Dr. Abejide Olusegun
If you stay alive long enough in Nigeria, you will see the devil exhumed from the grave and deodorized by Nigerians. It is a cycle that repeats itself with sickening consistency. The recent book launch of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) was another grand occasion where history was rewritten, evil was whitewashed, and betrayals were repackaged as acts of statesmanship. The scene was a spectacle of Nigeria’s tragic contradictions—a gathering of men who shaped and ruined a nation, all now singing praises for one of their own, a man whose hands remain eternally stained with the ink of political treachery and unrepentant villainy.
Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ), a calculating individual, was sitting there, taking notes and likely gathering material for his upcoming book. This book is expected to transform his failures into wisdom and his numerous betrayals into acts of patriotism. As expected, Goodluck Jonathan (GEJ) was present, but he did not add anything to the occasion. His characteristic cluelessness was evident, as he remained a spectator in the drama of Nigeria’s decaying elite. General Yakubu Gowon, as always, spoke in his usual roundabout manner, dwelling on inanities, praising IBB for restoring his rank after he was ousted from power. Yet unlike IBB, Gowon has neither the audacity nor the courage to write his book. Perhaps, like many of his contemporaries, he is waiting for more of his peers to die before he can stand over their graves and tell his version of history.
Of course, the self-proclaimed professor of our time, the former vice president, was also present. The greatest cowardice of our time, General Yemi Osinbajo, delivered a lecture in his corny way as usual, his voice another layer of deception covering up the rot. These men came together not to hold IBB accountable for his sins against the nation but to dress him up as a sage, a hero, a statesman of wisdom and foresight. Nobody had a bad word to say about the man whose decisions set Nigeria on a course of relentless decline.
Under the glistening lights of the book launch, there sat the very people who had betrayed Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, smiling, laughing, and flashing their rotten teeth. The same men who urged Abiola to Golgotha, who cheered him on as he walked unknowingly into the hands of his executioners, are now sitting comfortably, sipping expensive champagne and patting each other on the back. These are the architects of Nigeria’s ruination, men who should be in the dock answering for their crimes, not seated in grand halls rewriting history to suit their interests.
IBB, the man who annulled the freest and fairest election in Nigeria’s history, is now being celebrated as a hero, a maker of men. “Just like that,” as the late legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti would say. He has suddenly become a visionary, a mentor, and a great leader, while the true heroes of his era, those who stood for justice and democracy, have been erased from the collective memory of the nation.
The launch was not just a gathering of political relics but also of Nigeria’s billionaires, men whose wealth tells a deeper story of a country hijacked by a corrupt elite. Arthur Eze was there, a man best described as a nuisance in Igboland, a willing tool for those in power. Folorunsho Alakija, who gifted oil wells as a reward for connections rather than enterprise, was also present. And then, of course, there was Aliko Dangote, the billionaire who inherited Nigeria itself as his private business, a man whose wealth is built on monopolies created by the same corrupt system that birthed IBB.
They all had glowing words for IBB, a man who, in any functional country, would have been tried, convicted, and left to spend his days in a dungeon, contemplating the weight of his crimes. But this is Nigeria, a country where men like him are not just free but celebrated.
No mention was made of Dele Giwa, the journalist who paid the ultimate price for daring to speak truth to power. Dele Giwa, the real hero in a country that does not deserve heroes, was conveniently left out of the script. The murder that shook the nation, the assassination that should have ended IBB’s reign in disgrace, was erased from the conversation. Yet, IBB still has one important book to write—the book where he finally tells the world how he killed Dele Giwa. His autobiography will forever be incomplete without that chapter, the one that lays bare the true nature of the man they now call a statesman.
Moshood Abiola, at least, got one day named after him each year—a single, symbolic compensation for dying for Nigeria, for sacrificing his family, his wealth, and his life. And yet, the man who betrayed him is being honored, rewarded, and showered with wealth. The billionaires at the book launch claimed IBB made them, and so they repaid him with a staggering 16 billion naira for his library project. A dictator’s library, funded by those who profited from his crimes. Laughable, isn’t it?
Every Nigerian dictator has a library. They always find ways to launder their legacies, to ensure that history remembers them as builders rather than destroyers. IBB has his. Obasanjo has his. Goodluck Jonathan will have his. Even Muhammadu Buhari, who endured a disastrous eight-year democratic dictatorship, will have his turn. He too made men, and those men will gather to celebrate him, to shower him with praise, to whitewash his sins.
Where do you, as an average Nigerian, fit into this larger context? What is your reward for enduring this madness? Poverty. Hunger. Unemployment. Disease. Homelessness. The desperate search for a way out, the mass exodus of young minds—”Japa,” as they call it now. While these men build monuments to their treachery, you are left scrambling for survival in a country that has abandoned you.
If there was one small, almost meaningless consolation from the book launch, it was IBB’s admission, for the first time, that his friend Abiola did indeed win the June 12 election. A statement a decade too late, a confession that changes nothing. Even in this admission, there was another deliberate act of erasure. No mention was made of Humphrey Nwosu, the courageous electoral umpire who, despite military threats, went ahead to announce the election results. Humphrey Nwosu, a man who should be celebrated for his bravery, was instead cast aside and forgotten because he does not fit into the Nigerian script of selective history. He was an anomaly, a man who did the right thing in a system that punishes integrity. He lived in the wrong country, among the wrong people.
I have always said that even if the devil himself were to appear in Nigeria, he would find a massive congregation of supporters waiting to defend and celebrate him. Nigeria is the seat of all evils, a vast crime scene masquerading as a country. It is not habitable for human beings. To live in Nigeria for too long is to risk corruption, to watch one’s soul darken under the weight of endless betrayals and unpunished crimes.
I have yet to see another African country that celebrates evil and rewards bad character the way Nigeria does. A nation of religious pigs and maggots of hypocrites who spend billions to visit Mecca and Israel, yet return home to continue their mission of destruction. They kneel in mosques and churches, praying for salvation, only to rise as agents of Satan, dedicated to ruining their people. Look how the so-called northern Nigeria is ruining every second in the hands of the Fulanis. Yet, they are foreigners to Nigeria. Anyway. This is the end of the beginning.
IBB is evil. But those who came after him? They are undiluted devils.
Anyway, I wish them well with their asparagus.
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