of mediocrity ever since. With their virtual illiteracy as a perpetual handicap, they have visited untoward harm on the life of this country whose potentials remain regressive. It is a sad reflection of the Nigerian condition that these fellows have continued to make policy, subvert the constitution, privatize national resources, militarize the political space, destroy the moral fiber of the country, and yet project a putrefying aura of inevitability and impunity. In a modern military, none of these so-called Nigerian Generals would attain the rank of Major; their expertise lies only in plotting for power, killing and betraying trust, and subverting the fatherland. Calling Mr. Babangida a National Security Expert is equivalent to addressing the gateman of the mortuary in a Teaching Hospital as the Chief Medical Director.
Let it be known that the elements of National Power include Traditional Diplomacy, Coercive Diplomacy, Propaganda, Political Warfare, Psychological Operations, Counter-Intelligence, Economic Warfare, Intelligence, Covert Operations, Culture, Military, Political Culture, Manpower Base, etc, etc. It is the mastery of all these elements that qualifies one as a National Security Expert, and not rising to the top of an ancient ethnic militia that purports to be a modern national military establishment. Mr. Babangida is clearly deficient in the fundamentals of State Power in the modern world on account of his very limited education, narrow worldview, political acculturation, and antecedents. Furthermore, the Nigerian military and their bloated Generals have turned their guns only against their own citizens and feel entitled to our gratitude for this. Mr. Babangida’s ascent as a Military Dictator was achieved through treason, while his humiliation from office eight years later was on account of the treasonous annulment of the June 12, 1993 election. Where, then, are the ingredients of democratic maturation and civility that are much needed in the cadre of leadership that would rescue Nigeria from the man-made abyss to which it has sunk? Another falsehood about this man’s profile is the propagandistic dissemination of an assumed intimate relationship with the United States. People should know that, for several years, the US refused him visa to visit the country due to his dictatorial past and revolving corruption/ money laundering. After much plea and intervention, he was granted a visa late last year on very restrictive terms to visit his dying wife in California. That is not how highly-regarded friends are treated. His fellow kleptocrat, the Shah of Iran, was refused a visa into the US for a long time until a compassionate concession was made to enable him to attend to his terminal cancer. In any case, Nigerians should know that Americans will not vote in Nigeria’s elections; we should defend our votes. When Iranians seized and occupied the US Embassy in Teheran for over 400 days, the US was forced to abandon their former stooge, Shah Pahlavi.
Babangida’s eight years as a military dictator were marked by self-service, personality cultism, lack of vision (occasioned by the limitations of educational and related advancement), wholesale corruption, negation of the core values of the land which previously encouraged deferred gratification, concentration of power around the demigod that he quickly became, patronage, sodomistic quotient as a vital qualification for advancement in the country, debasement and destruction of all Institutions, destruction of all dissenting voices, enthronement of a culture of impunity, triumph of sin over morality, bare-faced looting in conjunction with foreign accessories, and the elevation of mediocre manipulation to the altar of state policy. Dictator Babangida revels in his nickname, Maradona, which demonstrates the amorality involved in using one’s hand to stealthily score a goal in the game of soccer played with one’s feet. It is shameful that Mr. Amuta and his group will even contemplate rewarding treason with statesmanship. The sheer contempt in which this group holds Nigeria equals the arrogance of the PDP hierarchy which assumes that Nigeria is their property and that their corruption-induced formula for allocating political offices must be binding on hapless Nigerians. It is this same maradonic template that inspires the attempt to erase our collective memory, and present Mr. Babangida as the Leader that Nigeria sorely needs at this time, otherwise calamities will ensue. But Mr. Babangida is calamitous, and can never be part of the solution.
In many ways, Mr. Amuta recent This Day articles suggests that he wants to become a part of another cabal and kitchen cabinet that would replace the nauseating nabob of idiocy in the presidential villa and around Abuja. In all these calculations and postulations, the Nigerian majority does not matter at all. Mr. Amuta should concede that we are still intelligent enough to realize that the principal motivation for Mr. Babangida’s current ambition to become president in 2011 is simply to achieve the self-satisfaction that he has raped the Nigerian system for a longer period of time than his Godson-turned-albatross, Mr. Obasanjo. With Obasanjo’s eight years as a civilian dictator having nullified the eight years of Babangida’s eight locust years as a military dictator, Mr. Obasanjo still has the unresolved advantage of having abused the system for three years as a military dictator between 1976 and 1979, apart from years spent as Murtala Muhammed’s Deputy. For the Minna demi-god and his acolytes, this gap must be shrunk or eliminated starting from 2011. These two poorly qualified and visionless men have imposed themselves on Nigerians as their civilian and military dictators for 19 out of our 49 years as a nation, and we still wonder why we have failed in every sphere of life. This accounting does not reflect the several years they held other influential positions like Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters, etc. Despite this, they still feel entitled to impose themselves on us. The problem is either with them or with us. What a joke!!!
