@becomricha, If i may ask, who are you speaking for? And who told you the south south people would want to go with the Yorubas should there be a break up? If the country is breaking up for real, it must be along religious lines, That will be the only way to peace. The long standing political and religious romance between West and North will no doubt make their marriage an easy one.

hm.

ivhurie:

@becomericha:You want deltans, yorubas and igbo's to break away from Nigeria, and that all the Northern Military mean should back up this cause. Do you know if the south-south have to leave Nigeria this nation is going to SUFFER drasctically. You are saying Jonathan should do it or else the Military would. Let me brak it nice and slow for you when the Niger-Delta leaves the OIL which Nigeria so depends on goes with us. What would the country do then? Oooo, abi u want to say 'we would deal on Agriculture'? You should ask the farmers they are all suffering. The money this country gets is from 90% from oil if not 95 and here saying Jonathan a man from the south should join in the Break up of Nigeria he will be Glad to but he is a man who Isnt self centered like most people here, he wants the best for everybody. We are all at fault here even the the South-south, so no one should go pointing fingers.

don't be so sure at d bolded.
I was watching Ogunade's book launch and saw IBB. I was wondering what makes this man so intelligent that people always talk about him and how he embezzled? But ehh. . .d guy sabi smile

If there's anything we can draw from this . . . it's the fact that the Nigerian Media lacks integrity.
Why would you invite this same man that almost had you on press-gag come and speak on your event??

This same guy allegedly blew up the most respected journalist Nigeria ever had.
Dele Giwa . . . the Sahara Reporters of those days that didn't need the internet got blown up for what he believed in and what do you do next??
You give this guy a platform to sell his image to the public??

I'm ashamed of the Nigerian press. . . there goes your integrity, straight into the bin.

is kosovo a deadbeat or something? idiot!

This entity called Nigeria should be allowed to split. It is obvious even on this forum NL that the people of this so called country are not one. The monumental hatred that exists among Nigerians along ethnic and religious lines is so glaring and overwhelming to be ignored. Every little thing is viewed from ethnic or religious angle. One can comfortably vouch that views and analyses of events in Nigeria by Nigerians are far from being objective. That is why efforts to move this country forward will remain a mirage. Make this forced project disintegrate abeg!!!

The Babangida years

By Tolu Ogunlesi
April 17, 2010 10:36PM

In his first New Year Day’s speech as military president, months after deposing the Buhari-Idiagbon government in a bloodless coup enthusiastically welcomed by Nigerians, Ibrahim Babangida declared: “I wish to reaffirm that this administration does not intend to stay in power a day longer than is required to lay the necessary institutional framework to bring about a better and more stable Nigeria.” Babangida’s bonhomie (its trademark an endearing gap-toothed smile) - in stark contrast to the stern, unsmiling façade of Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor - made it easy for him to be believed.
The distinction between the two regimes in fact ran much deeper than personality quirks. Babangida, in action, proved to be the complete antithesis of his predecessor. He threw open prison doors, setting free hundreds of 3rd republic politicians convicted and jailed by Buhari. He repealed the obnoxious Decree No. 4 of 1984 with which the Buhari regime had shackled the media. He promised to run “an open administration that is responsive to the yearnings and aspirations of all the people” - a departure from the high-handedness of the Buhari/Idiagbon era.
One of his first actions as military president was to allow Nigerians to decide, through public debates, whether to accept the $2.5 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan the Buhari government had been negotiating for.
After the terror of the Buhari years, Nigerians appeared to have found a statesman in military uniform.

Tough times that lasted
By 1985, Nigeria’s foreign debt had ballooned to $18 billion, up from $3.4 billion in 1980 (it would rise beyond $30 billion by the end of the 80s), and external reserves had dwindled to less than $2 billion. Oil prices had been in freefall for 3 years running, and in January 1986 they finally fell to less than $20 per barrel, a record low since the start of the decade.
To his credit Babangida made all the right noises about revamping the economy. In his Independence Day 1985 speech, barely two months old in office, he declared “a state of economic emergency for the next 15 months.” That speech went on to lay down a comprehensive plan for “economic reconstruction”.
This plan included a moratorium on new foreign debt, promotion of agriculture and industrial development, restriction of importation to “essential commodities”, financial sector reform and privatisation.

