₦airaland Forum

see one man's response to IBB's challenge to 9ja youths that we cannot lead ourselves:

AF reports

yes and quick quick too. d man too dey economise compared to the competition and needs to get the boys to play hard soccer when necessary nor be all dis oyoyo play play wey dem dey do all d time.

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 He repealed the obnoxious Decree No. 4 of 1984 with which the Buhari regime had shackled the media.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fhemmmy:
Read Malachi well and you will be able to tell how and why it was said

Did u read the begining of Malachi where clearly God was rebuking (Levi) priests for not bringing their tithes to him in burnt offerings or when they do they bring items of low quality- Malachi 1 states:


6 A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? 7 Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. 8 And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts. 9 And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts. 10 Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. 11 For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. 12 But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. 13 Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord. 14 But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen

these rates are damn crazy. no wonder doing business in 9ja is so costly, add electricity, water etc costs. anyway na employees go suffer am with low wages while oga entrepreneur dey chop and quench.
let's hope with increased competition the rates will start going down, otherwise SME revival to dynamise the economy and create employment, reduce crime etc will be a pipe dream.
maybe sanusi's CBN can create such conducive environment for reduced rates from increased competition and serious monitoring to check underhand, undisclosed charges.

mbulela:
^^^
i have still not gotten my head around to why people have intimacy without condom with any one outside of their spouses.
i seriously don't get it.

have u considered that he could have done AIDS/HIV test with the women before eating his banana without the wrapper.
u should also test with your spouse regularly otherwise. . . trust does not exclude control

I had prayed and hoped that Soludo will lose the elections knowing what pains he had caused pensioners, investors and other stakeholders of the rotten banks he supervised during his tenure as CBN governor. I am happy that my prayers have come to pass. The money he made by looking the other way as he became too cozy with the bank directors is what hopefully he must have lost a substantial portion of. I hope Kwara will also deal with the Sarakis similarly for liquidating Societe Generale to fund their elections not minding millions of depositors, workers etc who were made poorer.
Kudos to the Anambra people for voting and standing by good governance continuity.

abeg anyone don see the ambulance for mallam make e post the photo for here. Thanks in advance to citizen journalists in the making.

abeg the answer is yes, since the pastor sent you to school and nurtured from a baby
ok, not quite the pastor but rather God but the pastor claims to represent God so he should be given your first salary
mugus everywhere
what about the commandment in Exodus 20
12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

You can also read Mark 7

9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. 10 For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: 11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. 12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; 13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

invisible

Ok, start from the inside, charity begins at home. Some of us have fraudulent dads, mums, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, inlaws etc and we fail to report their evil deeds because we are related to them. We also benefit from their ill-gotten wealth, until we fight our own corrupt people, until we start to confront our councilors in our localities, the revolution will never begin.

what invisible wrote above on the ifrst page is the real DEAL.
When we start to do that the change we desire will either evolve or will precipitate a revolution.

Noxious:
I almost puked after reading the article and was going to comment and bash him when I noticed that some people had already commented "thanking Uncle Dee" for his good work!

I actually posted a shorter comment similar to what I have above but apparently it was rejected by ThisDay editors. Anyway as NL dey Nduka and his government apologists can keep their space

stillwater

Do you have a picture of the Mr. Adeseun?

you can see him here:

http://photos.dailytrust.com/?level=picture&id=26

I tried pasting it directly without success.
hopefully members of his family, relations and friends can see wetin eim dey do!

We must all engage in constructive criticism. Abusing people for fun will never change any system. Our country needs to be rescued, and we can no longer afford to keep our arms akimbo. The days of arm-chair criticism should be over. It has led us nowhere. If we truly love our country, we must join hands to liberate Nigeria from the backwardness that stares us all in the face.

the above paragraph drips of stark hypocrisy and that is why dele momodu was hounded out of his make-believe Pendulum column on ThisDay.
He should go back to what he knows best praise-singing photo-journalism of those his rogue friends who have raped and continue to rape 9ja. while Dele was posting pictures of how these rogues spend money that he knows they could not have legitimately earned nobody bothered with him BUT once he put on the toga of progressive activist in his writings it became necessary to ask him to choose what his preference is- dine with the devil or castigate the devil. U can't do both at the same time, except u are a confirmed hypocrite like most of our leaders are- do what i say but not what i do.

i join others in applauding BRF's good works as acknowledged by Guardian and other media houses. shows if a man is good and hardworking we nigerians can als recognise.
we should get involved with our local reps- LG councillor, State Assembly member, Fed. rep and senator so they know we are watching them and expect to earn their salary + egunje by doing something!!!

any suggestions on how those scamming sharp suited bankers- Erastus Akingbola, Cecilia Ibru, Muttalab etc- must have given testimonies of god's favour in their lives for 2008 as they were making poor people poorer including shareholders who put all their gratuity in their IPOs

honeric01:
Guy, when did you turn to God's advocate? are you God's lawyer? if you need to support or be against tithe, do it on your own and not invade into other people's business or better-still, you can as well stop trying to make people stop paying tithe because you don't pay.

