Those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,-----George Santayana
He said he was only stepping aside when he left in 1993. Now he is ready to step back in ,come 2011.Former President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida on the issue of his aspiration to be the next president of Nigeria in 2011.
We have all been mentored, advised and even told point blank, not to duel on the past, be it when a relationship ends, or when a loved one dies, or you lose a job , a business,or even fail in a particular aspiration of yours. Your loved ones, friends and foe, will urge you to move on.
But is moving on from the past the same thing as forgetting the past? I readily have that answer, NO.
Moving on is not the same thing as forgetting the past. In fact you need to remember the past,by way of learning from it so that it guides your new decisions better and to shape your future.
Let us go back and remind IBB OF THE PAST,just in case he has forgotten. Or even to remind ourselves, to jolt our memory, to state why, why we are saying, NO TO IBB, why we do not want to make the same mistake again.
"Sir, I a Nigerian youth have this to say : I have heard you". "You have stated your intention, that you desire to return to public service to come and serve your people once more as their president"."Sir, your intention is honorable,every Nigerian should desire to serve their country, it is a beautiful ,well endowed country, but public service is about serving the public and not yourself, giving that you came into power through a military coup and your singular role as the Military head of state then, was to call and to oversee an early democratic election, and hand over to a civilian government, like your military counterpart Major General Abubakar Abdul Salami did in May 1999,"may I ask you, have your conducted the opinion poll , felt the pulse of the people of Nigeria on your aspiration?
If your answer is yes, does the outcome indicate to you that they think you are their preferred choice, is that your main driving force?
Or giving that you self imposed your self on the Nigerian people once and then adopted the title President, is your tactics, same of the same, just that, this time, its the cabal tactics?
The tactics of coming into power not through a free and fair election that all Nigerians know you are not a promoter of, but through election rigging, malpractices and declaring you as president elect, by the cabal government in power today? And have you had time to reflect on how you served or did not serve the public, the 1st time around? Well we Nigerians will remind you.
"Initially you were seen as a liberalizing force, because you released political prisoners and promised to return the country to democratic civilian rule by 1990 but of course you delayed the transition process by several years and increasingly brought it under your control to serve your own agenda ".
"Under your structural adjustment programme sir, only your Allies and any one who could be come one benefited, despite it being funded by the various monies borrowed in the name of the country from the world bank.
The structural adjustment programme did not bring about self reliant, long term national economy growth like it promised, instead the under the adjustments Nigerians, suffered and encountered increasing farming production yet increase in government earnings; privatizing state-owned companies to lessen the financial burden on the government yet increase in government earnings, reduction in the country's foreign debt but reliance on money earned from exporting oil,yet increase in government earnings and the devaluation of the NAIRA,to stimulate exports other than oil,yet the increase in government earnings.The governments earnings was consistent , simply because we still were sellingour Oil".from which we generated revenue.
"In 1992 ,in your 7th year in office, you created two ideologically espoused political parties and left the people with no real choice, but even when ,the people eventually took to the polls, you did not uphold their electoral mandate: the presidential election of July 1993, which was regarded as the most free and fair to have been seen in the country. It was annulled by you sir, and the outcome and effect of that? A dangerous political crisis in Nigeria, further tenure of tyranny,dictatorship and maiming, sparing no gender, both men and women,young and old activists, were maimed and many people were forced on exile under the Gunter of Sani Abacha sir, after he overthrew the interim government you propped up when you famously stepped aside"
"Your tenure sir, taught Nigerians that corruption was cool,and today our leaders have taken corruption and embezzlement to the level of trillions!" You taught them the rootlessness and malpractices we see today in electoral practices, they simply stepped up higher but worse,of course.
Lets not talk about unanswered killings, drug smuggling scandals ,that rocked your tenure sir and today? Many more have been killed and just like your tenure, unsolved,their killers not brought to justice,but known to all.
"You claim the Nigerian youth can not rule the country, yes you can say that because you mortgaged their future during your tenure sir, the dwindling and decadence of the education sector, started under your administration and the brain drain. One thing that we will prevent you of accusing us of, in the future, is not standing against you this time around. We know the kind of leader we want, it happens not to be ,YOU.
