Seventeenth day of August every year marks the day in which our handsome, brilliant, intelligent, bright, brave, and cosmopolitan soldier in the person of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, GCFR, was born. He led and kept our very complex country intact for good eight years. Late Dr Yusuf Maitama Sule (Danmasanin Kano) of blessed memory once likened the ruling of Nigeria to wearing of a slick gown. One needs to know how a slick gown looks like to understand his comparison.
Your Excellency Sir, permit me to felicitate with you on this great day of yours. I wish you many more years in good health. May the Almighty Allah bless us all. However, I will never get tire of my request to you! May I still use this great opportunity to reiterate my call to you on the issue of your long awaited “memoir”.
Please and Please! Write a book for your own side of the story on several issues related to you. Granting interviews are not as authoritative as puting up a book for easy reference. For book can take thousands of years unlike an interview which can easily get missing or fade away with the passage of time.
My generation and beyond need your own side of the story . I do hope my call will once again get to you through the power of both conventional and social media.
In my view, you need to write your own side of the story on the following issues : (1)The annulment of June 12 election of 1993, (2) The Late Gen. Mammam Vatsa’s coup, (3) The Late Mr Dele Giwa murder , (4) The Structural Adjustment Program, SAP, (5) The late Lt. Col. Dimka’s coup, (6) The late Col.Orkar’s coup and (7) The Nigerian Civil War among others. In my thought, you should document your own side of the story in your best “interest”and the interest of the younger generation. If you put your own side of the story on paper, history will surely be “kind” to you, but otherwise am very afraid.
However, everyone knows for sure that there is “No” perfection in humanity.To “err” is human, perfection is for the Almighty. May the Almighty God give you the “strength” and the “will power” to write something soonest. May He give you “Good health” and long life . May He forgive your shortcomings.No doubt, as an Ex- military man and a former president you have paid your dues. Permit me to congratulate you for paying your dues to your motherland.You fought the Civil War to keep the country one.You even got shot by “bullet” that you are still suffering from the “wound”. May the Almighty God “heal” you. You kept the country “one” in your 8 years of reign.
Sir arguably you are the most influential Army General alive! It is often said that you have the loyalty of the Nigerian elite. I strongly believe that you and most of your colleagues in the military truly believe in the unity of this country! Writing a book especially on Civil War will go along way in safeguard our future.
In my understanding, even the perennial agitation for the state of Biafra is a product of one-sided account of the Nigerian Civil War which dominated the market. Nigerian youth are leaving in danger of knowing only one-sided “story” about the Nigerian Civil War. We need a balance account of the war not the one-sided account presently in circulation. In the next fifty years when most people from your generation are gone we will be left with the “books” written by the Biafran side! Whatever they documented about the Civil War must be accepted rightly or wrongly.
In my observation, ninety eight percent of the books written on Biafran War were written by the Igbos or Biafan sympathizers! It is an open secret that most of the books were written in order to show how injustice was done to a particular set of people which was totally untrue. In my thought , soldiers from the Nigerian side did not do well enough in terms of writing their own account if truth be told except of course very few officers who have written their accounts!
President Obasanjo who fought from the Nigerian side wrote “My Command”, General Paul Tarfa wrote Profile in Courage, General Geo Garba wrote, Revolution in Nigerian: Another view, and Former Governor of North West, Usman Faruok, CON who wrote “The Victors and the Vanquished of the Nigerian Civil War: Triumph of Truth and Valour over Greed and ambition”.
Of course there were books written on same Nigeria Civil War but not by direct actors like yourself.
On the other hand, a lot of books by direct actors from the Biafran side were written. Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojuku’s “Because I am Involved”, One of the Five (5) Majors, Major Adewale Ademoyega’s “Why we Struck” , the Chief of Army Staff of Biafra Major General Alexander Madiebo’s “The Nigerian Revolution and The Biafran War”, Capt. Ben Gbulie’s Nigeria’s Five Majors, coup D’ Etat of 15th January,1966, First Inside account; Capt. Fola Oyewale’s Reluctant Rebel, Professor Chinua Achebe’s “There was a country”,Emefiena Ezeani’s “In Biafra Africa Died: The Diplomatic Plot” and Major Nzeogwu Junior, Prof. Okele Peter Nzeogwu’s” Fighting the illusive Nigerian Enemy from Childhood to Death” etc.
In my observation, there were a lot of hyperboles on most of the books written by the Biafran side in order to favour one interest or the other. We need a balance record that will promote reconciliation, integration, and unity, but not the ones currently in circulation.
Sir, I beg you and your contemporaries who fought from the Nigerian side to write something about the Nigerian Civil War in order to set the records straight for the future and national unity. I know you have the capacity, ability and the intellect to do that. I equally know too very well that you have the influence to convince all your contemporaries to write theirs too. I beg you in the name of Almighty God to write something for posterity. May Almighty God give you good health. I wish you many more years!
May God bless Nigeria!