General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Nigeria’s only military leader who assumed the title of a President, has explained that he annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election, adjudged by Nigerians as the country’s freest and fairest poll, to prevent a coup d’etat.
“If it materialised, there would’ve been a coup d’etat — which could have been violent. That’s all I can confirm,” Babangida said Friday in an interview on Arise TV monitored from Lagos.
The election was won by Chief Moshood Abiola of the defunct Social Democratic Party, who defeated Bashir Tofa of the defunct National Republican Convention.
“It didn’t happen thanks to the engineering and the ‘maradonic’ way we handled you guys in the society,” he explained. According to him, allowing the election to stand “could’ve given room for more instability in the country”.
Babangida said there was pressure on his junta within and outside the military to nullify the election for that reason.
He explained that both sides were capable of making such a move. “The military can do it because they have the weapons to do it, and others (civil society groups) can use agitation,” said Babangida, who was nicknamed “Maradona” by the Nigerian media.
Babangida overthrew Major General Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s current civilian president, who as Nigeria’s military head of state then, in August 1985 in a coup d’etat.
Assessing the state of the nation now and then, Babangida said those he worked with would look like angels today if compared with the current crop of public servants.
“With the current cases of corruption going on across the country, the military leaders are saints when compared to the democratic leaders,” Babangida said.
“You cannot compare what we did with what is on the ground now in terms of corruption. Corruption is more now. We are saints when compared to what is happening in the democratic era.
“When I was in leadership, I sacked a governor for misappropriating less than N313,000 but today, billions are being stolen and misappropriated, a lot of them are in court but still parade themselves in the streets. So tell me, who else is better at fighting corruption?”