Democracy, in its prescriptive and ideal form, remains the best form of government formulated by man. The corruption of its essence by people like Obasanjo, Babangida, and the imbecilic coterie in Abuja, cannot extinguish the alignment of democracy with the human spirit. Nigerians will overcome and people must be held accountable, however long it takes. While contextual nuances and factors, as well as the absence of restraining devices have continued as our deplorable democratic heritage to date, these distortions are not adequate to explain or justify the crude and brazen attempt to prepare the stage for smuggling Mr. Babangida into office through the maradonic routes of rigging, killing, intimidation, and falsehood. We will no longer keep quiet while the destiny of this country continues to be toyed with. It is shocking that any averagely-intelligent person would present Mr. Babangida as an exemplar of democracy and statesmanship; what did he do with the June 12 1993 elections that his dictatorship organized? Perhaps, one should, at this point, elaborate on what democracy actually means, as this term has been exploited by all manners of charlatans to hold the Nigerian state prostate.
While the roots of democracy can be traced to Classical Antiquity and the cumulative political experience of the Western Tradition, it has since been recognized that the minimum ingredients of democracy cohere with deep human yearnings. These are: general and free elections, freedom of expression, Rule of Law (nor of man or woman), Equality of all citizens, the inalienability of our human rights (these are derived from God and are not issued to us by any humans, however pretentious or powerful), human dignity, plurality of thought and options, transparency and accountability. It is the application of these precepts that makes a government legitimate. Anything to the contrary, from military dictatorships to unrepresentative governments pretending to be democracies, remains illegitimate as a result. Mr. Babangida claim to fame is on account of recurring treason against Nigeria and Nigerians. He laid the odious foundation for the culture of impunity, conceit, and maladministration that pervades Nigeria. The disregard for the electorate, which he fostered, accounts for the do-or-die competition for power, and the shameful absence of accountability and transparency in a polity that pretends to be a democracy.
Plato, who provided substantial philosophical basis for democracy, aligned with the Socratic formulation on the qualifications of political leaders, and urged temperance and moderation by such leaders. Can anyone honestly associate these attributes with Babangida? In the first place, how was his Minna Hilltop meeting place funded? Which Nigerian leader had ever lived like that previously? Mr. Babangida set new standards for criminal subversion of our collective patrimony, as well as the ostentatious display of ill-gotten wealth. What did he inherit from his father? How can he and his neighbor on hilltop account for the billions of dollars they have to their names? Let it be reaffirmed that, while some people theorize about corruption thereby making it a distant possibility, some of us are realistic and intelligent enough to hold our predator-leaders responsible for all the lives lost on our shabby roads; pregnant women and babies who die because there is no oxygen, blood, or electricity in our so-called hospitals; collapse of our educational institutions, and the easy recourse of our young women to prostitution and our young men to depression and violence; the sustained shamelessness involved in our inability to refine crude oil in order to enable importation of refined products by the same group of leeches and maggots pretending to be oligarchs; the general state of insecurity in the land, etc, etc. Political life is about service and humility, and not arrogance and corruption. Mr. Babangida is the epitome of the gross malaise that afflicts the Nigerians state, an affliction brought on our people by our own people, and not by foreigners or any earthquake. Aristotle anticipated the current crop of impostor-leaders in Nigerian leaders when he warned against “arrogance, fear of the truth, contempt for their citizens, seeking pre-eminence at all times, disproportionate growth, electioneering, underestimation of others, neglect of small things, and dissimilarity…”
Mr. Babangida, and the current group of predators that his dictatorship made possible, clearly lack the knowledge base, character, and stature to ensure that the majority have authority, as well as freedom. Civic equality is an alien and obnoxious concept for them, but this is a core pillar of democracy. In the absence of equality and freedom, there is no democracy. The pretenders to power in Nigeria have not bothered to understand the origins of the political system they have raped so mercilessly. Do they know, for example, that St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, the greatest of the Scholastic Philosophers, was one of the pioneers in relating human political systems to the Word of God? In other words, accountability of leaders is not just to their confederates but also to the Divine Being, to who we must all return? God is good, and in His own goodness; He is the good of every good. He is intelligent, and His act of intelligence is His essence. He understands by His essence, and understands Himself perfectly. Edmund Burke agreed when he wrote that “…those entrusted with leadership must stand in the presence of God Himself, should have high and worthy notions of their function and destination, and their hope should be full of immortality… they should look beyond the praise of the vulgar and the tribulations of the moment, but to a solid, permanent, existence, in the permanent part of their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in the example they leave as a rich inheritance to the world…” The progressive impact of this thinking continues to be seen in the values, political systems, and the expectations of conduct among public office holders across the world, except Nigeria. While a lot of noise is made during both Christian and Muslim festivals by our predator-leaders, is this understanding of responsibility to both God and Man really reflected in governance in Nigeria? Is Mr. Babangida the person to reflect this dual reporting line? Your answer is as good as mine. This teleological construct is, realistically speaking, beyond his comprehension and capabilities. His presumed piety involved in his short-sighted, divisive, and mischievous enlistment of Nigeria as an Islamic state, has since fostered a shameful orgy of religious killings culminating in our recent collective recognition as a terrorist country.
