If you believe what Babangida (IBB) said about June 12 and its annulment in his book, A Journey in Service, which was presented to the public on Thursday, 20 February, 2025, then you can believe Addis Ababa was once the capital of Nigeria!
IBB heaped blame for the cancellation of the freest and fairest election ever conducted in the annals of Nigeria on his Chief of Defence Staff, the late General Sani Abacha, who cannot rise from the grave to defend himself or refute the blatant allegation(s) against him. How easy it is to blame the dead!
According to IBB, “The funeral (of Musa Yar’Adua’s patriarch) had taken place (in Katsina), and as I got ready to leave, a report filtered to me that the June 12 elections had been annulled. Even more bizarre was the extent of the annulment because it terminated all court proceedings regarding the June 12 elections, repealed all the decrees governing the Transition and even suspended NEC! Equally weird was the shabby way the statement was couched and made. Admiral (Augustus) Aikhomu’s Press Secretary, Nduka Irabor, had read out a terse, poorly worded statement from a scrap of paper, which bore neither the presidential seal nor the official letterhead of the government, annulling the June 12 presidential elections. I was alarmed and horrified.
“Yes, during the stalemate that followed the termination of the results announcement, the possibility of annulment that could lead to fresh elections was loosely broached in passing. But annulment was only a component of a series of other options. But to suddenly have an announcement made without my authority was, to put it mildly, alarming. I remember saying: ‘These nefarious ‘inside’ forces opposed to the elections have outflanked me!’ I would later find out that the ‘forces’ led by General Sani Abacha annulled the elections. There and then, I knew I was caught between ‘a devil and the deep blue sea’!!! From then on, the June 12 elections took on a painful twist for which, as I will show later, I regrettably take responsibility.”
Babangida should tell his fairy tale to the marines. Yes, Abacha, later as Head of State, was a maximum ruler, a ruthless despot and psychopath. But as Chief of Defence Staff, he was the right-hand man and most trusted ally of Gen Babangida. It was Abacha that crushed the bloody April 1990 Gideon Okar’s coup against IBB.
Babangida was the initiator, mastermind and executioner of the June 12 presidential election annulment. Others, like Abacha, were only pawns on his political chessboard.
What many Nigerians could not discern from the outset – from day one in office – was that IBB had an ambition to rule Nigeria for life. The hidden agenda did not start with the change of hand-over date from 1990 to 1992 or from 1992 to 1993. It was not just a harmless wish for a re-designation or break from the past that he adopted the constitutional name of ‘President’ from the first day in power. To him, the devilish ambition – no one knows exactly when he began to nurse it – was within reach and accomplishment with the successful execution of the palace coup against Gen Muhammadu Buhari.
Did you remember how ‘diarchy’ – Gen Babangida as Head of State with a democratic National Assembly in place – gained currency before the June 12 presidential election? As IBB began to shift the handover date, ban and unban politicians, the strange idea of diarchy was flown as a kite in 1992. Senator Bola Tinubu, now president, was one of the arrowheads that mobilised for a joint session, across party lines (SDP and NRC), of the Senate and House of Representatives, which made a historic resolution against elongation of military rule in any form. The resolution was unambiguous. It declared the National Assembly would not be used or accept a diarchy. Tinubu and his ilk became personae non gratae in Aso Rock on account of their principled stand against diarchy.
On 19 December, 1989, this same IBB, who now presents himself as craven, without a wink demoted Lt. General Domkat Bali – the most senior and respected military officer – with the stroke of a pen as the Defence Minister and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It would be recalled that on 3 January, 1990, General Bali, who could not stomach the demotion, addressed a press conference where he accused Babangida of bad faith and turning a military autocracy into a personal dictatorship. As a matter of fact, of the top echelons of the military in the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) at the inception of the Babangida administration in August 1985, only General Abacha remained in the supreme body as at 1991, underscoring the bond between Babangida and Abacha!
Without batting an eyelid or giving any reason to the public, IBB removed Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, his deputy and Chief of Staff in October 1986. Today, in 2025, IBB now presents himself as a leader to be pitied, who was only government but not in power! He can tell that to the marines.
