‘Don’t fight your seniors, because elders are not to be insulted; don’t trade insults
with your juniors, because they don’t have the experience that you have, and don’t
fight your mates, because you’ll always have places to meet. This has been my philosophy of life.’ – IBB
Nigeria’s former Military President
Former Military President of Nigeria, retired General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, aka IBB, is probably the most enigmatic and charismatic Head of State that has ruled the country since her attainment of independence in 1960.
The Minna, Niger State-born four-star officer, whose junta ruled from 27 August 1985 to 1992, when he stepped aside for an Interim Government led by Chief Ernest Shonekan, is also, arguably, the most media mentioned leader in the country. But despite the tangibility of IBB’s visibility, not a lot seems to be known about the ex corps commander who overthrew the tough regime of Major General Muhammadu Buhari and his Second in Command, Brigadier General Tunde Idiagbon (now late) in 1985.
The mystery of the coded lifestyle of the soft-spoken military leader, who bore the title of President throughout his seven years reign (as if elected), forced some people to perceive IBB as: ‘Janus’ the two-faced Roman god believed to know the past and the future. Or simply as the media slogan of him as: ‘Evil Genius.’ Such is the effect of IBB on the world around him that both his spoken and unspoken words make news headline anyday. Ace journalist, Dan Agbese, ex Newswatch Magazine Editor and colleague of late founder of the publication, Dele Giwa, wrote a very elucidating book on IBB, titled: Ibrahim Babangida, the Military, Politics and Power in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, I met the jovial General in 2004 through some of my friends, Mallam Nasir Zahradeen from Kano State and Alhaji Ibrahim Ishmael from Jigawa State, who invited me to pep up the media team of the former Head of State. I instantly became one of his speech writers and media analysts up to 2007, when his comeback bid as a civilian president terminated at presidential primary level – his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had issued their ticket to former President Umar Musa Yar’Ádua (now late). While working for him, I discovered the diminutive leader as a great lover of intellectuals and creative minds.
He is one of the very few helmsmen who place appreciable value on the wise counsels of subordinate advisers. In fact, what caught my fancy the most was that IBB could deliver speeches written for him with utmost eloquence, fluency and great comportment? I could vividly remember one on the first annual memorial lecture of late Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Mohammed Bello, held the Merit House, Maitama, Abuja, attended by iconoclastic musician Charly Boy and his father, the revered Justice Chukwudifu Oputa whom IBB fondly called Socrates. Recall the Chairman of Oputa Panel, a national truce on peace building. IBB had a photo session with him and Charly Boy at the event.
Unknown to many people, IBB went through the furnace before becoming the gem
that the world later got to see and behold. He is actually a zero to hero orphan. Permit me to share with you a private experience I had with him while on an official visit to Ghana in 2005, on Ghana Republican Day during the administration of the then President, John Agyekum Kufour. Ghanaians celebrate their Republic Day with mild fanfare and sobriety. Many leaders of West African countries, past and present, were invited. Amongst them was the former Military President of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Babangida, retired, for his role in championing Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group, a sub-regional peace-keeping army that returned calm to Sierra Leone and Liberia after years of avoidable civil wars! I was among the 15-member team that embarked on the three days diplomatic trip with IBB from Abuja to Accra mid 2005. It turned out a marvellous adventure.
We boarded a private Bombadier jet at the Presidential Wing of Nnamdi Azikiwe airport in Abuja and landed at Kotoka airport within an hour, to a warm welcome of Akwaaba. From the airport, we were chaperoned to the posh M-Plaza Hotel, near Goldfield House, airport residential area of Accra. The next day, we began a tour of the beautiful and peaceful country originally named Gold Coast by the British colonialists. First port of call was a guided tour of the Slave Post, an old shipment port of point of no return, in Osu where a Presidential Castle was later built for presidential activities. Osu used to be a dungeon for awaiting-export slaves, in transit overseas. It later became a tourist centre and Presidential Villa in Ghana.