The challenge of these times is exactly the imperative of saving Nigeria, or whatever remains of it, from people like Mr. Babangida. He is a substantial part of the problem, and cannot pretend to be a part of the solution.
The Social Contract between leaders and their people, on the basis of which the former govern and demand obedience, is in perpetual breach in Nigeria; the gap between the people and their leaders widened exceptionally under Dictator Babangida, and we have not recovered since then. His maximization of personal power set a despicable precedent for the charlatanism and arrogance that characterize governance in Nigeria presently. The continued psychological vanquish and alienation of the people ensures the entrenchment of widespread poverty, anomie, and a perpetual state of under-development. The inviolability of the mutual responsibility between the governed and the governors led William of Ockham to provide the philosophical stage for organized rebellion. In his position, while the people owe their leaders a duty of obedience to just laws, any deviation from the agreed standards of justice, performance, integrity, and accountability, would necessarily connote the suspension of the corollary duty of obedience by the people. “If you discharge your office as agreed, you can rely on our obedience. If not, not .” Democracy must empower the people to choose their own leaders, penalize them for misconduct, and generally frame the kind of government they want. The elected leaders are their servants, not masters. Mr. Babangida lacks the temperament, humility, or intellectual sagacity to be the servant-leader who imbibes and lives out this cardinal principle of modern leadership. Dele Giwa, Vatsa, and others remind us of deep pathologies in the personality of Mr. Ibrahim Babangida. The fact that he has not been held to account on egregious crimes, including treason, should not be glossed over in the attempt to rehabilitate his odious reputation.
Thomas Paine instructs us that “men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind, their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government, are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.” Mr. Babangida is clearly driven by unmerited hubris and conceit in assuming that, out of the teeming number of educated, cultured, and productive minds in Nigerians, he is the one born to rule us in perpetuity. A cursory psychoanalytical process must find the origin of this arrogance in his avoiding dire punishment for his numerous crimes against the country. Let him and his hack team be aware that those times are past. Nigeria belongs to a generation of untainted, credible, decent, confident, and productive men and will who abound in their millions both in the country and in the diaspora. We are entitled to a better future which reflects our collective capacity, and devoid of cant and chicanery. Our people should draw inspiration from the Old Testament story of the freedom of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and especially be assured that all efforts directed towards this noble objective are justifiable. Slavery of any sort is oppressive to the human spirit, and must be fought with the very fiber of our dignity and life. Nigerians of all ethnic groups, religions, and social stature, are victims of the most repressive, conniving, thieving, and insensitive group of maggots in human history. Mr. Babangida is the chief priest of this ignoble family of lootocrats and purveyors of iniquity.
The deliberate entrenchment of checks and balances/ separation of powers in a democracy is directed at mitigating the excesses of human passion. It takes a lifetime of acculturation in a deformed polity like ours to truly imbibe and respect this cardinal plank of democracy. It coheres with either a deliberate or imposed acknowledgement of one’s fallibility, and the imperative of considering other opinions in public administration. This maxim clearly did not anticipate the prospects of having an imperial mandarin using both intimidation and bribery to manipulate a spineless National Assembly or corrupt Judiciary. Humility in the Leviathan is critical; Mr. Ibrahim Babangida, buoyed by the psychological adrenalin of untrammeled rape of the fatherland, is not the person to suddenly be part of a consensual leadership; a structure that limits his powers in a third world setting. In any case, his political development which has never really gone beyond his ethnic prism, is a further nullifying consideration. Mr. Amuta, please endeavor to make a distinction between popularity and infamy. Hitler’s name is also recognized all over the world; that does not make him popular or a global role model. In a system where votes are counted, and not just the symbolic voting process is celebrated, none of our present oppressors will be in government; even if we made a mistake, we would have recalled them. From 2011, we will demand this, and developments in the Niger Delta could easily be replicated should the cycle of electoral fraud be attempted.