I am standing against you and everything you stand for. I do not know what you have forgotten to take along with you,when you left in 1992,but sir,Nigerians have not forgotten the past, these are some of the issues between Nigerians and you, all of these have shaped our political history, they cannot be waived aside.
"We shall not be condemned to repeat the mistakes of old sir.You were a mistake of old and will be a calamity of the future,our future. Let us heal our land of the pieces you left behind, its ripple effect is what Nigeria is today!
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To you all Nigerian youths IBB was right…
Nigerian Legislators!
BY REBEN ABATI, THE GUARDIAN 28 MAY 2010
IT is either the characters in Nigeria’s House of Representatives in Abuja are deaf and dumb or they are just plain besotted with their own greed that they really do not care what the public thinks of them. Where were they when the man popularly known as IBB, who dreams of returning to the Presidential Villa each time a Presidential election is around the corner only to banish the “hallucination” in time, declared matter of fact in a BBC interview, that Nigerian youths are incapable of leadership at the highest levels. The behaviour of a group of lawmakers in Nigeria this week on the floor of the House of Representatives grants Mr. IBB the opportunity of a good laugh at every one of his critics’ expense.
The lawmakers (I wouldn’t dare call them Honourables) are locked in battle against the leadership of the House and there are threats of impeachment to boot, because they claim the latter are blocking their request that the vote due to the House of Representatives in the 2010 Budget should be collapsed and consolidated and shared among the lawmakers. This will cover running costs, constituency allowances, vote for conferences and training, projects, and any other kind of budgetary allocation. At the moment, the lawmakers earn about N27.2 million per quarter. What they are asking for, if allowed, will bring every lawmaker’s loot (that is what it is!) per quarter to about N42 million – with 360 lawmakers involved - that comes to an untidy sum of N15. 1 billion per annum. The greedy ones who are championing this may be few, but they sound like a very vocal minority, and even those who may not openly identify with them, may just silently hope that the thing will sail through.
The 2011 election is around the corner and the lawmakers need a lot of money since in Nigeria elective positions carry a price tag. Now this week, not much serious work has taken place at the House of Representatives because the proponents of the “let’s share the money” initiative are accusing the House leadership of having leaked the story to the press. Left to them, the deal should have been struck quietly to everyone’s benefit. It is shameful. And I think the first thing that should be done is for the MPs that are behind this to be unmasked, and named and shamed. Everything is wrong with their “give me my own share of the money” ambition. Is this not the same Budget 2010 that has run into troubled waters with the Executive now insisting that the crude oil benchmark for the budget has to be reviewed, in order to manage rising deficits?
The Presidency has also extended the tenure of the Presidential Projects Assessment Committee by a year, with a mandate to take a much closer look at projects in the 2010 Budget and identify areas of over-inflation and what can be saved. In a preliminary report, that committee has confirmed the over-inflation of the contract for the construction of the second Abuja airport runway, and has brought down the figures. It will be recalled that the defects in the Budget in question were introduced by these same lawmakers who nearly fought the Yar’Adua government to a standstill because they wanted constituency allowances and other perks. They ended up inflating the Budget to N4.9 trillion. There are questions here about the nature and quality of the budgeting process but the immediate issue is the integrity of Nigerian lawmakers.
I believe that they are over-paid and underworked. It is members of the Lower House that are in the news this week, but the Senators are no different. N27.2 million per quarter, and now they want more! And what do they do? The only time Nigerian MPs suddenly become vocal and creative is when they are hustling for jumbo pay and allowances. This is the case not only in Abuja but also in the states, where the members of the Houses of Assembly are perpetually fighting the Governor to give them more money. They insist that no one should blame them because they can see the Governor and other members of the Executive taking “their own share,” so why should they be excluded? In states where there is peace between the House and the Executive, it is usually the case that the Governor, to put it in their language, “knows how to settle.” This is the sad Nigerian story. And yet, so much money for what? What kind of legitimate work can anybody do in Nigeria that will fetch a salary, the type the MPs are asking for in three months? These are the same lawmakers who are mostly absent. Their standard lie is that they are busy with committee meetings, but in reality most of them are busy chasing contracts in government departments or peddling influence around town, or busy harassing companies and MDAs over which they exercise oversight functions. It is not enough to express disappointment: Nigeria is paying a price continuously for the hijack of the political space by hungry men and women. I align myself with the old suggestion that parliamentary work in Nigeria should be a part-time engagement. Only persons with a visible means of livelihood should be allowed to become lawmakers, and the various legislatures do not have to sit so often. In the alternative, legislative work should attract very minimal remuneration in form of sitting allowances only, with a proper accent on service. That should shut the “legis-looters” out.
