His last

His last ‘no-go area’

The 2003 election should be Babangida’s last no go area. The youth protect themselves against AIDS and "just say ‘no’". If he is a true patriot he would protect Nigerians against inordinate ambition, unbridled greed, massive bribery and corruption, gross misconduct and ignoble, incompetent rulership and also "just say ‘no’". One day of recycled Babangidaic rule will reverse the recognition, honour and credibility, financial and moral, of this government. This recycling, God willing, will not take place as it will endanger the Nigerian environment. It sickens me to think that IBB and the first in the BADA or Babangida Abacha Dark Ages is interested in the 2003 presidency. Has the parasitic elite ‘North’ so quickly had enough of the servile ‘South’ reversing roles? Does the elite North think that 25 or more years of elite ‘Northern’ rule is equivalent to just four years of Southern rule? That is flattery. The elite North must hold the South in very high esteem. However, such mathematics is unacceptable. The destruction, including Shagari’s democratic rape, can be contrasted with most of the activities of the last one year. There are lapses and political slowness but softly, softly catches monkey. Most of the politicians expected the settlement hangover of the Babangida era. If Obasanjo had not come to power we would have had six months of total NEPA darkness. We all have equal tremendous hope under Obasanjo. But is he merely a gardener planting a crop to be ravaged by someone coming ‘like a thief in the night’ in the 2003 election to reap what he did not sow? Why should Babangida be the one to harvest this crop when his own crops were stolen and failed woefully in his time?

The Babangida era ‘settled’ the parasites but not the people with good governance and honesty. Even a word like ‘settle’ has been tainted but not many people can change the meaning of an English word. The settlement the people want in 2003 is an honest, forward looking President who can control corruption, thin ‘people’ projects and gather to him or herself – honest, forward looking incorruptible people. Only such people should step forward. Ex-rulers suffering, severe delusions of grandeau and excess bank accounts are not invited to the party. If Babangida mistakenly thinks he fits this bill, he may step forward at his own risk – as a usually reliable pastor has pointed out.

Let us each pray but prayer is not enough. We must act. Silence is not consent but horrified disbelief. We must open a campaign of containment to contain Babangida in Minna. Please take this message if you know of him. "Mr. Babangida, please stay in Minna and "just say ‘no’" in our dear raped country. That is the best political strategy present you can give Nigerians apart from giving most of your wealth – charity could begin with Babangida. Nigeria will never ever forget you. Have you asked if they forgive you? You will be remembered while I, happily, will be forgotten. Life and liberty are not love and longing. Longevity is God’s gift to allow repentance and restitution. We have seen little or nothing of these noble traits in you or among your ‘settled’ cohorts. Repentance cannot restore the lives of the dead and the hundreds of students who died during your regime fighting for petty scholarships and better conditions of learning, far less than are proposed at the Heritage University, which I pray will never be approved. A Second Coming will be paid for, perhaps in blood and billions again. Have not Nigerians paid enough for your ambition during your first visit? In case time has dulled your memory, ask Transparency International, Amnesty International, the World Bank, Campaign for Democracy (CD) and the Nigerian economic victims for an independent audit.

Police and we doctors advise that if one forgives an offender, say a rapist or a thieving cashier, one does not allow them back into one’s home or office for fear that temptation will overcome any expressed good intentions. Please, If you have spare time to serve Nigeria, take a leaf from President Carter and his centre. I beg you on my 52 year old knees to declare that the presidency is the last Babangida no go area. Perhaps, you need to prove yourself by winning a popular ‘honest’ election a la Rawlings. The operative word is ‘honest’. Winning is not everything. Put Nigeria first. Ambition has ruined us. We want service. The two may not go together. Nigerians are not sure you want, to serve them. What service have you done since you ‘stepped aside’? Remember that the electorate in 2003 will not "vote for the goat" as Haruna says. Have you not done enough to Nigeria? What more do you want to do to us? What is up your Machiavellian sleeves? Just say ‘no’ please?

Citizens. Look carefully at those gathering like vultures at the carrion. Those ‘who have been settled’ and those returning in their private jets from golf courses in Ireland and former Ministers of Communication in our telephoneless society. And certain Senators. Strange.

Babangida made a fatal political flaw by abusing the misplaced love of the people who would easily have been settled with a railway network and some real federal character. But the Babangida era’s greed and ethnic factors were too much. We too must be greedy, but greedy for presidential good governance and service. The real ‘North’ has lost nothing under Obasanjo. The minority criminal elements in the elite North are the true enemies of the state and the real anti-Nigerians, diminishing and disenfranchising sections of Nigeria. During their rule, the ‘North’ thus became a receiver of stolen goods. The South including the Niger Delta is merely regaining stolen property from those elements who are the real saboteurs and terrorists-financial and physical. Period. Return of stolen property is restitution not marginalisation.

The nation’s people, North and South, suffered the mother of all marginalisations which is being corrected by President Obasanjo and a reluctant National Assembly and now supported by the Southern Governors’ meetings – the nearest thing yet to a Sovereign National Conference. At last we will soon all be equal. The no go era is over. But is it just over until the next election? Babangida himself should be a no go area and should be consigned with the no go era to history. Time waits for no man. He has out Maradonaed himself. He should retire to charitable works.

The writer wrote in from Lagos