I agree with Mr. Amuta that, in the absence of order, freedom, and justice, Nigeria cannot move forward as a nation. The solution lies in, first of all, constitutionally ending the lame and defective imposition that is the Yar Adua presidency, punishing those currently responsible for this avoidable tension in the land, reforming the electoral system, civic enlightenment of the people, and in taking concrete steps to strengthen our Institutions. He should be very concerned that, forty years on, we keep recycling the same crop of semi-illiterate, corrupt, and evil men exemplified by his mentor, Mr. Ibrahim Babangida. If we were to accept the illogicaility of his thesis and allow a Babangida imposition, what happens when this messiah dies? We will probably bribe God not to take his life as no other Nigerian can run the country. What a despicable proposition ! Why did the Yar Adua and his wife fail to transmit power to the Vice-President for about 100 days, and why are we expected to allow a situation where the Acting President, Ministers, Service Chiefs, former Presidents, Yar Adua’s aged mother, and all Nigerians have been unable to see their so-called President since he was purportedly returned to Nigeria two weeks ago? The jet lag story is clearly stupid and invalid, so what else? Let us resolve issues from the cause, and the tension will drop to enable us prepare properly for 2011 elections. In all this confusion, who is checking what the Federal Government and the Governors have done with the $2.5 billion released from the so-called Excess Crude Oil Account three weeks ago? Who has paid any attention to the surreptitious increase of the 2010 budget by N400 billion? Who has tried to undertake a performance assessment of the budgets across the country in the past eleven years or so, or even since 1970? Why does it cost us N64 billion to build a runway (essentially a tarred road!) at the Abuja Airport? Why is the Minister of Health announcing a lump sum of N10 billion for fighting influenza, out of which N1.5 billion is for logistics and mobilization? Why would basic runway repair work at the Enugu airport take over a year and cost billions of Nigeria? How much do the characters in the National Assembly go home with each month, and where are the fabled constituency projects? Is oversight not a vehicle for extortion from the ministries and parastatals? With chronic fuel scarcity and refining incapacitation, why do you have Ministers of Petroleum, NNPC, National Equalization Fund, DPR, PTDF? Why are artery roads in a perpetual state of disuse, and you have Ministers of Works? Is it true that Tafa Balogun, Okiro, Bode George, Anthony Anenih, Atiku, Obasanjo, etc, have high national awards from Nigeria? Thieves rewarding thieves. Why would all the universities shut down for half a year, and you have a Minister of Education? Why would the so-called Due Process Office be yet another layer of bureaucracy and corruption? What have our oppressors across the land really achieved to justify their arrogant condescension towards Nigerians? Who are these Governors, and what was their track record before they seized power? Who were they? Transparency International estimates that over $500 billion of public funds have been stolen in Nigeria since 1970. A Babangida Presidency will magnify Nigeria’s problems a million fold.
Order, which must necessarily presage unity and tranquility, cannot be coerced. It must be derived from the observation of integrity, resourcefulness, prudence, vision, selflessness, absence of cronyism, accountability, accelerated development, and genuine modesty on the part of our leaders. When our votes do not count, is it any wonder, then, that our tormentors treat us like conquered people, a mindset exemplified by Mr. Ibrahim Babangida, and Mr. Obasanjo before him. In other lands, social stratification is closely related to the contribution of the ruling class to the society; in our shameful case, usupers and lepers, having stolen our commonwealth, seek a perpetuation of their despicable legacy and privileges. This is no longer acceptable to us. We will, henceforth be guided by the following questions: Does this government represent me, and fairly too? How do I give or withhold my consent for the government to act on my behalf? At what point is my consent sought, and how? What if I belong to a minority position? How do I ensure that my servants are truly working for me? No honest answers here will accommodate Mr. Babangida and his ilk. The sovereignty of the people MUST be restored.
Accepting the kite that is being flown would be agreeing with John Stuart Mill when he avers that “despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.” Mr. Amuta, while this prescription was relied on by European colonialists in building and expanding their empires, including Nigeria, they at least pretentiously believed they were improving the natives. In our current case, we cannot allow a group of uncivilized barbarians to make state policy for us and magistrate over us. The reverse should be the case, or you can proceed to the Minna zoo and live happily thereafter.
B. A. Iname, Ph.D
Denver, Colorado
USA
While kites are being flown all over by the Babangida people, it is significant that Mr. Amuta, who has earned a reputation for seminal commentary on the Nigerian condition, failed to declare his pro-Babangida leanings that inspired the job description he arrogantly laid out for the next president of Nigeria. It is a fact that Mr. Amuta was appointed by Mr. Babangida as a commissioner under the defunct Directorate of Food, Roads, and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), one of the early vehicles of systemic looting in Nigeria. Mr. Amuta has since then, remained a factotum for the over-rated man in Minna. The universal acknowledgment of the decay in the land should not be lazily exploited to insult our collective intelligence. There are far more decent outcomes than handing Nigeria over to Mr. Babangida and his group of lazy and clueless usurpers.
The article clearly captured the shameful game being played out across the country on account of president Yar Adua’s evident incapacitation to discharge that high office. The lack of transparency and integrity in handling this very situation is reflective of deeper pathologies that afflict Nigeria. It is equally a sad commentary that facts are gleefully being twisted to exploit the fault lines of ethnicity and religious affiliation. For the avoidance of doubt, while the structural integrity of the country cannot be taken for granted, it is equally mischievous to interpret all views that deviate from the mainstream of stupidity and indecency as clamours for disintegration. Decent people must be heard in the country; the people who threaten the unity of the land are those who, for various reasons, have elected to distort facts or failed to discharge the oaths of their offices by impeaching a clearly incapacitated president. There is nothing personal about this; it is amusing that our impostor-leaders choose when to accept God’s Will and when not to. People who treat women shabbily in their households have suddenly surrendered Nigeria to a demented and unelected woman.
