Former Nigerian military ruler reveals all

Nigerian ex -military ruler Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, known as IBB, has published a new autobiography, including several discoveries about tumultuous times, while in charge of the country from 1985 to 1993.

Traveling in the service of the Nigerians talked and thought about what could be that things came up differently – especially the controversial decision to cancel the 1993 election and the execution of childhood friends.

Babangida has a mixed record. While some praise him for the infrastructure development of the Nigeria he was monitoring, others say that in his time a huge corruption occurred.

Here are four departures from the book:

This is the biggest point of conversation because it touches on the topic that many believed has changed the history of Nigeria. Some say the country has not yet recovered from the cancellation of the 1993 presidential election.

In the book Babangida, which is now 83, she first expressed her deep regret for canceling these elections.

The survey was supposed to end the military rule after 10 years, and the cancellation of the outcome threw the country into restlessness.

Voting Date – June 12 – is now remembered in Nigeria as a Democracy Day.

Gen Babangida was forced to resign.

Moschood Abiola, who is widely believed to have won the election, was later closed and his wife was killed.

The current president of Nigeria, Bol Tinub, said on the launch of the book that Gen Babangida had shown the courage to admit what had happened.

“This history accident is the most regrettable. The nation has the right to expect my expression of regret,” Babangida writes.

Gen Babangida, popularly known as IBB, admitted that Abiola, who died in 1998, won the election.

However, in 1993, as the results were compared, the military government suddenly stopped the procedure – an action that initiated wide protests and a political crisis.

At that time, he cited the issue of buying votes, as well as the need to protect the judiciary in the country as reasons for cancellation.

Abiol’s son Jamiu said that the recognition of General Babangida was that his father had won the election as a welcome surprise for him and some of his family members.

“Maybe General Babangida sought peace,” he told BBC Focus on Africa Podcast.

The civilian rule was eventually returned in 1999, 11 months after the death of the second military ruler Sanija Abach.

General Mamman Vats and Babangida grew up together, they were in the same class at school and rose up side by side in the army. His execution in 1986 after being convicted of the coupling of the coup is another major conversation about the Babangide Presidency.

“We were very close friends,” Babangida remembers.

“We grew up together in Minna and we were classmates in the bidet. We did a few things together as peers. My wife recalled that we shared a room as a bachelor’s. you wear it and go! “

However, he says he now realizes that Vatsa has been jealous since they were teenagers.

“Considering the well -being now, I remember that the permanent part of our relationship as a teenager and young man was continuous and repetitive jealousy for my part to me. He was always enviable because of my achievements, especially when he thought I was making better than him school or our military career. “

Vatsa and nine others were executed in March 1986. They were said to have planned a coup, which would have put the ground into the dark according to the Babangids.

“I had to choose between rescuing the life of friends and the future of the nation,” he writes.

The second controversial problem was the 1966 national blow that overthrew the first government of Nigeria after the independence of the UK. Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa was killed, along with other high national and regional leaders.

The fact that most cartoonists were from Southeastern Nigeria meant that the coup became known as the “IgBo National Stroke” – Babangida’s label rejects.

He emphasized the role of Major John Okienu, an ethnic Igbo officer, who played a key role in suffocating a coup, revealing that many senior Igbo officers were killed in the rebellion.

The book also illuminates the involvement of members of other ethnic groups, especially Yorubas, which he said to many to have participated in military assumption.

The former leader confirmed that the original intent of a government -stroke cartoonist was to release politician Obafemi Awolowo from custody and install him as a president.

The Babangida writes: “It was a terrible time for the Nigerian army. As I said elsewhere, as a young officer who saw it all from a distance, probably ethnic feelings did not encourage the original goal of the state -drawers.

“For example, the head of the drawings, Major Kaduna Nzeogwa, was just ‘Igbo’ on behalf. Born and grew up in Kaduna, his parents were immigrants from Okpa in today’s Delta State, which, in 1966, was in the old middle environment of the Western region.

The Igbos Association with a national blow led to the attack on the members of that community across the country and at the end until the civil war in which some IGBO leaders tried to discover from Nigeria in 1967. At least one million people were killed in what became known as a biafran war.

Many Nigerians see Babangida’s wife Maryam as the most pronounced and most influential first lady in the country. Since 1985, when they left the office in 1993, their love story enchanted a lot of people. She died in 2009, and the former head of the state never got married.

“She was astonishing. Her beauty from Ebanan’s enchanting eyes, and a blinding smile showed a beautiful teeth set; when she smiled – and she often smiled – her face lit up, her eyes danced,” he writes.

“We both saw our marriage as our freedom and we agreed to get rid of things if we were arguing. We were very compatible; indeed, I can only remember two occasions in which we quarreled, and none of us were afraid to apologize to another . In all our years of marriage it has never been necessary for anyone to mediate between us because of a misunderstanding

“I never imagined that Maryam would pass out before I did it, but the gift of life is in Allah’s hands, not in humanity. I am grateful to Maryam and I shared on the fruit of our covenant. The confrontation without it was not easy, But the memories of our common life and the length of her shadow did so much less demanding, “says Babangida.

He describes Maryam as a dedicated wife, mother, domestic manufacturers and passionate advocate of rural women. Above all, he saw her as a real partner.