Former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, turned 70 on Wednesday. A day before his birthday, the septuagenarian spoke to journalists at his Hilltop residence in Minna, Niger State on a wide range of burning national issues, his life – especially regrets, and his plan to re-marry after the death of his wife, Hajiya Maryam. ABU NMODU was there and reports.
You are 70 years old, how has life been?
My life has been a very eventful one and I am thankful to God most sincerely for his mercies, especially for sparing my life. And I also thank him for what I went through in life as a human being in the course of my service to this great country. Somehow, God has been so kind. I lost my parents early in life and my grandparents took over my upkeep, even though they had their own kids, they placed me first and my friends too were most supportive.
Considering this eventful years, take a look at your background and leadership, is there anything you regret doing or not doing?
I rather choose not to use the word regret in the decisions I have taken either in military service or public service, but would rather say that there are things I would have done the other way if I had the opportunity to. Like the devolution of powers among the three tiers of government. I was not able to do it for so many reasons and now in retrospect, I thought we should have done it, but politics took the better aspect of us. Creation of states was also one thing we should not have done because the agitation for creation of more states will be unending once one is created, be sure they will make it three and the more you do that, the more demands you get.
Can you tell Nigerians who actually annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election which is said to be the freest and fairest election ever conducted in Nigeria?
I was the President, dictator or whatever you want to call me and by military training, we were told that as a leader of men, you must always accept responsibility for whatever decisions taken. You don’t delegate responsibilities, you only delegate authority. We had debated the concept of the annulment and agreed that the minority had to go with the majority and I knew the consequences of doing either the two. If I do not take responsibility of annulling June 12, then it will be stupidity and cowardice on my part. I have no regrets; I am happy I lived within the tenets of my convictions and that of the military profession to take responsibility of my actions as president.
If you knew what was coming out of the June 12 saga, would you have stuck to the decision to annul the election?
We had to take a decision at that time.
Will you still contest for the Presidency in 2015?
As for elective office, please count me out, I will sit here in Minna and people will come here for advice. I will rather be an elder statesman because I can’t go round then seeking for your votes. I will be 74 years old by that time.
Can you take a look at Nigeria of yesterday, today and project into the future?
I have a lot of worries about the future of our great country; I have asked a lot of questions and no one has answers to them. In 1959, you could go to the East (Enugu) and find a man from Sokoto as the Mayor, in Benue State, a Kanuri man was in the House and it did not create problems. If we did it in 1959 and it did not create problem, why now? I expect the present generation to be smarter, more educated and if we could do it then, then why not now?
Everybody should be free to live wherever he or she wants and should enjoy the same privileges and rights as people from the state and town. The younger generation went to school, mixed with different people and they do not even recognise the difference either in geography, religion, tribe etc. and that is where my hope lies for this country. I still have hope for Nigeria and after all, Nigeria is now 50 years, so by the time we become 100 years, may God rest my soul then, but I know we are going to make it.
People expected that as the Military President, you could have saved your kinsman, Major General Vatsa from being killed after the 1986 coup but you did not. What happened?
The execution of Vatsa is the most traumatizing decision I have ever been confronted with in my life because we were not only friends, but you can confidently refer to him as my family because our families were not only close, but our extended families were.
We came in contact as far back as 1959 when we went to Government College, Bida together, we joined the Nigerian Army together, went to India together. So, if I tell you that it was not traumatizing for me, I am lying. We got caught up with the 1976 coup decree that gave no room for amendment and we could not have changed it at that time. I could not have asked them to delay the verdict for the decree to be amended because it could have caused more problems in the military at that time. One day, I was walking around my compound and a very intelligent 11-year-old girl who came swimming in my house saw me, she ran to me and asked me about the relationship between her grandfather and I; I asked her who her grandfather is and she said Vatsa. She said she was told we were very close and I asked her what she was told other than that and she said nothing. So I said yes, we were very close and we took decisions that one of us could die if we did something.
Though she did not look convinced, she accepted and then I told her that when she grows up, she will understand the complexity of our society. It was a decision I took that I pray I will never find myself in such a situation in my life. Please do not ask me this question again because it leaves me devastated.
Recently you asked for the release of Major Hamza Al- Mustapha and recently too, he has been making some revelations concerning some national issues and some people were pointing accusing fingers at you. What do you have to say?