Mr. Amuta’s analysis ends with a declaration that the only person who must replace Yar Adua must be a National Security Expert, with proven experience in that field as well as both domestic and international stature. His prescription is predicated on an assumption that Nigeria currently runs the risk of disintegration if his Avatar fails to be persuaded to rescue us. We need to deconstruct this formulation in a structured manner. In the first instance, Mr. Babangida is not a National Security Expert, by even a generous stretch. Nigerians have a penchant for exaggeration and distortion. This man was among a group of barely-literate young men who joined the ethnic militia that passed for the Nigerian Military in the 60’s. With a Grade 3 GCE as his highest educational achievement, Mr. Babangida clearly does not merit the carefully-cultivated persona as an intellectual. Having participated, with his ilk, in the regrettable war against Igbos, they speedily rewarded themselves with high-sounding military ranks and over-starched uniforms. This same crop of poorly-qualified individuals have seized the political space for over 40 years, and have engaged in an orgy of shameful recycle of mediocrity ever since. With their virtual illiteracy as a perpetual handicap, they have visited untoward harm on the life of this country whose potentials remain regressive. It is a sad reflection of the Nigerian condition that these fellows have continued to make policy, subvert the constitution, privatize national resources, militarize the political space, destroy the moral fiber of the country, and yet project a putrefying aura of inevitability and impunity. In a modern military, none of these so-called Nigerian Generals would attain the rank of Major; their expertise lies only in plotting for power, killing and betraying trust, and subverting the fatherland. Calling Mr. Babangida a National Security Expert is equivalent to addressing the gateman of the mortuary in a Teaching Hospital as the Chief Medical Director.
Let it be known that the elements of National Power include Traditional Diplomacy, Coercive Diplomacy, Propaganda, Political Warfare, Psychological Operations, Counter-Intelligence, Economic Warfare, Intelligence, Covert Operations, Culture, Military, Political Culture, Manpower Base, etc, etc. It is the mastery of all these elements that qualifies one as a National Security Expert, and not rising to the top of an ancient ethnic militia that purports to be a modern national military establishment. Mr. Babangida is clearly deficient in the fundamentals of State Power in the modern world on account of his very limited education, narrow worldview, political acculturation, and antecedents. Furthermore, the Nigerian military and their bloated Generals have turned their guns only against their own citizens and feel entitled to our gratitude for this. Mr. Babangida’s ascent as a Military Dictator was achieved through treason, while his humiliation from office eight years later was on account of the treasonous annulment of the June 12, 1993 election. Where, then, are the ingredients of democratic maturation and civility that are much needed in the cadre of leadership that would rescue Nigeria from the man-made abyss to which it has sunk? Another falsehood about this man’s profile is the propagandistic dissemination of an assumed intimate relationship with the United States. People should know that, for several years, the US refused him visa to visit the country due to his dictatorial past and revolving corruption/ money laundering. After much plea and intervention, he was granted a visa late last year on very restrictive terms to visit his dying wife in California. That is not how highly-regarded friends are treated. His fellow kleptocrat, the Shah of Iran, was refused a visa into the US for a long time until a compassionate concession was made to enable him to attend to his terminal cancer. In any case, Nigerians should know that Americans will not vote in Nigeria’s elections; we should defend our votes. When Iranians seized and occupied the US Embassy in Teheran for over 400 days, the US was forced to abandon their former stooge, Shah Pahlavi.
Babangida’s eight years as a military dictator were marked by self-service, personality cultism, lack of vision (occasioned by the limitations of educational and related advancement), wholesale corruption, negation of the core values of the land which previously encouraged deferred gratification, concentration of power around the demigod that he quickly became, patronage, sodomistic quotient as a vital qualification for advancement in the country, debasement and destruction of all Institutions, destruction of all dissenting voices, enthronement of a culture of impunity, triumph of sin over morality, bare-faced looting in conjunction with foreign accessories, and the elevation of mediocre manipulation to the altar of state policy. Dictator Babangida revels in his nickname, Maradona, which demonstrates the amorality involved in using one’s hand to stealthily score a goal in the game of soccer played with one’s feet. It is shameful that Mr. Amuta and his group will even contemplate rewarding treason with statesmanship. The sheer contempt in which this group holds Nigeria equals the arrogance of the PDP hierarchy which assumes that Nigeria is their property and that their corruption-induced formula for allocating political offices must be binding on hapless Nigerians. It is this same maradonic template that inspires the attempt to erase our collective memory, and present Mr. Babangida as the Leader that Nigeria sorely needs at this time, otherwise calamities will ensue. But Mr. Babangida is calamitous, and can never be part of the solution.
