Ibrahim Babangida
Ibrahim Babangida General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (born August 17, 1941), popularly known as IBB, was the military ruler of Nigeria from August 1985 until his departure from office under heavy popular pressure in 1993, after his annulment of elections held that year which were widely held to have been the freest and fairest in Nigeria's post-independence history.
Contents
1 Early career and rise to power
2 Babangida's economic policies
3 IBB as politician
4 The botched transition to civilian rule
Early career and rise to power
Ibrahim Babangida hails from the Gwari ethnic group and was born in Minna in Niger State, the city in which he has resided since his departure from office. He joined the Nigerian Army's officer corps in 1962, and served in an administrative capacity under the 1976-1979 military government of Olusegun Obasanjo. Babangida once again took up a political position under the administration of General Muhammadu Buhari, whose regime he overthrew on 27 August 1985, promising at the time to bring to an end the human rights abuses perpetuated by Buhari's government, and to hand over power to a civilian government by 1990.
Babangida's economic policies
Babangida issued a referendum to garner support for austerity measures suggested by the IMF and the World Bank, and subsequently launched his "Structural Adjustment Program" (SAP) in 1986. The policies entailed under the SAP were the deregulation of the agricultural sector by abolishing marketing boards and the elimination of price controls, the privatisation of public enterprises, the devaluation of the Naira to aid the competitiveness of the export sector, and the relaxation of restraints on foreign investment put in place by the Gowon and Obasanjo governments during the 1970s. Between 1986 and 1988, when these policies were executed as intended by the IMF, the Nigerian economy actually did grow as had been hoped, with the export sector performing especially well, but the falling real wages in the public sector and amongst the urban classes, along with a drastic reduction in expenditure on public services, set off waves of rioting and other manifestations of discontent that made sustained commitment to the SAP difficult to maintain. Babangida subsequently returned to an inflationary economic policy and partially reversed the deregulatory initiatives he had set in motion during the heyday of the SAP, and economic growth slowed correspondingly, as capital flight resumed apace under the influence of negative real interest rates.
IBB as politician
On the political front, Babangida proved far more adept at accommodating and manipulating public opinion than Buhari or any other Nigerian military ruler before or since. Wherever possible he preferred to buy off opposition, only resorting to outright force on the rare occasions when opposition could neither be bought off nor ignored. At the beginning of his rule, Babangida did try to live up to his self-bestowed mantle as a restorer of human rights, releasing many politicians detained under the Buhari regime, but this patina wore off as time went by. Despite his initial promises to do so, Babangida never did get around to abolishing the notorious State Security (Detention of Persons) Decree Number 2, which established the right of the government to detain for six months any individual deemed dangerous solely on his say-so, without any right to a trial or even habeas corpus. To the contrary, he made increasing use of the decree himself as time went by to muzzle trade unions, student groups, journalists and other individuals who proved irritating to his regime.
One step Babangida did take early in his rule that proved less deft than usual, and which still reverberates to this day, was his unilateral decision to upgrade Nigeria's role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) from observer status to full-fledged membership, despite the fact that at best only half on Nigerians were adherents of Islam. This act helped stoke religious tensions that could be contained easily enough under military dictatorships willing to use any means necessary to stifle religious extremism, especially when Nigeria was still being run by Northern Muslims who the most extreme advocates of Sharia could regard as "one of them", but have now boiled over under a civilian government lacking recourse to brute force unrestrained by judicial oversight. On April 22, 1990, Babangida's government was almost toppled by a coup attempt led by Major Gideon Orkar. During the brief interlude during which Orkar and his collaborators controlled radio transmitters in Lagos, they broadcasted a vehement critique of Babangida's government, accusing it of widespread corruption and autocratic tendencies, and they also threatened to expel the five northernmost, predominantly Hausa-Fulani, Nigerian states from the union, accusing them of seeking to perpetuate their rule at the expense of the predominantly Christian peoples of Nigeria's middle-belt.
The botched transition to civilian rule
In 1989, seemingly in keeping with his promise to hand over power to a civilian government by 1992, Babangida legalized the formation of political parties, and after a census was carried out in November 1991, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) announced on January 24, 1992 that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held that year. The legislative elections went ahead as planned, with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) winning majorities in both houses of the National Assembly, but on August 7, 1992, the NEC annulled the first round of presidential primaries, alleging widespread irregularities. January 4, 1993 saw the announcement by Babangida of a National Defense and Security Council, of which Babangida himself was to be President, while in April 1993 the SDP nominated Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (MKO) as its presidential candidate, with the National Republican Convention (NRC) choosing Bashir Othma Tofa to run for the same position. On June 12, 1993, presidential elections were finally held, but the results were mysteriously held back, although it soon leaked that Abiola had in fact won 19 of the 30 states, and therefore the presidency. Rather than allow the announcement of the results to proceed, the NDSC decided to annul the elections, and Babangida then issued a decree banning the presidential candidates of both the NRC and the SDP from running in new presidential elections that he planned to have held. Widespread acts of civil disobedience then began to occur, particularly in the Southwest region from which Abiola hailed, but these were soon quashed by the security forces and the army. On July 6, 1993, the NDSC issued an ultimatum to the NDSC to join an interim government or face yet another round of elections, and Babangida then announced that the interim government would be inaugurated on August 27, 1993. On August 26, amidst a new round of strikes and protests that had brought all economic activity in the country to a halt, Babangida declared that he was stepping down from the presidency, and handing over the reins of government to Ernest Shonekan. Ominously, General Sani Abacha was left behind to "watch over" Shonekan's interim government, and within 3 months of the handover Abacha seized control of the government, while Babangida himself was conveniently in the midst of a visit to Egypt.
Reference- Wikipedia et al
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