It’s interesting because I read how some were linking me to what Al-Mustapha was trying to say. I left office in 1993, MKO Abiola and Sani Abacha died in 1998, so that’s five years gone.
Technically, I could not have known what had happened. That was not my first call for his release. I know Nigerians believe in justice; Nigerians are fair minded and rational. So, the poor boy, though I do not have facts, has been there for 14 years. If you jail him for life, it will be understandable. Now 14 years have gone and he is still awaiting trial, he has spent enough years to put him on amnesty.
He was 37 years when he got in there, now he is 51 years old and I can imagine the psychological trauma his kids that he left at very young age are going through and the effects it will have on the innocent children.
What is your take on the six-year tenure elongation proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan?
I do not believe that a six-year single tenure will solve our problems. I have had arguments with my friends and some think that a single term is okay because if a president is bad, he will not have to return for a second term but I think that argument is stupid to think that way. Why keep him for six years when you can throw him out before the tenure ends if he is bad? I believe that the first term will be a test of the leader’s integrity and self-esteem and if he fails to perform well, then he is not given a second chance. Whoever should be Nigeria’s President must be the best, he has to be someone who has a name and integrity to protect not like one of my former colleagues will say, ‘anything goes’. The President must be different. I listened to one dimension of argument on the six year single term issue by a commentator who said he likes the idea but suggested that, there should be one president, and two vice presidents. According to him, one of the vice presidents should come from the same state with the President while the other vice president should be from the next state to produce the president. The thought of the commentator is that in case the president dies, the first vice president takes over when the president dies so that the state does not lose. But the question is: lose what? You are a Nigerian; you are working for Nigeria, not a state, village or a group of people. There is no law that says we should not die.
Before you know it, someone will come up asking for six vice presidents each to represent the six geopolitical zones in the country. We have discussed all of these things in the past and I feel we should move forward.
How were you able to achieve the developmental landmarks in your eight years as Military President?
I achieved because I gave responsibilities to people; that is the way to achieve in governance. Involvement of Federal Government should be at policy level while it allow the states to run the show. It will cut corruption from the root. I wish I was in government when a barrel of oil was over $100, you would have seen results because I managed the country with just $11 per barrel in poverty to affluence while others managed affluence to achieve nothing. When we were there, we planned and that was why we achieved results. This is because those that we brought to government were those that have achieved and are successful in their lives, such as Prof. Olikoye Ransome-Kuti who was respected by the World Health Organization (WHO), among others. Their names attracted developments. When I heard that $16 billion was spent between 1999 and 2003 for the provision of power, I felt sad. If I had $16 billion during my time, I would have gone beyond electricity and provided Nigerians with a nuclear power station. For the sake of providing power for the country, $16 billion is a lot of money! There is no foresight and imagination in politics and everybody wants to do his own thing; there is no continuality. Nobody wants to continue with what the other started. Today, people have done a comparative of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration and my own government and they came to the conclusion that my own was better in developmental achievements.
What is your role on the public hearing of the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) as you are being linked with happenings there?
The truth is that I don’t know anything about BPE. I set up the Commission for Privatization and Commercialization (CPC) with Hamza Zayat to head it and he came up with a road map and laid a solid foundation that CPC is using now and I left government. After I left, my boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo took over and I cannot comment on what happened thereafter. So, I don’t know anything about what happened there.
With the loss of your wife and now that you are 70 years; do you intend to take another wife?
Yes, I will get married. I was surprised at some reports where they said I was getting married while some even went to the extent of suggesting names of persons I might be getting married to. I know what I want and know when I will get married.
What was the saddest moment in your life?
When my wife died! What I always remember was when I was with her in the hospital in the United States and she observed that I was uncomfortable and some kind of wetness in my eyes and she asked me what the problem was and I could not answer. So, when we finished talking, I walked out of the hospital, then she called our first son, Mohammed and said to him, “I see your father crying, please tell him to be strong”, and I was hit by her bravery. And I broke down and cried and even when she died, that was what kept coming back to me that made me cry. I don’t usually cry, but I really broke down when she died.
What is your happiest and most memorable moment?
My most happiest and memorable moment was when I got married and when I became president of our great country, Nigeria.