The gathering in Abuja on Thursday for the launch of General Ibrahim Babangida’s book was unarguably the most concentrated assemblage of high level political and business leaders in Nigeria in recent times.

Present at the gathering were all five living past presidents and heads of state of Nigeria, though understandably, with the qualified presence of General Muhammadu Buhari who was represented by a proxy. All three former vice-presidents of the Fourth Republic were present. In fact, IBB is perhaps the only one who could have brought Atiku Abubakar and President Bola Tinubu together under the same roof for four hours. I was also astounded by the picture of President Tinubu and President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The richest men in Nigeria, many of whom made their wealth from concessions and other lifts facilitated by Babangida and his successors were also there to hail their mentor. 

Who noticed the loud sneer on Atiku as President Tinubu was about to deliver his address when the band struck the refrain in Tinubu’s personal anthem, “On your mandate, on your mandate we shall stand”. Having already stood up as protocol demanded, Atiku was literally cursing the ground on which he stood as the Nigerian Army band struck “On your mandate.”

God forbid something untoward, such as a bomb had been dropped at that venue it would have been reported in the establishment press as the most unfortunate incident in the history of Nigeria.

But thank God it passed off smoothly and we are alive to discuss the revelations from the autobiography of Nigeria’s second longest ruling ruler in a stretch, General Ibrahim Babangida.

No doubt, Babangida just like Gowon, another enduring ruler had time and space to entrench their names with several legacies. For Babangida, the direction of the Nigerian economy towards capitalist adventurism was about the most positive imprint of his administration that endures till date. The Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP which he cunningly implemented without the International Monetary Fund, IMF loan showcased his economic vision.

He was undoubtedly the man who saw tomorrow and with his economic policies enhanced the Nigerian private sector to a dominant role that many other private sector actors in the rest of Africa cannot but envy.

On the political side, IBB also enounced some of the most fundamental solutions to the malevolent shades of politics in Nigeria. His two-party system was about the most radical answer to the ethnicism and other vices that had negated the game of politics in Nigeria.

Under that dispensation we had two Bendel men, Chief Tony Anenih and Chief Tom Ikimi emerge as national chairmen of the two national parties in Nigeria. The emergence of two men from the minority ethnic group in a state that was not Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo showed that the minority could aspire for reckoning under the system he enunciated.

However, with his open eyes the same IBB nicknamed Maradona, dribbled himself into a dead end when he annulled the freest and fairest presidential election in the history of Nigeria.

That decision from the man his foes and even friends call the evil genius was about the most catastrophic decision ever made in the history of Nigeria outside the civil war.

Till last Thursday, he had repeatedly stated that he annulled the June 12 election in the best interest of the nation. But almost everybody knew that it was in his own interest to perpetuate himself in power.

However, coming out last Thursday to say that he erred and made a mistake was disingenuous. It was the typical IBB trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the nation. But this time he only fooled those gathered with him who gave him applause.

He admitted that he committed a crime against the nation by his willful decision to sabotage the mandate of the nation. He seriously diminished himself with his confession. He should have kept his regret.

At what time did he realise that he made a mistake? This is because until very recently he had been singing the chorus of self-justification. However, apparently realizing that no one believed him and that his legacy would go in the wrong side of history he apparently made the move to mollify a wounded citizenry.

With all the institutions that Babangida erected, Nigeria should have been well advanced in democratic and economic infrastructure had he not made the decision to annul the election. Not only were Chief MKO Abiola and his wife killed because of that decision, hundreds of lives were lost directly and tens of thousands if not more, indirectly. 

It is an act of delusion for Babangida and his hangers on to think that history or time will erase the great evil that was done, his regret notwithstanding. He simply should have kept quiet. And it is a reflection of the deep moral morass that he inspired that all those men who gathered at the book launch gave him an applause for the evil he did. Saddening that not one of them could stand up to tell him that he did wrong. That is the reason why some still insist that with the present political actors that the Hope that Nigerians envisaged with MKO is still far off.

Even more, the cheer is an incentive for those in various levels of authority today doing evil that there may be no consequences for what they do.