Of Presidential Memoirs and Presidential Libraries
By Femi Olugbile
The news media were awash recently with coverage of the massive launch of General Ibrahim Babangida’s memoirs. The title of the book – ‘A Journey in Service’ – carries the rather innocent air of a Boy Scout recounting an unbroken string of good deeds done over a lifetime adhering to the lofty tenets enunciated by the first scoutmaster, Robert Baden-Powell. A boy scout may be conventionally pictured selflessly helping an old lady to cross a busy road. Unfortunately, Baden-Powell was also accused as a racist murderer who executed an African Chief in Matabeleland and starved the black population during the siege of Mafeking. His statues were due to be toppled in Dorset by Black Lives Matter activists, and it is difficult to determine nowadays whether General Robert Baden-Powell was a good man or a bad man.
A similar challenge assails the sensibility of the psycho-historian, in trying to assess the legacy of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, a man known by various names, especially the one that cuts closest to the bone – ‘Maradona’. The sobriquet may be seen as admiration for his unparalleled insight, and nimble footwork, in understanding and navigating the nuances of the Nigerian landscape to achieve unprecedented mastery over its fractious peoples. On the other hand, ‘Maradona’ may also be seen as the disillusion that dawned eventually on the people that, for this gifted player, the journey, with the dribbling left and right, the feints and body swerves, while keeping the ball, was the end itself, and he was not going anywhere.
In ‘A Journey in Service’, there is, here and there, a plaintive note of innocence and misunderstood good intentions. There are also a few nuggets that are frankly disingenuous, such as the claim that the formal announcement of the Annulment of the June 12 elections was done without the awareness of the author. In a book that is intended to ‘take responsibility’, the narrative runs counter to the received version, and even to the content of an interview with Tell Magazine, carried out several years back, which is carried verbatim at the back of the book.
But even if a major intention in writing ‘A Journey…’ was ‘Mea Culpa’ – sort of, the book is a rich historical excursion into the inner workings of military governance in Nigeria, and the story of the nation at a crucial part of its life, told by a man who was personally involved in many of the highlights, including the coups that succeeded, and the putting down of those that failed.
A random sampling may drive the reader to go back and read a bit more closely. How did Chukwuma Nzeogwu – who was ‘more Northerner than Easterner’ – get to have such faith in Obafemi Awolowo that he was ready to lay down his life to get him to govern Nigeria, when there was no evidence they spoke or corresponded? It turned out Nzeogwu, then a junior officer, was given some assignment in marshalling the ‘federal’ case at Awolowo’s treason trial. Did he see mischief in the secret content of the case? Was that his inflection point?
Only an IBB could boldly affirm that the intentions of the January 1966 plotters could have been patriotic, even if their work was incompetent, and even though a later ethnic dimension crept in.
Who were the IBB Boys?
IBB was posted to a teaching assignment at Nigeria Defence Academy in September 1970. The Third Regular Combatant Course of the Army were in the last six months of their training. There was a strong bond between teacher and students. Those students would become names to be conjured with, and feared, as IBB grew to take a grip on Nigeria. Victor Malu. Chris Garuba. And so on.
There is an intriguing human angle dimension to the failed Dimka coup. One of the leaders, Ibrahim Rabo, was leading in a troupe of rebels from the direction of the cemetery behind the Broadcasting House in Ikoyi, where the rebel soldiers were holed up. Yomi, your friend in VOR, who is mentioned in the book, recounts of Rabo
‘He thought we were with them.’
Later Yomi would take Rabo, bound hand and foot, in his land rover, to Bonny Camp. Rabo would reveal the names of all the plotters, who would subsequently be picked up.
There were many achievements in his tenure, to be fair. The brave young man who got a fragment from an Ogbunigwe’ lodged in his chest during the civil war and refused surgery at LUTH because he was afraid, was nursed back to health through the kindness of Professor Elebute the eminent surgeon, and his kindly wife Oyin. It was a wakeup call, an intimation of mortality. His Commander in Chief, Yakubu Gowon, has just married Victoria. IBB got married to Maryam in the same year, at the princely age of 28.
Not very long after these domestic occupations, Gowon was overthrown, and Murtala Mohammed took over. It was originally meant to be a triumvirate, but Murtala would have none of that. The Dimka coup. The Obasanjo interregnum. Civilian rule, with massive problems. Then Buhari. And then IBB. There were the multifarious perfidies of the political class, and the unworkable anomaly of Interim Government, which the author tries to rationalise. There was SAP. There was a pained denial of responsibility for the murder of Dele Giwa. The book conveys sadness at the personal vitriol directed at him – over Dele, over June 12.
It is easy to ask – what did he expect?
It is clear – IBB likes to be liked.
The author is now a patriotic wise old man. He understands Nigeria, even if he has not been able to engineer it the way he wanted. He believes the youths will take Nigeria to its rightful height.
Does he really want to build a ‘Presidential Library’ from the massive windfall of book-launch donations?
Given the reputation of the author of ‘A Journey…’ the discussion should end with a question.