Populist leanings
IBB was a master of the populist move - ambitious government programs targeted at tackling poverty, and empowering rural dwellers. His government churned out program after program, in a bid to actualize his promises to run an inclusive, people-facing government. In 1986, Babangida launched the Mass Mobilization for Self Reliance, Social Justice, and Economic Recovery (MAMSER).
In 1987, the Directorate of Food and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI) was launched to promote agriculture and transform Nigeria’s rural landscape by providing modern infrastructure. Other Babangida creations include the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND), Peoples Bank of Nigeria (PBN), National Board for Community Banks (NBCB), Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), National Planning Commission (NPC), and the Urban Development Bank.
No other Nigerian government presided over such substantial expansion of government bureaucracy as the Babangida administration. In time, the fiscal prudence that Babangida espoused vanished: billions of naira were sunk into an endless transition programme, and in the early ‘90s, 12 billion dollars worth of windfall crude oil revenue (courtesy of the rise in the oil prices due to the Gulf War) could not be accounted for.
Mr. Babangida also came to perfect the art of dispensing patronage through political appointments (mostly targeted at leading members of the opposition) and a far-from-transparent allocation of lucrative oil blocks.

“A man whose words mean nothing”
Mr. Babangida’s contradictions eventually overwhelmed his reputation so that when, in May 1993, the activist and lawyer Gani Fawehinmi described him as “a man whose words mean nothing to him”, evidence of this littered his eight years in power.
Only months after vowing to run a “government by consultation with the people”, Mr. Babangida in 1986 surreptitiously - and unilaterally - took Nigeria, an avowed secular state, into full membership of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), a body which describes itself as “the collective voice of the Muslim world.”
Mr. Babangida lamented the “large role played by the public sector in economic activity with hardly any concrete results to justify such a role.”Ironically, over the course of the next five years, he would go ahead to supervise an unprecedented expansion of government. And despite his deference to the wish of Nigerians to reject the IMF loan, Mr. Babangida went ahead to implement some of the Fund’s most drastic requirements - a devaluation of the naira, and removal of subsidies, chief of which were the petroleum subsidies.
Mr. Babangida promised Nigerians that the “belt-tightening” was sorely needed: the painful injection that would usher in vibrant economic health; the mandatory dark lining before a cloud of prosperity. Those reforms, which he christened “Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)”, came into effect in 1986, with a far-from-pleasant impact on Nigerians. Purchasing powers dwindled, inflation rose, and the obliteration of the middle class began. In 1989, SAP riots rocked the country, as Nigerians had finally had enough of economic reforms which silver lining they waited in vain for.

Greatest failings
Mr. Babangida’s greatest failings were however in two key areas: his human rights record, and his political transition programme. In December 1985, a group of soldiers, which included his close friend, Mamman Vatsa, were arrested on allegations of plotting to topple the 4-month old Babangida government. After Vatsa was convicted and sentenced to death, Mr. Babangida assured a delegation of distinguished writers (Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and J.P. Clark), which had come pleading for mercy, that he was “determined to do everything in my power to save (Vatsa).”
Hours later, Vatsa and the other alleged plotters were executed.
As opposition to Mr. Babangida’s rule grew, so did his intolerance for dissent, so that he routinely shut down or proscribed media houses; and harassed journalists, civil society and labour groups using the instruments of state (the State Security Service, Directorate of Military Intelligence and the Police).
In 1986, five students of the Ahmadu Bello University were murdered when mobile policemen invaded the campus to quell anti-IMF protests. He also promulgated a series of draconian decrees targeted at quelling all opposition, and on occasion did not hesitate to deport foreign critics (University lecturer Patrick Wilmot and journalist William Keeling).
In October 1986, frontline journalist Dele Giwa was murdered by a letter bomb in Lagos. Preliminary police investigations stated that senior officers of Mr. Babangida’s intelligence services, who had hounded Giwa in his final days, had questions to answer regarding Giwa’s death. The mystery of the Giwa assassination remains unsolved till date.