In many ways, Mr. Amuta recent This Day articles suggests that he wants to become a part of another cabal and kitchen cabinet that would replace the nauseating nabob of idiocy in the presidential villa and around Abuja. In all these calculations and postulations, the Nigerian majority does not matter at all. Mr. Amuta should concede that we are still intelligent enough to realize that the principal motivation for Mr. Babangida’s current ambition to become president in 2011 is simply to achieve the self-satisfaction that he has raped the Nigerian system for a longer period of time than his Godson-turned-albatross, Mr. Obasanjo. With Obasanjo’s eight years as a civilian dictator having nullified the eight years of Babangida’s eight locust years as a military dictator, Mr. Obasanjo still has the unresolved advantage of having abused the system for three years as a military dictator between 1976 and 1979, apart from years spent as Murtala Muhammed’s Deputy. For the Minna demi-god and his acolytes, this gap must be shrunk or eliminated starting from 2011. These two poorly qualified and visionless men have imposed themselves on Nigerians as their civilian and military dictators for 19 out of our 49 years as a nation, and we still wonder why we have failed in every sphere of life. This accounting does not reflect the several years they held other influential positions like Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters, etc. Despite this, they still feel entitled to impose themselves on us. The problem is either with them or with us. What a joke!!!
Democracy, in its prescriptive and ideal form, remains the best form of government formulated by man. The corruption of its essence by people like Obasanjo, Babangida, and the imbecilic coterie in Abuja, cannot extinguish the alignment of democracy with the human spirit. Nigerians will overcome and people must be held accountable, however long it takes. While contextual nuances and factors, as well as the absence of restraining devices have continued as our deplorable democratic heritage to date, these distortions are not adequate to explain or justify the crude and brazen attempt to prepare the stage for smuggling Mr. Babangida into office through the maradonic routes of rigging, killing, intimidation, and falsehood. We will no longer keep quiet while the destiny of this country continues to be toyed with. It is shocking that any averagely-intelligent person would present Mr. Babangida as an exemplar of democracy and statesmanship; what did he do with the June 12 1993 elections that his dictatorship organized? Perhaps, one should, at this point, elaborate on what democracy actually means, as this term has been exploited by all manners of charlatans to hold the Nigerian state prostate.
While the roots of democracy can be traced to Classical Antiquity and the cumulative political experience of the Western Tradition, it has since been recognized that the minimum ingredients of democracy cohere with deep human yearnings. These are: general and free elections, freedom of expression, Rule of Law (nor of man or woman), Equality of all citizens, the inalienability of our human rights (these are derived from God and are not issued to us by any humans, however pretentious or powerful), human dignity, plurality of thought and options, transparency and accountability. It is the application of these precepts that makes a government legitimate. Anything to the contrary, from military dictatorships to unrepresentative governments pretending to be democracies, remains illegitimate as a result. Mr. Babangida claim to fame is on account of recurring treason against Nigeria and Nigerians. He laid the odious foundation for the culture of impunity, conceit, and maladministration that pervades Nigeria. The disregard for the electorate, which he fostered, accounts for the do-or-die competition for power, and the shameful absence of accountability and transparency in a polity that pretends to be a democracy.
Plato, who provided substantial philosophical basis for democracy, aligned with the Socratic formulation on the qualifications of political leaders, and urged temperance and moderation by such leaders. Can anyone honestly associate these attributes with Babangida? In the first place, how was his Minna Hilltop meeting place funded? Which Nigerian leader had ever lived like that previously? Mr. Babangida set new standards for criminal subversion of our collective patrimony, as well as the ostentatious display of ill-gotten wealth. What did he inherit from his father? How can he and his neighbor on hilltop account for the billions of dollars they have to their names? Let it be reaffirmed that, while some people theorize about corruption thereby making it a distant possibility, some of us are realistic and intelligent enough to hold our predator-leaders responsible for all the lives lost on our shabby roads; pregnant women and babies who die because there is no oxygen, blood, or electricity in our so-called hospitals; collapse of our educational institutions, and the easy recourse of our young women to prostitution and our young men to depression and violence; the sustained shamelessness involved in our inability to refine crude oil in order to enable importation of refined products by the same group of leeches and maggots pretending to be oligarchs; the general state of insecurity in the land, etc, etc. Political life is about service and humility, and not arrogance and corruption. Mr. Babangida is the epitome of the gross malaise that afflicts the Nigerians state, an affliction brought on our people by our own people, and not by foreigners or any earthquake. Aristotle anticipated the current crop of impostor-leaders in Nigerian leaders when he warned against “arrogance, fear of the truth, contempt for their citizens, seeking pre-eminence at all times, disproportionate growth, electioneering, underestimation of others, neglect of small things, and dissimilarity…”
