Kunle Amuwo

Department of Political Science

University of Ibadan

Babangida may not have read Raymond Aron’s Le Spectateur Engagé (1981), but he certainly subscribed to the political principle that "one should win in politics, otherwise there is no reason for doing so". Machiavellian and self-confessed admirer of Chaka Zulu, Babangida, wanted either to surpass the Gowon’s all-time record of nine years as head of state or to have a life presidency or both. By a mixture of double-speak; unpredictability; affableness, giving the impression that others were in control; blatant manipulation; divide and rule, etc. he sought for eight years to dominate Nigeria’s political economy. "Whatever Babangida’s intentions in 1986 may have been", contends Rimmer (1994: 101-2), "by 1993 his overriding concern, like that of so many other holders of power, seems to have become the keeping of power. What forced him out was not the transition to democracy but the view taken by another faction of the military that his time was up".

The Babangida era did not only witness an unprecedented flourishing of pro-democracy and human rights groups; several civic organizations stepped up opposition to the regime when it mattered most. The SAP and transition programme provoked this healthy development. The Civil Society in reference may have been a hodge-podge of essentially strange bed fellows, but as Chris Bryant (1994: 497) reminds us the story is similar almost everywhere. Reflecting on the Civil Society with particular reference to Poland, he notes that "Civil Societies accommodate differences of interest and sensibility and that is their virtue". There is therefore no need for a certain fixated Nigeria - pessimism, which consists in affirming only the military factor in the running of the cite nigériane, as well as the near-helplessness of non-state actors (for a representative view, see J.A. Wiseman, 1990: 118).

I have attempted to show in this study that the reality on ground does not permit the luxury of such fatalism, even though a cruder and less intelligent junta, Abacha’s has been in power since November 1993. What our attempt here shows is akin to a Lockean conception of State - Civil Society relations which, to borrow from Adam B. Seligman (in F. Akunz, 1995: 181-2) "posits society as a self-regulating realm, the ultimate repository of individual rights and liberties, and a body that must be protected against incursions of the state". Our study shows more; it demonstrates that non-state actors can also successfully checkmate the excesses and poor visions of the state against the broader nation.

But no one should romanticise Nigeria’s Civil Society. It is still a nascent, emergent phenomenon, which has a long way to go. Its strength and beauty lie in the fact that it is growing and thus getting more difficult to undermine. It seems to be offering the popular classes " an opportunity to deny the ruling class hegemony in the realm of ideas, values and culture as a basis for the ultimate seizure of power and the transformation of capitalist property relations and State". (Bangura, 1992: 45-6). And who knows, if what Kunz calls ‘dialectical contextualism’ changes tomorrow, a Nigerian revolution may take place much earlier than thought. All the foregoing is no idle talk in view of growing contradictions in the country’s political economy.

Only the requirements of analysis made discussion of relations of Civil Society and the General’s regime look bifurcated. In every day life, such a dichotomy is absent. Ordinary folks and ordinary soldiers; political elites and simple voters; officer politicians and professional soldiers; leaders of civic organizations and their ranks-and-file -, all these are bound together by both formal and informal ties. Following Dudley (1973) and Luckham (1971), we should expect vibrant exchange of notes and ideas about how to ‘move Nigeria forward’. We should also expect black-legs and traitors, those who declare commitment to the cause of the ‘revolution’ during the day, only to profit from the cover of the night to undermine same. They also exist amongst state actors.

I should also add that it was perhaps a good idea that Babangida inaugurated the National Assembly when he did (1992), however illegal. There is serious analysis of the role played by both Iyorcha Ayu, Senate President and Agunwa Anekwe, Speaker of the House of Representatives. Whatever happened to them later, in particular the former, is a different issue altogether. At a most critical time, the General’s last-minute attempt to get the National Assembly endorse his continued stay in office under the Interim National Government (ING) was aborted by Ayu and Anekwe’s refusal to have Babangida’s address to an increasingly militarized and polarized Assembly debated.

Finally as a military president, Babangida was, to all appearances living in the past tense of Nigeria. June 12, 1993 marked the renaissance of arguably Africa’s most important country. The foundations of a truly multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi- national Nigeria were laid by that singular act of voting. They were put in place neither 22 by the Structural Adjustment Programme nor by the Political Transition Programme, as earlier claimed by some of Babangida’s professors in an undated, highly hagiographic book, The Foundations of a New Nigeria.

This rare opportunity that came much against the grain of the long-winding transition programme was frittered away on the quicksand of political chicanery and sheer personal ambition. Will the nation eventually recover the opportunity?

(1) As the tandem PTP-SAP evolved over the eight long years of the Babangida presidency, it would be interesting to have an account of the evolution of the perceptions and opinions of the ‘Babangida professors’ about a mere handing-over to an elected civilian president. I am not even talking about ‘enduring democracy’ which was itself, ab initio, a tall order. The professors need to write their memoirs. The closest to this is the book, Democratic Transition in Nigeria, 1985-1993, London, Safari Books, 1993, written by ‘Tunji OLAGUNJU, Adele JINADU and Sam OYOVBAIRE, by far the only insiders’ scholarly essay on the period under review. Written before the events of June 12 and their aftermath, it would be interesting to know their views on the annulment and the aborted democratic project, to the realization of which they not only invested intellectually but - I dare say - also risked their professional and moral integrity.

(2) Confidential Source.

(3) Witness what two Nigerian scholars (ROTIMI and IHONVBERE, 1994: 671) wrote about him: "Babangida’s Character... left much to be desired. He was corrupt, manipulative, unpredictable, ambitious, unreliable and uninterested in leaving

office".