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The annulment of June 12 presidential election was, lock, stock and barrel, the machinations of IBB. He only used Abacha and his boys against June 12 in order to deflect brazen culpability for the cancellation. He was the mastermind and executioner of the dastardly act. The fact is, Babangida wanted to remain a life president. He never wanted to leave power.
All the tricks Abacha later deployed in order to transmute from military to civilian Head of State were plausibly imbibed while serving IBB in power!
Hear Babangida again in his latest fiction: “From out of nowhere, on June 10, two days before the presidential election, the same shadowy group, ABN, which had been campaigning for an extension of military rule, approached the Abuja High Court of Justice Bassey Ikpeme for an injunction to stop NEC (National Electoral Commission) from conducting the elections.
“Unknown to me at the time, Justice Ikpeme, who was relatively young at the Bench, had worked in the chambers of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Clement Akpamgbo. Strangely, Justice Ikpeme, in the dead of night, in clear violation of Decree 13, which barred any court from interfering with NEC’s conduct or scheduling of the elections, granted the ABN an injunction stopping NEC from conducting the June 12 elections. There was confusion everywhere.
“On Friday, June 11, as the NDSC meeting was going on, I learned that a Lagos High Court had ruled that NEC should go ahead with the elections. The NDSC meeting on Friday, June 11, only hours before the scheduled elections, was one of the stormiest meetings I ever conducted as President. Strangely, the Attorney General and Justice Minister, Akpamgbo, who was the nation’s chief law officer and who ought to know that the Justice Ikpeme court order violated an extant law (and was tacitly supported, it turned out by some of my topmost military officers), advised that the elections be postponed in compliance with the Abuja court order. Professor (Humphrey) Nwosu (NEC chairman) insisted, to the dismay of my top military colleagues, that he had enough powers under the law to proceed with the elections.
“The arguments went on for hours in a tense atmosphere, peopled by some who wanted the elections postponed, among them the Chief of Defence Staff, General Sani Abacha, Lt-General Joshua Dogonyaro and a few Service Chiefs. But I had my views bottled inside me! Even before Professor Nwosu presented his compelling argument, I decided that the elections should proceed, backed firmly by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Salihu Ibrahim.
“And then, on June 16, without my knowledge or prior approval, NEC Chairman, Professor Nwosu, announced the suspension of the June 12 election results ‘until further notice’. I knew instantly that certain fifth columnists were at work and that there was a need for extra care! And even after that suspension of the announcements of results, ABN obtained another ‘strange’ court order from Justice Saleh’s court in Abuja, stopping the release of the results of the elections.”
The despicable roles played by IBB’s Attorney-General and Justice Minister, Akpamgbo; his friend, Arthur Nzeribe of ABN; his appointee, NEC’s Chairman, Humphery Nwosu; and his most trusted ally, Gen Abacha; among others, were all machinations of Babangida and products of his lust to remain power for life. As Soyinka pens in his book, You Must Set Forth At Dawn, Babangida is ‘an artful dodger!’
The June 12 narration in his book, A Journey in Service, is artfully curated to rewrite history and present Babangida for a place in the pantheon of good Nigerian leaders – a blatant act of unconscionable revisionism. I am not one of those who are taken in or gaslighted by IBB’s patent fabrications on June 12 presidential election and its annulment.
Finally, a lawyer can accept any brief. As the book reviewer, Pro Yemi Osinbajo, being a living witness to the depredations brought upon this country by various military regimes, especially the annulment of June 12 presidential election with its colossal socio-political and economic costs, should have been sober. It was the cruel and unwarranted cancellation of June 12 that eventually culminated in the incarceration and death of Chief MKO Abiola, and the murder of his wife, Kudirat. Hundreds of Nigerians were equally mowed down by the army tanks on the streets of Lagos and many other compatriots perished on the road while fleeing to the East from the crises and rumours of war occasioned by the annulment. All these should have weighed on Osinbajo’s mind, as he embarked on his comical review exercise.
While IBB stands indicted for lying against the dead, Prof Osinbajo inadvertently danced on the graves of the dead through an exuberant review, lacking in empathy!