President Kufour and his cabinet had a breakfast meeting with the August Visitor and his team. Next place of interest was our long convoy drive from Accra to the serene green vegetation of Akosombo, a hilltop Presidential Retreat and sanctuary for brainstorming. The modest Akosombo lodge overlooks the dependable electricity powerhouse for the country, built in 1963 by the government of Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. The Akosombo Dam, below Ghana’s equivalence of America’s Camp David, is nowhere near the size or strength of the Kainji Dam in Nigeria. But Akosombo hydropower base was so well maintained and sustained that it continues, despite age, to drive regular power supply to the relatively smaller country than Nigeria. In that quiet forest, IBB and Kufour had a closed door parley. Sumptuous meals prepared by the then First Lady, Theresa Kufour herself, were served later. She was commended by an appreciative chief guest. From Akosombo, we travelled down to the Volta Region, where we had lunch at the Volta Hotel. There I saw the specially packaged scented toothpick that had refreshing mint taste. Back in Accra same day, we rested in the capital.
The next day President Kufour ushered us into his modest Flag House Presidential Office, at Kanda, for a chit-chat and photo opportunity with H.E. General Babangida. Later in the evening, we were hosted to a grand and colourful Republican Day ceremony at the State House Banquet Hall, near the Parliament of Ghana Complex. It was all an exhilarating experience of colour, candour and care. It was also an extraordinary kind of honour-as old and young Ghanaians lined up the streets wherever IBB travelled during the two-day working visit. It was never a motley crowd of rented praise singers, but honest and genuine citizens showing gratitude to a former regional leader who prevented, through the deployment of ECOMOG, the escalation of internecine wars from Liberia and Sierra Leone into the rest of West Africa, to cause the breach of peace.
One milestone of the trip hinged on our visit to the Jubilee House Presidential Office, to which Ghanaian journalists had never been allowed to enter before. Once we arrived the huge gate, we alighted from our cars and the team followed our Principal and his host into the building; but suddenly, security and protocol personnel intercepted my cameramen in an attempt to stop them from coming in. I tried to persuade them to a no avail. Hence, I raised my voice in protest: ‘We are here with our Principal on the authority of your President. Therefore, there is no stopping us. A light commotion ensued and it drew the attention of both leaders. President Kufour looked at IBB for assurance, which was given and so we were ushered in. President Kufour also asked the Ghanaian Pressmen around to come in. ‘Thank you Charlie, we loveNigerians. It took your effort to get us into our country’s seat of power,’ said a relieved paparazzi cameraman with a sigh. IBB is such a positively contagious character with a long lasting effect on the world around him.
Another remarkable incident also occurred at the outset of the journey when we were about to board the plane from Abuja to Accra. The rest of us had lined up near the aircraft, awaiting His Excellency to board first. As soon as he emerged from the Presidential Lounge, in company of his special aides, IBB offered his disarming gap-toothed smile and a firm handshake to all present. But he halted the exercise to observe a man who offered him a left hand rather than the customary right. It was not meant to be a slight, the man John Ebhota, an ace photographer, had lost his right arm in a motor accident in Lagos before a scheduled World Cup Mundial in Korea/Japan 2002, which he was supposed to cover. On noticing the man’s physical impairment, the veteran soldier showed compassion and warmly shook hands with the ‘Leftist’ lens-man, without asking any question. I was really amazed that IBB and his team never queried why I brought a physically challenged photographer into an international diplomatic assignment. For this singular act, I doff my hat to the husband of one of Africa’s most radiant and elegant first ladies, late Maryam Babangida, of Better Life for Rural Women’s fame. IBB really walked the talk of ‘there’s ability in disability.’
If the aforementioned is amazing, then wait for the icing on the cake. As the Special Adviser to the former President, Alhaji Ibrahim Ismael took time to introduce the team members one after the other. When it came my turn, He said ‘Your Excellency, here’s Alaba Yusuf, your media analyst.’ I bowed to receive a hand shake from IBB, who was then holding a magazine in his hand with a headline: The Pains and Gains of Democracy written by Chidi Amuta, a seasoned journalist. The ‘Big Boss’ handed the publication to me and asked jocularly: ‘Since you’re a media analyst, analyse this for me while on the plane.’ I fast-read the magazine and presented an Executive Brief to HE Babangida before the 45-minute flight terminated. He, in turn, thanked me for the speedy delivery and points raised. This wasn’t still the icing on the cake, but just some crumbs from the table of secrets.
Right from the moment that I was asked to assemble a mini media team to follow IBB to Ghana, with barely 10 hours notice, my journalistic hormones had been on riot mode –gushing a thought of plucking rich fruits from the General’s robust tree of experience.
