IBB |
By Louis Odion, FNGE
With
his latest fulminations, it would appear the transformation of the self-styled
military president from an "annullist" to a federalist has turned
full cycle. The kind of epiphany we read of biblical Saul morphing to Paul on
the road to Damascus.
With
intense words, retired General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida seized the last
Sallah holiday to pen a strong petition against the present federal arrangement
suffocating the states.
Time,
he declares, has come to devolve more powers - and, of course, resources - to the
constituents of the federation. With that, IBB deftly keys into the popular
mood today as the Buhari administration increasingly looks helpless against
centrifugal forces tugging at Nigeria's soul.
However,
the Maradona of Minna has harsh words for those advocating the country's
dismemberment. He even waxes poetic: "The drums of war are easy to beat,
but their rhythms are difficult to dance. Starting wars or political upheavals
comes with the slightest provocation, but ending them becomes inelastic, almost
unending with painful footages of the wrecks of war. I have been involved and
its ripples are tellingly unpalatable, with gory details of destruction and
carnage."
Such
stirring talk.
Odion |
But
IBB failed to be specific; was he nostalgic of the 30-month civil war or the
national paralysis inflicted by June 12?
While
we cannot take anything away from Maradona's latest composition for its poetry
and perspicacity, its hypocrisy should not be allowed to pass unchallenged,
especially for the sake of the generation of Nigerians under-30 unfamiliar with
the nuances of recent history.
One,
the epistle would have sounded more sincere had the author, for once, evinced
some humility by prefacing same with an apology for his poor understanding
while in power and therefore the Herodian persecution of those who had foreseen
and forewarned that the inherited rickety federal structure was tottering to a
collapse.
Indeed,
the unique convergence of historical forces of the 80s quite positioned IBB to
radically alter the Nigerian narrative for good in the same way Nasser led the
Egyptian military to transform the North African country from its age-old
feudal squalor.
Rather,
Maradona only clamped down on the likes of foremost nationalist Anthony Enahoro
and courageous lawyer Alao Aka-Bashorun at the forefront of the restructure
advocacy in the late 80s and early 90s. High on the agenda they were pushing
then were the issues of fiscal federalism, redefinition of citizens' rights and
return to parliamentary system.
Inspired
by the tectonic shift in world order as signposted by the collapse of old
Soviet in 1989, the nation's progressive community actually took practical
steps to convoke a sovereign national conference in 1990. But afraid that the
movement could trigger a momentum that would sweep him out of ill-gotten power,
then dictator IBB sent his goons to chase and tear-gas the activists away from
where they assembled in Lagos.
Across
the border in Benin Republic, a similar movement had ushered the ouster of
dictator Mathew Kerekou. But the latter's loss was only temporary. He would
reap bounteously few years later as he got elected president democratically
through a process dictated by a sanitized political order.
Again,
when Maradona now pontificates that "war not romantic", we wonder if
he had, by any chance, come to that wisdom before June 23 in 1993 when, without
fear of God nor respect for fellow citizens, he summarily annulled the results
of the June 12 presidential elections clearly won by Abiola, thus plunging the
nation into needless crises, exacting heavy human casualties, inadvertently
inflicting lunatic Abacha on the country for another five dark years.
Only
a shameless hypocrite would canvass the kind of lofty views contained in IBB's
statement of last Monday and also be implicated in the June 12 perfidy.
Or,
maybe the Maradona of Minna is still groping in the darkness of poor knowledge
today. Otherwise, he should know that June 12 had substantially answered some
of the national questions for which answers are still being sought today. June
12 had meant an end to ethno-religious tension and suspicion.
For
predominantly Christian states voted a Muslim-Muslim ticket that day. A
Southern presidential candidate defeated his opponent in his own native state
in north. The presidential candidate of Yoruba extraction won an Igbo state.
That
was the golden chance Maradona willfully squandered. Alas, he now seeks to
affect wisdom long after history had blown the whistle on his sorry reign.
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