An interminable journey
A maddeningly convoluted transition programme, whose terminal date soon became a mirage - first 1990, then 1992, and then 1993 - is one of the most significant things Babangida will be remembered for.
Early on in his administration, Mr. Babangida inaugurated a “Political Bureau” to “kick off, as it were, the national debate on a viable future political ethos and structure for our dear country.”
The political bureau was soon followed by a Constituent Assembly, which in 1989 fashioned a new constitution for the country.
Also, in 1989, he created, by presidential fiat, two political parties, the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention. Then in 1991, he released a controversial list of prominent politicians whom he said were banned from participating in the transition programme.
In October 1992, he cancelled the results of the parties’ presidential primaries, causing new primaries to be held in March 1993. And then in June 1993 he annulled the results of the presidential elections, presumed to have been won by billionaire businessman MKO Abiola.

This was the final straw.
By this time, Nigerians had finally had enough of his shenanigans, and violent protests forced him to “step aside” on August 27, 1993,“My colleagues and I are determined to change the course of history,” Mr. Babangida told Nigerians in his maiden speech as Head of State, on August 27, 1985.
By the time he reluctantly relinquished power exactly eight years later, he had achieved that goal, far more successfully than he, or anyone else, could ever have imagined.

Source: Next

Oh lord, where r thou? Y will u let dis evil befall us? Well his wayz r not ours neither are his thoughts ours says d lord,

IBB is just a confused idiot who believes that because idiots called him a genius then he is a genius. He was called a genius by mediocres who were only after recognition, money and power. On hi being called a Maradona, you need to understand what the name Maradona signifies. First go to Buenos Aires and verbally doubt the ability of the real Maradona to coach his country, they'll deal with you, there and then. Why because they love him. Not just because he played well for them in his hey days, but because he loved them so much he'd cry like a baby whnever they are losing an international match.

So what, anybody can cry? Well the real Maradona loved his country so much that in Mexico '86 at a crucial match between Argentina and England (Argentine enemy), the guy was so desirous of putting his country one up against her enemy that he had to score with the famous "Hand of God". Do you even know why he called it the Hand of God? Retribution. You would have said he used a crooked means to push his country forward but just sometime later in the same match he breezed past 6 english players (which of course is more than half of the English side) to score a winning goal. FIFA was proud, English men were awed, the world was numb. Short Maradona was waving his shirt in the air like a child. One up on the enemy for my motherland Argentina. Does IBB love motherland like that.

That said, may the pen or mouth or whatever means anybody uses to called Babangida a Maradona break into pieces.

Evil genuis? My foot. Anybody is a genuis who can employ a GETAPO like arrangement of idiots who snoop for information while others are working for a daily bread.

I have read about some public utterances of IBB and I must say they are not tactical indeed. e.g. that people should prove he was corrupt during his tenure. Thats bullshit. If you cover your ass enough, which in Nigeria is not hard, it will be hard to prove. I mean what can you prove in Nigeria when people cannot even prove that one's driving was right or wrong talkless of clandestine and corrupt actions that were meditated upon on a sleeping country even before the action was executed.

Damn it if I had the same opportunity as the guy, I would have done better.

We are the new children of Nigeria and our voice is coming from a distance, like a trailer load of gravel. IBB get off the road!

@eldee, you said my exact thoughts. Our journalists are selling out already,for the past few days they report everything he sneezes out.It makes me wonder what would happen if they choose to ignore the guy.

IBB is a fool for what he's trying to do but I always knew that if Nigeria were gonn breakup it would've happened a long time ago. . . Still not impossible though.

Nobody should throw the idea that Nigeria could break up to the Dogs! With Northern Muslim clerics feeding their flock with anti-social Ideas as if there are no muslims anywhere else in this country, with the agitation of the oil-rich Niger Delta and with the awakening of middle belters to the second class treatment they've been enduring as fake northerners. Walahi, Nigerian would brake up if our leaders and religious clerics don't change their attitudes.