A good journalist prefers hot exclusive story to a diamond gift. For the real professional, by-line is more than buy-line. So I was hanging around for the slightest chance to pose salient questions to the usually taciturn leader. There was a vista for this at the M-Plaza Hotel on our first day in Accra. It was in the evening, after watching Wimbledon Tennis, a favourite game of the General. It featured Serena Williams of USA in her hay days against a relatively unknown opponent which she crushed like a Hercules train, to the delight of her VIP fan.
After the game, I mustered courage to ask for an audio-visual interview appointment the next day. Hear IBB’s stoical response: ‘Are you not in the same hotel? If you are, then we shall see tomorrow after breakfast, if Allah wakes us up. You know that time and life all belong to Allah.’ Eureka, I found a cause to smile.
As early as possible I goaded my team of three into action. We began to create a hush-hush television studio from the hotel lobby while the General and his senior aides had breakfast at a distant table. It was an opportunity not to be missed.
But as this was going on, Mr. Ebhota chose to play weakest point of the chain, by watching world cup soccer highlights of the day before. That action of his unleashed the fury inside me, before he could comply with my wise counsel.
Moments later, IBB and his team arrived and he took the seat we had arranged for him. Vitalis, the cinematographer from Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) was set to roll the tape. But before we could commence action, the General threw the banter: ‘you managed to get your man back on track,’
He must have seen me losing temper with my team mate. I never knew that the enigmatic General also had the blessing of eagle eyes.
Surprised and overwhelmed, I couldn’t do much than offer a dry smile of appreciation.
Without losing steam, I fired the first shot of questions in quick succession. ‘Sir, are you running for president in 2007? Is the marriage of your son, Mohammed, to the daughter of billionaire businessman Alhaji Indimi in Maiduguri, Borno State, a part of your political architecture for bridge-building?
’ Solemnly, soft spoken IBB responded, thus: ‘Running to where? My people of Minna love me. Whatever they want me to do, so I will. Even if they choose that I become a councillor. But as for 2007, I can assure you that I would be involved.’
On the son’s marriage in North East Nigeria, he stated: ‘Haba, who arranges marriage nowadays for Digital Age children who are at liberty to meet one another online? They chose each other without my input, but I have no option than to give them fatherly blessing. No politics at play in this at all.’
At this stage I chose to probe further by asking why the former Military President hardly replies his vocal detractors personally and publicly. The answer to this poser became the real icing on the cake – the desideratum (rationale and secret code) for the enigmatic leader’s philosophy of life. And it came from a school of home study!
Below is IBB’s secret code to social behaviour. It is a great ideal; but one too hard to bear in the face of harsh emotional realities. Hear the zero-to-hero orphan of yester years:
‘Alaba, I never had the privilege that most people have. I lost my biological parents before the age of 13, and had to be raised by a caring uncle (Adamu). He kept advising me on etiquette and good conduct, saying: ‘Ibrahim! Ibrahim!! Ibrahim!!!
Don’t fight your seniors, because elders are not to be insulted;
Don’t trade insults with your juniors, because they don’t have the experience that you have;
And don’t fight your mates, because you’ll always have places to meet. This has been my philosophy of life.’
On our return from Accra, the Bombadier plane landed in Minna to drop off the General and proceed to Kano with other VIP passengers.
Hence, my team of media men was assigned a vehicle to drive us to Abuja, on a two-hour journey. Before we departed, a considerate General Babangida thanked us all for our support and wished us journey mercies – as he headed to his Hilltop residence, which houses a rich library, in the Niger State capital. IBB confessed to have read most books in his vast collection of biographies of great leaders around the world.
Meanwhile, the entourage on that historic visit to Ghana had the late founder and patriarch of Dantata and Sawoe Construction Company, late Alhaji Abdullahi Sanusi Dantata, retired Air Vice Marshal Halilu Akilu, a former Director of Military Intelligence; Special Adviser to General Babangida, Alhaji Ibrahim Ishmael; Lagos businessman Tayo Amosan, and the rest of us.
In not too many words, I can say unequivocally that it has been a rare privilege to have served in the closely-knit and meticulous team of a human colossus of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s calibre. And whenever IBB’s personal memoir is eventually released, one hopes that it will throw more light on his persona, plus his adventurous life and time in the military as well as in the opaque waters of Nigerian politics.
Excerpt from Alaba Yusuf’s book WITHIN SIXTY: Faces, Places and Phases – The Inkflow From My Pen
