I'll attempt a modest effort to respond to
Prof. Yusuf Dankofa , a cerebral lawyer and
law lecturer, who incidentally taught me
Legal Methods in my first year at the
Faculty of Law, ABU, Zaria.

You see, the learned Professor believes i
was unfairly critical of Babangida (IBB)
yesterday, when i pointedly accused him
in my facebook post of being the grand
architect of the rot we see today in
Nigeria's society. My learned Prof told me
in clear terms, that all past leaders share,
or should share, the blame, equally. I
have had time to sleep over this matter,
and rethink my held position, but must
express my regret, sadly, that i woke up
with the selfsame opinion as i held
yesterday, though in stronger measure.
For good reason.


My dear Prof., do not think it remiss of
me to disagree with you on this issue.
You see, Prof. Yusuf Dankofa , Nigeria
presently groans under the pains of a
curable but vicious and widely-spread
syphilitic disease. And from the way i see
it, she contracted this disease, because
Babangida, who admits himself to be
some sort of evil genius, single-handledly
lured her into the thorny bushes of
tyranny, and violently raped her, doggy-
style, without condoms, day-in-day-out,
from 1985 to 1993. Eight Years of
unremitting rape. The likes of Abacha and
co held down her legs while the deed was
done, and promptly took their turns as
soon as IBB was done. But first, we must
acknowledge that it was through IBB that
the idea occurred to the other military
urchins, that there could be some fun,
and money made on the sides, by
engaging Nigeria in violent, bondage sex,
not minding the ensuing and long-lasting
pains we would all suffer for it.


By the way, my learned Prof., Nigeria was
not a virgin before IBB. She had been
successively raped by a motley crowd of
tuxedo wearing "statesmen", tobacco and
kola-nut chewing aristocrats, respected
gentlemen even, and other less
respectable characters, since 1960. But
on each occasion, safe sex seemed to
have been practiced, and we were still
able to plod on as a human society with
some semblance of dignity. Then IBB
came and took all that away.
Before IBB, Nigerian politicians fought
each other fiercely. But the cat-fights
were restricted to vulgar abuses and
intellectual clap-backs through newspaper
articles and open letters. It was IBB,who
first put it in the heads of the
government institution, that intellectual
exertions was a sheer waste of time in
engaging or silencing opposition. IBB
introduced political assassination into the
polity in grand style, as a more
convenient and expeditious means of
getting all the opposition ducks in a row.
And he was quite inventive about it. He
started with a love letter to Dele Giwa,
laced with a bomb in 1986. Then in 1992,
about 159 promising officers of the
military mysteriously lost their lives in the
C-130 crash in Ejigbo. It was widely
reported as an inside job. Fingers pointed
to IBB. He denied it. I believe him. But
what i find curious, is that in a 2015
interview on this issue, IBB stated, as i
read online, that the ill-fated C-130 plane
should not have flown the day it did
because it was faulty. When asked if the
people responsible for clearing the plane
to fly these officers, despite its being
faulty, were punished, he heartily said
"No." When asked why not, he calmly
responded "the Nigerian factor." And this
answer came from the man who was the
all-powerful C-in-C at the time, and on
whose table the power of life and death,
punishment and reward, laid. But like i
said, he has since denied culpability in the
matter, and I, let me repeat, believe him.
Prior to IBB, I do not believe there was a
parallel incident of political assassination
in Nigeria on that scale or prominence. He
gave the idea to Abacha, and those that
followed. So in 1996, the no nonsense
Dr. Shola Omoshola perished, a victim of
institutional murder. Killed by bomb blast,
IBB style, but by Abacha. Same 1996,
Kudirat Abiola is assassinated. Same 1996,
Col. Marwa escapes death by car bomb.
Same 1996, bomb blast at Durba Hotel,
Kano. Bomb blast in Zaria police station.
Bomb blast at Ikeja military cantonment.
Bomb blast at Ikeja Airforce base. Bomb
blast, bomb blast, bomb blast!!! Between
1996 and 1997, the bomb blasts were
uncountable. Some by government, some
by NADECO. In fact, since Dele Giwa, over
1000 people have lost their lives to
political assassination, including, Bola Ige,
Alfred Rewane, Harry Marshal,
Dikibo,Andrew Agom, Igwe Barnaba and
wife, Funsho Williams, Ayo Daramola,
Dipo Dina, Godwin Agbroko,Ogbonnaya
Uche...and the list goes on and on. Most
were slain long after IBB was gone, but
the seed of institutional violence in
Nigeria was unarguably sown by IBB.