My only fear is that, If Nigeria should break up, the middle belt might be left with the north and that would be too bad!

Linusman:

are u saying that all the Nigerians that would put IBB in power in 2011 are Insane? that would be close to 20-30 million Nigerians, do you bother to review your posts before posting? Shocked

So, out of 150 Million people, counting adults who can vote, 20 - 30 Million people will be a majority to vote this thief and dirty scoundrel into power?

By the way, is it not an outrage that a moderator is clearly spinning every thread in IBB's direction, with less than intelligible arguments? A cursory look by a neutral party should make this fact immediately apparent! However, everyone has a right to hold an opinion but a clearly biased moderator should not be moderating over issues for which he has more than a general interest!

IBB stressing the importance of journalists in our land, May be he wants to bring back Dele Giwa

whats insightful about this, i cant see it

break up or not i want this country to have a credible leader(s) who have the passion of the nation at heart and not the passsion of it's wealth at heart.

I wonder wat this man is still
doing in politics! Please any1 that
knows him shud advice him to go
and see MAP's new film "OWO OKUTA"
maybe he will learn from it!

SHALOM

Only in nigeria will a known felon and villain like ibb is given audience.IT can be comparable to a case of late PABLO EMILIO ESCOBAR VYING FOR THE PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA,IBB IS MORE LOATHSOME,RUTHLESS AND SINISTER THAN ESCOBAR

Whilst Noreaga is languishing in jail, IBB is involved in politics and contesting elections.

Injustice,

(They should be sharing a cell- )

Nigerians should try to mount up opposition to him. Make sure that he is exposed for the fraud that he is and not vote for him. As a muslim, he should cut off his own hand first. Then the hands of the other cohorts who pillaged our treasuries among the Muslims, since he should be governed under Sharia.

I personally stand against him ever ruling Nigeria because in Islam, if a person wishes for a position, it should never be given to him. And when we consider his evil deeds, even the mere fact that he allows himself to be adjectivied  as "evil", he deserves to be shamed by all nigerians, except evil doers like him.

And me, a yoruba does not want anyone to say that we are part "Benin Repubic" unless you are a yoruba, The Benin knows that we are not part of them, but Nigerians, regardless of North or other South. It is what we know as a people.

@anonimi, thanks, I think we need to be reminded of his track record.If you look deeply into the NUJ you would see an IBB apologist in there, its so sad. People have been pauperized so badly that, they could sell their soul for money.

IBB had it all planned out, it would be sad if it worked. I remember a few years ago a Nigerian I respected offered me an invitation to attend an IBB campaign meeting in New York, I was sick to my stomach, I was like are you really serious?

But, once again, with the way things run in Nigeria, this guy may rig his way through, save our souls oh God

I don't really know IBB offences. He kill people during his regime like Dele Giwa, But don't forget that Chief Ige the Attorney General and minister of justice was killed under civilian regime. He embezzled Gulf oil fund, fine how much did he sold crude oil may $25 per barrel. Don't forget that it was sold for more than seventy dollar under civilian regime, yet Benin Ore road is still a death trap. Lagos Ibadan is still no passable. He annual the most free and fair election fine the last election is a rape of democracy it was conducted by do or die so why do you want to hang the man.
Please leave this man alone a people deserve the type of leader thay have . Good people cannot produce bad leaders while bad people like Nigerians can never produce good leader even if by accident they will kill him. Friend until we change our value in this part of the world we will alway have bad leaders

benabbey:

I don't really know IBB offences. He kill people during his regime like Dele Giwa, But don't forget that Chief Ige the Attorney General and minister of justice was killed under civilian regime. He embezzled Gulf oil fund, fine how much did he sold crude oil may $25 per barrel. Don't forget that it was sold for more than seventy dollar under civilian regime, yet Benin Ore road is still a death trap. Lagos Ibadan is still no passable. He annual the most free and fair election fine the last election is a despoil of democracy it was conducted by do or die so why do you want to hang the man.
Please leave this man alone a people deserve the type of leader thay have . Good people cannot produce bad leaders while bad people like Nigerians can never produce good leader even if by accident they will kill him. Friend until we change our value in this part of the world we will alway have bad leaders

Bad people like Nigerians? What is wrong with you?

