Call it poetic justice, cosmic irony, or plain old karma – the universe appears to have delivered swift retribution to former military president Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB). Less than 24 hours after launching his long-awaited autobiography, A Journey in Service, pirated copies flooded WhatsApp and social media platforms, spreading faster than the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election.
The message from the public is loud and clear: Why pay to read the musings of a man who once robbed the nation of its democratic destiny when you can download it for free?
Oh, how the digital gods chuckle! Less than 24 hours after IBB unveiled his autobiography, the internet, ever the trickster, has dealt him a most delicious blow. Gone are IBB’s dreams of reaping profits from his literary endeavor—poof! Vanished into the ether, much like the hopes of the nation he betrayed three decades ago.
Social media, that tireless court of poetic justice, ever the vigilant agent of karma, erupted with glee, and was transformed into a digital marketplace of free downloads, leaving IBB’s investment in tatters. On X (formerly Twitter), digital Robin Hoods gleefully passed around PDFs like hot puff-puff.
Twitter, is awash with links for free downloads, with netizens vowing to embrace its pirated copies rather than waste their hard-earned money on the original copies of IBB’s biography. One Twitter account urged its followers to download the book for free, while others provided page-by-page copies. Some even dropped PDF copies of the pirated version in their WhatsApp groups.
Some call it piracy; others call it karma served cold—colder than a Harmattan morning in Minna. Indeed, fate has a wicked sense of humor: Just as IBB once denied Nigerians their rightful president, so too has the internet denied him his royalties.
Many Nigerians see the piracy as a fitting consequence for a man whose decision to annul the freest and fairest election in Nigerian history cost the nation untold political and social turmoil. It seems the public has decided that financial loss is a fitting footnote to Babangida’s legacy of betrayal.
Perhaps this is the universe’s way of balancing the scales—reminding IBB that just as the will of the people cannot be silenced, neither can the internet be contained. Let this episode be a reminder and serve as a lesson to Nigerian leaders that: What goes around truly comes around, sometimes in the form of a pirated PDF, free for all and sundry.