Mr. Babangida, and the current group of predators that his dictatorship made possible, clearly lack the knowledge base, character, and stature to ensure that the majority have authority, as well as freedom. Civic equality is an alien and obnoxious concept for them, but this is a core pillar of democracy. In the absence of equality and freedom, there is no democracy. The pretenders to power in Nigeria have not bothered to understand the origins of the political system they have raped so mercilessly. Do they know, for example, that St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, the greatest of the Scholastic Philosophers, was one of the pioneers in relating human political systems to the Word of God? In other words, accountability of leaders is not just to their confederates but also to the Divine Being, to who we must all return? God is good, and in His own goodness; He is the good of every good. He is intelligent, and His act of intelligence is His essence. He understands by His essence, and understands Himself perfectly. Edmund Burke agreed when he wrote that “…those entrusted with leadership must stand in the presence of God Himself, should have high and worthy notions of their function and destination, and their hope should be full of immortality… they should look beyond the praise of the vulgar and the tribulations of the moment, but to a solid, permanent, existence, in the permanent part of their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in the example they leave as a rich inheritance to the world…” The progressive impact of this thinking continues to be seen in the values, political systems, and the expectations of conduct among public office holders across the world, except Nigeria. While a lot of noise is made during both Christian and Muslim festivals by our predator-leaders, is this understanding of responsibility to both God and Man really reflected in governance in Nigeria? Is Mr. Babangida the person to reflect this dual reporting line? Your answer is as good as mine. This teleological construct is, realistically speaking, beyond his comprehension and capabilities. His presumed piety involved in his short-sighted, divisive, and mischievous enlistment of Nigeria as an Islamic state, has since fostered a shameful orgy of religious killings culminating in our recent collective recognition as a terrorist country.
The challenge of these times is exactly the imperative of saving Nigeria, or whatever remains of it, from people like Mr. Babangida. He is a substantial part of the problem, and cannot pretend to be a part of the solution.
The Social Contract between leaders and their people, on the basis of which the former govern and demand obedience, is in perpetual breach in Nigeria; the gap between the people and their leaders widened exceptionally under Dictator Babangida, and we have not recovered since then. His maximization of personal power set a despicable precedent for the charlatanism and arrogance that characterize governance in Nigeria presently. The continued psychological vanquish and alienation of the people ensures the entrenchment of widespread poverty, anomie, and a perpetual state of under-development. The inviolability of the mutual responsibility between the governed and the governors led William of Ockham to provide the philosophical stage for organized rebellion. In his position, while the people owe their leaders a duty of obedience to just laws, any deviation from the agreed standards of justice, performance, integrity, and accountability, would necessarily connote the suspension of the corollary duty of obedience by the people. “If you discharge your office as agreed, you can rely on our obedience. If not, not .” Democracy must empower the people to choose their own leaders, penalize them for misconduct, and generally frame the kind of government they want. The elected leaders are their servants, not masters. Mr. Babangida lacks the temperament, humility, or intellectual sagacity to be the servant-leader who imbibes and lives out this cardinal principle of modern leadership. Dele Giwa, Vatsa, and others remind us of deep pathologies in the personality of Mr. Ibrahim Babangida. The fact that he has not been held to account on egregious crimes, including treason, should not be glossed over in the attempt to rehabilitate his odious reputation.
Thomas Paine instructs us that “men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind, their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government, are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.” Mr. Babangida is clearly driven by unmerited hubris and conceit in assuming that, out of the teeming number of educated, cultured, and productive minds in Nigerians, he is the one born to rule us in perpetuity. A cursory psychoanalytical process must find the origin of this arrogance in his avoiding dire punishment for his numerous crimes against the country. Let him and his hack team be aware that those times are past. Nigeria belongs to a generation of untainted, credible, decent, confident, and productive men and will who abound in their millions both in the country and in the diaspora. We are entitled to a better future which reflects our collective capacity, and devoid of cant and chicanery. Our people should draw inspiration from the Old Testament story of the freedom of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and especially be assured that all efforts directed towards this noble objective are justifiable. Slavery of any sort is oppressive to the human spirit, and must be fought with the very fiber of our dignity and life. Nigerians of all ethnic groups, religions, and social stature, are victims of the most repressive, conniving, thieving, and insensitive group of maggots in human history. Mr. Babangida is the chief priest of this ignoble family of lootocrats and purveyors of iniquity.
The deliberate entrenchment of checks and balances/ separation of powers in a democracy is directed at mitigating the excesses of human passion. It takes a lifetime of acculturation in a deformed polity like ours to truly imbibe and respect this cardinal plank of democracy. It coheres with either a deliberate or imposed acknowledgement of one’s fallibility, and the imperative of considering other opinions in public administration. This maxim clearly did not anticipate the prospects of having an imperial mandarin using both intimidation and bribery to manipulate a spineless National Assembly or corrupt Judiciary. Humility in the Leviathan is critical; Mr. Ibrahim Babangida, buoyed by the psychological adrenalin of untrammeled rape of the fatherland, is not the person to suddenly be part of a consensual leadership; a structure that limits his powers in a third world setting. In any case, his political development which has never really gone beyond his ethnic prism, is a further nullifying consideration. Mr. Amuta, please endeavor to make a distinction between popularity and infamy. Hitler’s name is also recognized all over the world; that does not make him popular or a global role model. In a system where votes are counted, and not just the symbolic voting process is celebrated, none of our present oppressors will be in government; even if we made a mistake, we would have recalled them. From 2011, we will demand this, and developments in the Niger Delta could easily be replicated should the cycle of electoral fraud be attempted.