Let's talk corruption. Before IBB, what
was rife was for powerful government
ministers to steal money here and there,
while the head of government itself, who
might not be aware of the thievery,
retires or is deposed into penury. Which is
why even Gowon, who ruled for 9 nine
years, was not deposed a rich man.
Neither was Murtala Muhammad or
Ironsi, or Shagari, or Buhari. People might
dispute the pedigree of Buhari, but i
include him in this list because in 2003,
Prof. Kyuka Lilymjok took some students
to Buhari's house in Kaduna to speak and
parley with him about his presidential
ambition in that year. Incidentally, I was
the leader and spokesman of this group
and sat face to face with Buhari in his
dinning hall for the discussions, at his
Kaduna home. It was a modest bungalow.
Absolutely no luxury. I recall with
considerable light-hearted humor that we
were served warm coke on this occasion,
and after all said and done, Buhari handed
me an envelope containing N20,000 to
share among over 50 students as
"transport". He profusely apologized that
he had no money to give. Now you can
imagine the fight among our ranks for the
pittance, as is common with students. But
i went away thinking this man must either
be extremely honest to not have
stupendous wealth having been Governor,
Petroleum Minister, President and lately
Chairman of PTF, or he must be quite
stingy. At the time, I leaned more to
thinking him to be an honest person.
Many dispute this though.
But IBB changed all that. It was IBB who
ingrained it in the minds of leaders, that
they must feather their nest while in
office, sort of retirement insurance. He
basically and literally opened the public
treasury to his cronies to feast on. My
Prof., have you seen IBB's 50-room
hilltop mansion in Niger? The man flaunts
wealth unapologetically. Where did he get
the money? His salary as a military
officer? His military pension? It was IBB
who started the unfair sharing of Niger-
Delta oil wells to his cronies, and at his
pleasure.

Did you know that Mrs.
Folorunsho Alakija was a mere tailor
sewing for Maryam Babangida? Then
Babangida woke up one morning, and like
a genie in a bottle, decided she has to be
a billionaire. So he gifted her OML 216, a
natural asset of the Niger-Delta, and
today that tailor is on the Forbes rich list,
worth more than US$3.3Billion.
Babangida was the genie in the bottle.
Just rub him the right way and your wish
is granted. Then came Abacha, who learnt
well from IBB. He gifted T. Y. Danjuma
OPL 246, Alhaji Mai Daribe OML 110,
Sanni Bello OML 112 and 117, Alhaji
Indimie (Babangida's inlaw) OML 115,
Alhaji Saleh Gambo OML 215, Aminu
Dantata OML 108 etc. Interestingly,
Abacha also gifted himself, through Dan
Etete, the very lucrative OPL 245. All to
the Northern oligarchy, as you can see, at
the expense of the source of the
resources in the Niger-Delta, who eke
out a bare-knuckle existence on a daily
basis. IBB started it. Nobody did this
before him.


Shall i speak about the missing US
$12Billion oil windfall? This was just a
single heist. He should have stolen so
much more before and after this
occasion. But this one time, US$12Billion
went missing. Now, at that time, Nigeria's
population was somewhere in the region
of 95Million and the exchange rate was
about N10 to a dollar. So US$12Billion
would have been say N120Billion in Naira
terms. If shared among all Nigerians at
the time, each person, including new born
babies, mad men, prostitutes, armed
robbers, murderers, thieves and what
not, so far as they are Nigerian, would
have gotten something, at least N100 at
the time. It might not have been much,
but it would have gone round if shared.
But one person, IBB, stole it. And with
impunity too. Lest we forget, this
happened on the cusp of IBB's SAP
program, when 90% of Nigerians were
going to bed hungry, with no hope of food
when they wake. But he still mindlessly
stole this money on this occasion, even
when he had stolen so much before this,
and after. Now, suppose this money was
put to a project, we would have had a
world-class university, or a world class
hospital or something else world-class.
But he stole it and proceeded to send his
children abroad to school and seek
medical attention.


This and several monies IBB stole is the
reason why Mohammad Babangida has
never worked a day in his life, but owns
over 24% of a telecommunications
company that has now become a
multinational. he holds huge stakes in
several other companies. He is not better
than me, who is trying to make honest
living in an impossible business climate, a
sort of frankenstein monster that gobble
up businesses created his father. It is the
reason why IBB's children at the time
floated Fruitex International London
Limited with a share capital of about
£100,000 fully paid for in cash. This
company and several other offshore
corporations were then used to launder
Nigeria's commonwealth into swiss
accounts, to the detriment of the masses,
to the detriment of the Niger-Delta,
where the resources were stolen from.
But dont get me wrong, so many people
after IBB have bested him in the thievery
game. In fact, so much have been stolen
from Nigeria since then that what he took
pales into insignificance. But he started it,
as head of state.