Yeah, let's judge IBB on HOW BAD HE IS NOT forgetting that two negatives don't make a positive. I guess that is his strategy - Nigerians can't prove IBB is a thief so he must be worthy of the Presidency, etc. The first thing in changing our values, as you urge us, is really to CHANGE HOW WE JUDGE THINGS.

If you couldn't figure out IBB's offences in all that you stated, then how do you define offence.

I wonder why this nonsense will be in front page.After IBB destroyed the country in 2003,someone still has the guts to put this in front page.I am sure it is the Hausa man Kosovo.

hollandis:

I wonder why this nonsense will be in front page.After IBB destroyed the country in 2003,someone still has the guts to put this in front page.I am sure it is the Hausa man Kosovo.

There are at least 3 front page links to articles with titles that seek to paint Babangida in a good light.

Is Nairaland's leadership throwing their weight behind Babangida?

@texazzpete

Thank You. I don't know why there are 3 threads on IBB on the front page of Nairaland. Has Seun Osewa sold out? I need to know so that I can look for an alternative forum online to share my views on different issues. It would be a disaster if Nairaland becomes a tool in the hands of IBB and our other mostly corrupt politicians. I'm pissed off


www.vibes-extra..com

texazzpete:

There are at least 3 front page links to articles with titles that seek to paint Babangida in a good light.

Is Nairaland's leadership throwing their weight behind Babangida?

Kosovo has been campaigning seriously and unashamedly for the thief International Batty Boy (IBB).

i think IBBs example is apt in trying to reply Gadaffis statement,lets try not to criticize him unnecessarily.Yes he could be trickish for what i know but he picks his statements carefully.U can only know if u are a good observer.Confirm my assertion from the press.Doesnt mean i am his protagonist though.

kenayi, what south south are you talking about. Even if you go to asaba and ask them if they want to leave Nigeria. It would be a Yes vote. So IBB getting married from that place would not change the mind of the people.

That is  not a statement. South south exist in the mind of people who do not know nigeria history. There have never been anything call south south,

Ikwerre people are igbos. The whole of rivers state is going with the igbo people.  How can they be  in the south south. There are Ilaje yorubas people in delta state. How can they be in south south. There are Akoko Yorubas in edo state. How can they be from the south south.


Or are you saying Ilaje people are no more Yorubas?  Or are you saying Ikwerre people are no more igbos.

Any Ijaw man who claim he is from the south south lack the understanding of his history.   

What percentage of delta or edo state that is  married to Yorubas. Nearly 1 in 3 or 1 in 4.    What percentage of Delta  or edo state are married to calabar  people or rivers or Akwa Ibom state. 1 in 1000.

stop talking nonsense.


Look at this map. if we remove the Ilaje part of delta state. That is 90% of delta state Oil. Are ilaje people not yoruba again.

This is the Oilfield in delta state. Can you read. Are they not Yorubas names,  ?  official from oil company.


okan, mefa, awodi etc. are all this field not Yoruba names. Which south south oil are you saying Yorubas,stole from you.

Are Ilaje people not Yorubas. Even most of the portion that they claim is delta oil is ondo oil.


For IBB to become president, you see the second map most happen. So IBB most support break up. For him to nearly Aso Rock. If Not. IBB is only dreaming of becoming president again. He has to get the member of the national assembly to support the bill to remove the yorubas.edo.delta and bayelsa out of nigeria.

kenayi, make I make you laugh, if you see Uhrobo girl or benin girl and He has to make a choice of Husband from a Yoruba or calabar. Do you think, she would think twice, who to marry. ?


Go and find out this, early every family in delta state either Uhrobo or Isoko has one person that is married to a Yoruba person. While you hardly can find any family in Delta state married to calabar people. If you find. You really loook and you need to get paid for your effort.

count how many obasanjo or abiola children married from delta state only. you would fill up a room.

I thought IBB was intelligent. His comments suggests the opposite. Is he implying that inter-tribal or cross-country marriages don't exist any more?