I agree with Mr. Amuta that, in the absence of order, freedom, and justice, Nigeria cannot move forward as a nation. The solution lies in, first of all, constitutionally ending the lame and defective imposition that is the Yar Adua presidency, punishing those currently responsible for this avoidable tension in the land, reforming the electoral system, civic enlightenment of the people, and in taking concrete steps to strengthen our Institutions. He should be very concerned that, forty years on, we keep recycling the same crop of semi-illiterate, corrupt, and evil men exemplified by his mentor, Mr. Ibrahim Babangida. If we were to accept the illogicaility of his thesis and allow a Babangida imposition, what happens when this messiah dies? We will probably bribe God not to take his life as no other Nigerian can run the country. What a despicable proposition ! Why did the Yar Adua and his wife fail to transmit power to the Vice-President for about 100 days, and why are we expected to allow a situation where the Acting President, Ministers, Service Chiefs, former Presidents, Yar Adua’s aged mother, and all Nigerians have been unable to see their so-called President since he was purportedly returned to Nigeria two weeks ago? The jet lag story is clearly stupid and invalid, so what else? Let us resolve issues from the cause, and the tension will drop to enable us prepare properly for 2011 elections. In all this confusion, who is checking what the Federal Government and the Governors have done with the $2.5 billion released from the so-called Excess Crude Oil Account three weeks ago? Who has paid any attention to the surreptitious increase of the 2010 budget by N400 billion? Who has tried to undertake a performance assessment of the budgets across the country in the past eleven years or so, or even since 1970? Why does it cost us N64 billion to build a runway (essentially a tarred road!) at the Abuja Airport? Why is the Minister of Health announcing a lump sum of N10 billion for fighting influenza, out of which N1.5 billion is for logistics and mobilization? Why would basic runway repair work at the Enugu airport take over a year and cost billions of Nigeria? How much do the characters in the National Assembly go home with each month, and where are the fabled constituency projects? Is oversight not a vehicle for extortion from the ministries and parastatals? With chronic fuel scarcity and refining incapacitation, why do you have Ministers of Petroleum, NNPC, National Equalization Fund, DPR, PTDF? Why are artery roads in a perpetual state of disuse, and you have Ministers of Works? Is it true that Tafa Balogun, Okiro, Bode George, Anthony Anenih, Atiku, Obasanjo, etc, have high national awards from Nigeria? Thieves rewarding thieves. Why would all the universities shut down for half a year, and you have a Minister of Education? Why would the so-called Due Process Office be yet another layer of bureaucracy and corruption? What have our oppressors across the land really achieved to justify their arrogant condescension towards Nigerians? Who are these Governors, and what was their track record before they seized power? Who were they? Transparency International estimates that over $500 billion of public funds have been stolen in Nigeria since 1970. A Babangida Presidency will magnify Nigeria’s problems a million fold.
Order, which must necessarily presage unity and tranquility, cannot be coerced. It must be derived from the observation of integrity, resourcefulness, prudence, vision, selflessness, absence of cronyism, accountability, accelerated development, and genuine modesty on the part of our leaders. When our votes do not count, is it any wonder, then, that our tormentors treat us like conquered people, a mindset exemplified by Mr. Ibrahim Babangida, and Mr. Obasanjo before him. In other lands, social stratification is closely related to the contribution of the ruling class to the society; in our shameful case, usupers and lepers, having stolen our commonwealth, seek a perpetuation of their despicable legacy and privileges. This is no longer acceptable to us. We will, henceforth be guided by the following questions: Does this government represent me, and fairly too? How do I give or withhold my consent for the government to act on my behalf? At what point is my consent sought, and how? What if I belong to a minority position? How do I ensure that my servants are truly working for me? No honest answers here will accommodate Mr. Babangida and his ilk. The sovereignty of the people MUST be restored.
Accepting the kite that is being flown would be agreeing with John Stuart Mill when he avers that “despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.” Mr. Amuta, while this prescription was relied on by European colonialists in building and expanding their empires, including Nigeria, they at least pretentiously believed they were improving the natives. In our current case, we cannot allow a group of uncivilized barbarians to make state policy for us and magistrate over us. The reverse should be the case, or you can proceed to the Minna zoo and live happily thereafter.
B. A. Iname, Ph.D
Denver, Colorado
USA
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