(4) When an official delegation of the Nigerian Political Science Association paid him a courtesy call in July 1989 shortly after he had ordered the closure of several universities for some two years, following an anti-SAP demonstration by university students, he took care to ask after the health of the wives of several members, calling them by their first names. The delegation consisted of the then national executive of the NPSA, (led by its president Professor J.A.A. Ayoade) and some presidential advisers in the NEC and MAMSER. I was then the Association’s Secretary.

(5) A Professor who had not infrequent telephonic relationships with Babangida before his seizure of power told me that he took his distance from him in order not to be infected by his charm.

(6) Petroleum smuggling was the regime’s bête noire and was used as the alibi to increase prices of petroleum products, or rather, to remove the so-called ‘oil subsidy’. Drug trafficking became a major embarrassment to the regime. Soon after coming to power, Babangida abrogated the death penalty imposed on the trade by Buhari. Public speculation was that this policy reversal was done to protect the Generals entourage and patronage network.

(7) Perhaps a most ‘befitting’ epitaph for this group of unconditional supporters of all military regimes in Nigeria can be gleaned from the Babangida speech pronounced a little after the annulment of the June 12 presidential election. He thanked "our most respected Royal Fathers who have served as sources of inspiration to me and my administration and as volunteer "free fighters" in many communal and national crises".

(8) A Middle-Belt Oldbreed politician in Shagari’s second government (October-December, 1993) told me in early 1992 that Babangida phoned him, urging him to contest a senatorial seat. The politician politely refused, pleading lack of money. He was assured that once he publicly declared himself for the race, he would receive financial support. In general, whilst important senatorial aspirants received 2 million naira ‘settlement’ fee, their presidential homologues got 5 million naira. (one dollar in 1992-93 was, unofficially, equivalent to 40 naira).

(9) See the Kaduna-based national magazine The Citizen, November 1992 and subsequent editions.

(10) Confidential Source.

(11) Indeed, no Nigerian University will run 1994-95 session. 1993-94 session ended only in August 1995 in some of them and later in others. For instance, University of Ibadan is billed to commence 1995-96 academic year in October 95 - an attempt, in a way, to return to the good, old days! Lagos State University had earlier lost a year due to its own peculiar internal crisis.

(12) True, there was an NLC - propelled strike in August-September 1993, but it was at once timid and short-lived.

(13) The BLP won an international award for its contribution to improving the lots of rural women and fighting hunger in 1991.

(14) Africa Confidential, 14 May 1993, p. 8. About the same time, there was a press report that NEC would rescreen presidential candidates and their vices to verify fresh allegations made against some of them. (There were only four of them). The report added that on Abiola, NEC was armed with some information which needed to be cleared". On Tofa, on the contrary, a business partner, Abadina Coomasie, had on April 14, 1993 filed petition against him on grounds of shady business (oil) deals, claiming that Nigeria deserved a more righteous leader. See Paxton IDOWU "Candidates’ fate dangles" West Africa 10-16 May, 1993, p. 777- 778. It may well be that Babangida permitted the election hoping things would go wrong and would happily use these "proofs" as alibi for cancellation. That was his strategy in October 1992 when twenty three presidential aspirants were disqualified en masse.

(15) See various issues of The News, Tempo and Tell from July 1993.

(16) A section of the electoral law - Decree 27 of 1989 - stipulated, in part, that "no political Campaign shall be made on the basis of sectional, ethnic or religious grounds or considerations".

(17) Confidential Source.

(18) There was serious tension in the country’s seat of power at that time. Neither Babangida nor Aikhomu nor Onabule was ready to append his signature to the annulment announcement. The decision making apparatus broken down, and nobody was prepared to take risks. It was only after a rather mixed reaction to the annulment - NRC welcomed it, while the SDP was (initially) totally against it - that even the General could begin to offer an admittedly ex-post facto rationalization.

(19) Confidential Source.

(20) It is interesting to note that for purely technical reasons, neither Tofa nor his running mate, Sylvester Ugoh, voted.

(21) Cited in Paul ADAMS (1993: 68-69). Indeed, just before the election, Rimi had expressly supported Abiola by insisting in a long interview with Tell that ‘it was time for a Southern president’. Typical of what ensued after the Babangida - Chukwumerije ethnic propaganda blitz, Rimi would later ask Abiola to forget June 12. He was a minister in Abacha’s first cabinet in November 1993. Rimi was not alone; Lateef Jakande would behave politically the same way, even becoming about the most influential civilian member of the said cabinet.

(22) The Guardian, 18 June 1993, p. 1 & 4. There were a lot of speculations in the progressive sections of the Nigerian Press that Tofa was received in audience by Babangida before this statement was made.

(23) Even though Babangida lamented that "a whole generation of young officers (mainly Majors) has been wiped out" by the air crash, the public thought his government may have had a hand in it. During their trials, Major Gideon Orkar and his men reportedly told the military tribunal that their coup was in three layers; that unless all young officers were killed, there was no hiding place for the regime. Over 160 officers perished in the crash. That the public tended to give credence to this story is, itself, a measure of lack of trust in the General as his "tenure" dragged to an end.

(24) Africa Confidential, 4 November 1994, p. 6. It is curious that Abacha chose to leak that part of the Okigbo Panel report to the Press. He may have wanted to elicit some sympathy concerning the seriousness of the economic crisis by pointing attention to the unprecedented corruption of the Babangida regime. He must have forgotten that he himself was too visible a player in the regime.

(25) As Chief of Army Staff, Abacha was, for instance reported to have sat on SAP relief funds meant for soldiers and officers after the anti-SAP riots of 1989. One of the victims, a Major, told me this. Babangida could not call him to order.

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March 2002