why is it difficult for u to follow your own advice to others in bold?
why are u also playing God's advocate?
meanwhile @ poster, what do u think the hundreds of millions of chinese and indians who have been permanently lifted out of poverty will say at the end of this year since they do not know your God?

this year God blessed me all round with promotion, wealth increase, safe journey by air, water land etc after opening my eyes to[b] the deceit of those( Pharisees pastors) who claim to (mis)represent Him so as to collect illegal tithes and seed as if God na olopa wey dey look for egunje to open road block of blessings for people[/b]

ssn:
I served in C.A.C in my NYSC and I’m helping people. Ask questions, conduct background checks and u will see what other greedy Lawyers will tell you are the fees. I attend Living Faith Church. I don’t cheat people. I can help you incorporate/register your company/N.G.O.

oga, why you come put the bold part for your advert
shey your pastor no dey cheat people of their hard earned income by asking them to pay tithes and sow seeds so God can bless them like sey God na egunje policeman wey you must pay to comot roadblock
abeg build your reputation as someone who delivers timely and efficiently with your clients and minimise (if you cannot totally eliminate) paying bribes in getting things done at CAC etc.

radiation:
When will this guy ever shut up? i remember he prophesied that OBJ would die before he is sworn in as the president in 1999 and the baba actually sent him a message after he was sworn in that even if he dies now, he died as the president which indirectly means Tunde Bakare is a fake , God save this man

adeboye repeatedly called OBJ our Joshua [/b]thus [b]prophesying that he will take 9ja to promise land. 8 years after he only took us to more darkness after spending 16billion.
maybe adeboye is just a fake prophet too.

radiation:
When will this guy ever shut up? i remember he prophesied that OBJ would die before he is sworn in as the president in 1999 and the baba actually sent him a message after he was sworn in that even if he dies now, he died as the president which indirectly means Tunde Bakare is a fake , God save this man

moses annointed other sons of Jesse before finally annointing David- maybe he was a fake prophet too.

I have read some suggest that Pastor Tunde Bakare should be a social critic like Gani rather than be a pastor in view of his utterances. Those Christians saying that are definitely not Christ like (Christian) because going through the teachings and works of Christ it is obvious that He was a great social critic of His days and this must have led to the priests (mis)leading almost everyone to ask that Christ be killed.

pcicero:
Christendom became better for it as[b] people were able to get copies of the bible[/b] through the printers in Gutenberg, Germany. That is why every one of us can read the Holy Bible today before then only the priests had access to the Bible.

Thank you

"You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free"
"People perish for lack of knowledge, knowledge of the Word of God"
Thanks to the internet, you can also read and search verses, phrases etc online such as [url=http://www.christnotes.org/bible.php?q=Jeremiah+9%3A+23-24&ver=kjv]here[/url]
Those who continue to be (mis)led by the charlattans masquerading as pastors only have themselves to blame for missing Christ's salvation

dat is the sure way to get to vision 20: 2020
anyone knows when we are getting 6000Mw

abeg hope dey plenty for you.
Go to London, do credit card fraud, return to 9ja and hustle a bit until you join politics and before you know it you are a state governor and plotting to be president
know the guy with the above CV
Jokes apart, there are legit possibilities for those with third class IF you beleive in yourself and focus on your strenghts while seeking to round out the weak areas.
Good luck.

Horus:
This Identity Guard commercial is very bad because it reinforce the idea that Nigeria=fraud. Now a legitimate Nigerian internet business will suffer the consequence because of the lack of trust.

and that is why we should all report those who are suspicious or fraudulent among us to the nearest law enforcement agents, even if you have to use "hidden" mobile numbers or impersonal email addresses.
Do something! Take action!! Start the Change!!!

jiniux:
(SKIP)

i would rather prefer any MAN OF GOD to confront his colleagues if he has issues with them and not do it on the pages of newspapers.

Elijah confronted king Ahab directly, Moses confronted pharaoh, samuel confronted saul, David wouldn't even dare to touch the lord's anointed with his life at stake.

Uhmmmm, knowledge.

The three cases of confrontation were done in public and not behind closed doors. Paul also confronted Peter on circumcision in public, which will be equivalent to the news media we have today.
Abeg go dust your Bible up and get some wholesome knowledge rather than buying those large print pastors' books to further add to their looting kitty.

[quote author=C_Ronaldo link=topic=355636.msg4985858#msg4985858 date=1259059267](skip)

inspiration. I then graduated with First Class and as the overall best student in one of the topmost Federal University in Nigeria.  Following that I was awarded a very competitive scholarship [/b]for my MSc in UK when the university had already informed me that I was not successful, I switched on to the wonders on Praise as thought by Bishop Oyedepo and I miracoulosly received the award letter after the heavens had reversed the decision in my favour.

(skip)[/quote]I thought you would have [b]measured your success also by the number of people you have given schorlaships, starting with your primary school if you do not have enough money to give at other levels. That would have been obeying Christ's words to give to the poor as the way of salvation.
Maybe you should try and[b] find out how your UK university raises its scholarship funds and see how ordinary alumni make up a substantial part of it.[/b]