“Babangida Not Sober, Has Added Salt To Injury, His Book Height Of Impunity” – MURIC

By Adesina Soyooye

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)  tackled former military leader Ibrahim Babangida (IBB) for heaping all the blames as regard the annulment of the 1993 June 12 Presidential Election on  late Head of State,  General Sani Abacha.

MURIC said in a statement that Babangida, on February  20, did not only insult Nigerians, but added salt to Injury by writing and presenting his autobiography which content it dismissed as provocative and its presentation a show of Impunity.

As Nigeria’s Military President at the time, Babangida presided over the Presidential Election adjudged to be free and fair, and presumed to have been won by Business Mogul, Chief Moshood Abiola, popular as MKO. However, just when the announcement of the winner was being expected, IBB’s regime annulled the election.

IBB never recovered from the crisis that followed it, as he was forced to cobble together an Interim National Government headed by late Chief Ernest Shonekan, while he stepped aside on August 15, 1993.

But the ING which he set up was thrown out by General Sani Abacha, then Chief of Defence Staff, who went ahead and installed himself as the Head of State.

Thereafter, Abiola was arrested by Abacha, thrown into detention, dragged to Court, accused of treasonable felony among others, for declaring himself President. He did not come out of the detention alive. He died in custody.

While speculations have been the fate of that election and the intrigues that surrounded it, on February 20, 2025, the man at the centre, IBB, told his story in his autobiography, “A Journey In Service”, which he presented that day.

Aside from confirming, after 32 years, that Abiola won the election, IBB, let it be known that it was General Abacha who cancelled the Election because of (1): Abacha was against a Civilian Government (2) Abacha had a deep rooted hatred for Abiola. He, also, revealed that the annulment was announced in his absence by the Media Aide to his Chief of General Staff, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu.

Even though he took responsibility, he, literally, washed his hands off and heaped the blame on Abacha. He literally said that he tagged along because because he feared for his life and that of Abiola as Abacha and Co were planning a violent coup against him, and would have killed Abiola as well.

But his story has not gone down well with not a few people. While some, including Abacha’s daughter, Gumsu, have dismissed him as a coward, others say he should tell his story to the marines.

Enraged over his claim that Abacha was the problem, MURIC in a statement signed  by its Executive Director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, pinpointed him as the problem, not Abacha.

The statement reads:

“We of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) hereby totally reject all attempts by the former military dictator to exonerate himself from the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election fiasco. The former dictator should stop blaming others for all that happened. We assert emphatically, unequivocally and categorically that the buck stops at IBB’s table. We reject his alibi.

“We hold IBB responsible for the failure of Nigeria to cultivate a sustainable, visionary and dignifying political culture having annulled the fairest, freest and most peaceful election in the history of Nigeria.

“Thursday, 20th February, 2025, the day IBB presented his memoir, was a sad day for genuinely patriotic Nigerians. It was the day leaders decided to disappoint the masses by hero-worshipping a former dictator, a tyrant and a numero uno enemy of democracy.

“Nigeria was at the edge of the cliff when the duo of Buhari and Idiagbon came to rescue the nation from general indiscipline, corruption and avaricious greed. We were getting it right when IBB came from nowhere to topple that corrective administration. That was the beginning of our descent back to the abyss of pitch darkness.

“IBB incarcerated Buhari and refused to allow him to attend his mother’s funeral. The lives of many innocent Nigerians were wasted during the IBB-Abacha totalitarian military misadventure. Clement Akpangbo, Bagauda Kaltho, Justice Ikpeme, Alfred Rewane, etc. were sent to the beyond. The streets of Lagos and Ibadan were filled with dead bodies.

“Yet the height of heartlessness and callousness was the assassination of the winner of that monumental election, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (MKO) and the killing of his wife, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola.”

MURIC said it was outraged by the “public show of spite, chagrin and insensitivity at the Transcorp Hilton, venue of IBB’s book presentation”.

It described it as “audacious, outrageous, nauseating and provocative.

“Salt was added to injury. IBB is not sober.

“Our leaders have failed to learn the art of healing. They do not understand the people they are leading. We are separated by a wide gulf. Arrogance and impunity are cancerous tumors which eat deep into the anatomy of love, unity, tolerance and forgiveness.

“This country has not been fully healed from the excruciating pains of June 12 and the criminal and cold-blooded killings of our first prime minister, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and Chief S. L. Akintola former premier of the Western Region. Unfortunately, all those killings were done by the Nigerian military.

“For the temerity manifested by IBB in displaying the original results of the June 12 election 32 years later and for publicly admitting that MKO won the historic election, the author of ‘A Journey In Service’ has certified Nigeria as the land where conscienceless power subjugates powerless conscience.

“This book is the height of impunity and the author is judicable. IBB has not demonstrated remorse. His book is indubitable exercise in the territory of high-level treason.

“As an Islamic human rights organization, MURIC is greatly disturbed by the fact that the major dramatis personae in the annulment of the June 12 election are Muslims: MKO, IBB, Abacha, etc. We regret that the principle of justice which Islam holds in high esteem have been bastardised by those who should know better.

“We give posthumous salutes to true heroes of democracy like Chief MKO Abiola, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, Dr. Beko Ransome Kuti and Chief Alfred Rewane. We doff our hats to living heroes of the struggle like Professor Wole Soyinka, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, current governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani, Professor Sylvester Odion Akhaine, erstwhile secretary of the Campaign for Democracy (CD), the arrowhead of the struggle against military rule, Shehu Sani, Comrade Okechukwu Ndiribe and leaders of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).”