IS IT DO OR DIE FOR IBB,
IF SO,IF HE FINALLY GOES FOR PRIMARY OR CONTEST ON ANOTHER PARTY PLATFORM
WHO WILL YO VOTE FOR ? IBB OR JONATHAN?

Goodluck ebele jonathan!

GEJ. anybody but the old recycled ex-leaders.

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 He repealed the obnoxious Decree No. 4 of 1984 with which the Buhari regime had shackled the media.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
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The Holy Book says "my people perish for lack of knowledge".
Will you allow 150m of us (Nigerians) perish or will you ALSO forward this article on the (mis) deeds of our self-proclaimed "evil genius" to all Nigerians that you know
Will you help confirm "maradona" IBB's claim (in Germany in the 90s during one of his radiculopathy treatment trips) that we, his fellow citizens are "docile" (MUGUs) by not sharing this mail
Get involved this election period for a better Nigeria!!!

Yaradua has now been gone for over a month, while Goodluck has pretty much be in charge for over 4 months; now, have you seen any changes in your lives in Nigeria? We still do not have constant electric supply, education in Nigeria still sucks, medical system is still weak as ever, corruption is still everywhere in the country; and none of these things has yet to be addressed.
Infact, Mr president and OBJ were just in Ibadan (hand in hand) a couple of weeks ago to celebrate Akala's 60th birthday; and you folks still do not believe that politics is a bastar d. There will never be a clean or a perfect politician in Nigeria; these folks are all the same and there is nothing ridiculous that IBB has done that no one else in this country (politician or average citizen) hasn't done before.
Do not fool yourselves, there is nobody else at this point in this country that can move this nation forward effectively and efficiently than the one and only IBB, and many politicians in Nigeria clearly know this fact. But we (citizens) are too foolish to see through the light.

I can assure you folks that with Goodluck nothing much will change. And this is not because he's stupi d or a useless man; this is simply because Goodluck with not be able to tackle the invisible; the invisible that happens to be controlling shi t (underground) in Nigeria; trust me, this dude can not touch them.
He (Goodluck) simply doesn't have the balls to lead this country and I clearly do not see anyone else, period.
IBB still has what it takes to make beautiful things happen quickly in Nigeria. He is determined, he knows exactly how to put the right tools together to elevate this country from the floor to the top. He will do miracle, he will surprise many, he will clean up the past and mold a better future.
Picking anybody else will be nothing but a complete waste of time.

Leading Nigeria simply requires muscle, right connections, iron hand, experience, lion heart, dedication, charisma, wisdom etc.
Question is: Do you really think Goodluck has any of these qualities?

ibb is an evil that we all know but jonathan is an unpredictable fellow working with the criminal gangs that has made nigeria to be among the most useless countries of the world.
if jonathan is on his own, it is easy to give him a trial but with the type of ppl he is working under and with, i will go for ibb.

@Big B1.

I tried to answer you but could not find the right words. But it is clear that you must be either crazy or wicked to suugest IBB.

By the Grace of God, we will never experience anyone like him again as the leader of this great Nation.

Jonathan is someone that was put there by God-even the pagan recognises that. And I am sure he is here to fulfil destiny.

I call on all Nigerians to support him, because even when you do not support him, as long as God wants him there, no one can stop it.

jonathan

None of the above!

jonathan 4sure