The statistics can be easily worked out with the result that the amount of public funds that has been guzzled by Abuja MPs alone in the last three years, not to talk of since 1999, is enough to fix Nigeria’s comatose railway lines, the federal universities and a number of hospitals (assuming the money does not also get stolen by inefficient contractors!). Nigeria is in a financial mess. The foreign reserve account, according to one report quoting the Minister of State for Finance, which used to be as high as $62 billion in 2008 is down to $38 billion, while the excess crude account which in 2007 stood at $20 billion is down to zero. But our MPs do not care. Many of them probably imagine that they may lose the next election, so why not make all the hay while the sun is still shining? About three years ago in the Republic of Benin during a fuel price crisis, government officials decided to take a salary cut. In Nigeria, the way our leaders thought of managing the same crisis was to threaten to increase the prices of petroleum products and thus impose greater hardship on Nigerians. Leadership should be by example.
Britain is said to be nearly bankrupt and broke at this moment: the new government has inherited a 157 billion pounds budget deficit, with public debt mounting at a rate of 3 billion pounds a week. The Cameron-Clegg government is proposing efficiency savings of about 6.25 billion pounds. Education, health, training, and child trust fund budgets are all being slashed and over 50,000 jobs may be lost and this we are told “is only the first step.” David Cameron during the election campaigns had protested about the economic profligacy of the Gordon Brown Labour Government, what he calls “ostentation and extravagance.” In that election, the much-celebrated MPs expenses scandal was one of the major issues, and many of the MPs whose hands were found in the cookie jar have since been thrown out of parliament by aggrieved voters. But the season of austerity that is now being imposed in Britain is not for other people alone.
The new government is leading the process by cutting off all areas of waste in government. No more fancy Jaguar cars and official drivers for senior government officials. Ministers have been told they can only ride an official car only in exceptional circumstances. They have been told clearly to walk to the office if they can, take the tube or the bus or commute in pooled cars or better still, ride a bicycle. And no more first class rail travel for public servants. David Cameron, Prime Minister and Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, will still be chauffeur-driven, but the number of outriders that they can use has been slashed. Where possible, even the Prime Minister can go on foot.
The Metropolitan Police and the elite Special Support Group have been gripping that this is “reckless,” but David Cameron now walks from 10 Downing to the House of Lords down the blocks. The Tories may suffer in the next elections if they carry the austerity measures along the next steps that they are promising, but at least the British voter will not accuse the new government of insincerity. David Cameron assumed office about the same time as President Jonathan, he and his team have made tremendous impact in a matter of weeks, in Europe and at home. In Nigeria, the Jonathan government is confusing routine activities - appointments, visits and administrative reviews with performance and governance.
When Western examples are cited in this manner, the cynical response is that those are developed societies. But how about the Republic of Benin? And Ghana. And Botswana. Nigerian public officers are busy living life to the hilt at the people’s expense. Some of them have up to three official cars (despite the policy of monetization), those cars are fuelled and maintained by the state; public officers are chaperoned on the streets by outriders and siren-blaring cars (despite existing regulations restricting the use of such convoys), and of course, their wives and children also have access to state-sponsored privileges. Because this is the norm in official corridors, the MPs in Abuja think they are in order to ask for more pay. These are mostly young men and women in their 40s and 30s! And they have all more or less taken politics as an occupation because it is so profitable. Their conduct has not attracted the required public outrage because this kind of news no longer shocks the average Nigerian. There is an unwritten consensus that politicians are only interested in looting the treasury. But Nigeria cannot make progress that way. There must be sanctions for this kind of conduct, particularly from voters in the next election. Where lies Nigeria’s future? Whence cometh the change that we seek?
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