Babangida badly politicized and polarized
both the military and the civil service like
no President before him. We are still
suffering for it today. His Decree 43 killed
the earlier entrenched independent,
apolitical and non-partisan principles of
the civil service. Permanent Secretaries
were replaced with Directors-General,
who were political appointees and served
at the pleasure of the President. In fact,
they were to abdicate office with the
Ministers. And so with this artifice, IBB
used political appointments, even in civil
service, to reward loyalty.This led to the
emergence and institutionalization of the
"brown envelope" syndrome in the
Nigerian civil service. Accordingly, by
some sort of strange alchemy, it became
viewed as illegal not to pass a "brown
envelope" under the table when seeking
favors in government ministries. In the
military, there was the emergence of "the
IBB boys." They were powerful officers
who had direct links or relationship with
IBB. For their loyalty, he rewarded them
with gifts and appointments. Burba
Marwa is often cited as the poster child of
this system. He became quite prosperous
under IBB and thereafter. But first, we
hear he did IBB a few favors. Perhaps you
should ask Dele Giwa about this.


May we speak of the current distrust
between christians and muslims in today's
Nigeria? I do not deny that before IBB,
they were religious skirmishes here and
there. But the real, deep-seated distrust
began with IBB's surreptitious enlistment
of Nigeria in the Organisation of Islamic
Countries (OIC). All Presidents before IBB
had tried to hold things together, careful
never to act in any way that betray
dominance of one religion over the other.
But not IBB. By this singular act on the
OIC, he fanned the embers of a
nationwide distrust between adherents of
the two religions, and between the North
and South, which we still suffer from till
this very day.


What about values in society? It was IBB
who invited Nigerians to believe that the
end justified the means in money making.
During his regime, drug barons held sway.
419 as a national institution-backed
syndicate emerged. This was when foreign
victims were taken to the real CBN offices
for meetings, only to realize that the
entire scheme was a scam after they had
parted with money. These con men
received both protection and patronage
from the IBB regime. How can we forget
who Gloria Okon was to IBB? Never
before had a President of Nigeria been so
enmeshed in such scandal as drug
peddling, this was truly a first. Needless
to say, my Prof., Nigeria's perception of
morality and integrity has not been the
same again since IBB. Nobody cares how
money is made anymore, just make the
damn thing!! So after the scorch of 419
came Yahoo Yahoo boys, money rituals
and all sort of get-rich quick schemes. But
you cannot but trace the root cause to
IBB's regime.


Let me mention the integrity of the
Judiciary. It was during the whole June 12
debacle that we heard, for the first time,
that a Judge had been procured to grant a
midnight injunction to first stop the June
12 elections, and then again to restrain
the announcement of the results. Dont
forget, the preceding years up to this
period is always referred to as the
"golden years" of the Judiciary. We had
upright and intelligent judges. Bribing or
influencing a Judge was a phenomenon
that was not common, in fact rarely heard
of. But Babangida saw to it that it was
done, using Arthur Nzeribe. Well, we all
know where we are on this issue today.
My great Prof Sir, the tapestry of IBB's ills
to the Nigerian society is actually
encyclopedic, and can only be captured in
volumes. It will serve me no purpose to
continue because i will not end. But like i
earlier said, he is enjoying his loot in his
50-room mansion up the hills of Minna.
From that vantage point, he has a bird's
eye view of all of us, and must be
laughing himself silly on what fools we all
are, by continuing to pay him him
pensions, changing his cars every 4 years
or so, acknowledging him as a statesman,
consulting him on how to "move the
country forward" or backwards as the
case may be and generally paying homage
to him, all as a befitting reward for his
role in single-handedly destroying the
moral fabric of Nigeria's society.


I really do wish him well and hope he dies
peacefully in his sleep after a sip of
chilled champagne fully paid for by Niger-
Delta's oil, for doing such great work in
frontally, backwardly and brutally raping
that once beautiful bride called Nigeria.
A good morning to you Prof!
cc: lalaclasticala
mynd44

Dear nairalanders, please take ur time to read this. men!!! dis guys from d north has finished us