15th September, 2010
Simultaneously as Nigeria’s former military dictator announced his plans to contest next January’s election, his former aide, retired Major Debo Bashorun warned Nigerians to reject this latest attempt by General Badamosi Babangida to keep them in perpetual bondage.
In a four-page statement in Lagos, issued last night, Bashorun said the sugar-coated rhetoric of the desperate man should be rebuffed, lest Nigerians will be “maradonaed†again, a coinage fashioned after the famous Argentine striker, Diego Maradona.
Analysing the antecedents of the self-styled ‘evil genius,’ his former aide said IBB has been deceitful ever since he assumed power as the first military president of Nigeria on 27 August, 1985, bringing in credible people to give credence to his eight-year misrule.
Major Bashorun revealed that rather than the former military president following through with correcting the perceived shortcomings he mentioned in his maiden broadcast to the nation, he did the opposite.
He said he decided to warn Nigerians because of the calculated media onslaught deliberately unleashed to launder the image of someone who presided over the most vicious and diabolical administration since the country’s attainment of independence 50 years ago.
“These creations being touted as achievements by Babangida’s handlers were in reality of what is known in medical jargon as ‘DOA’ (Dead On Arrival), as they were either simply non-implementable or deliberately destroyed,†he stated.
Major Bashorun cited the situation where the crafty IBB brought the likes of Prof. Wole Soyinka, Chief Olu Falae, the late Tai Solarin and the late Prof. Olikoye Ransome-Kuti into his government for credibility, only to rubbish them.
The retired major said: “Nigerians should not forget in a hurry that this is a man who toyed with their lives with impunity and kept changing the dates of a promised hand over to civilians from 1990 to 1991 to 1992 and again to 1993 when he was eventually forced out of power by human rights activists and pro-democracy groups.
“This is a man so arrogant that he sets parameters for the media on which questions should be asked of him. And this is somebody desperately wanting to be the civilian president of Nigeria either by hook or crook.
“The world is watching to see how Nigerian journalists would react to this gag-order. The answer he still owes Nigerians is, why he has repeatedly refused to release the findings on who killed Dele Giwa to the public.â€
Bashorun also described his former boss’ annulment of the fairest and freest democratic election in the history of the country in 1993 as an irony as he (IBB) was now struggling to smuggle himself through the back door into the same system he tried to crush.
Bashorun asked IBB to explain what happened to the over 12 billion U.S. dollars that accrued to Nigerians during his regime, in the wake of the Gulf War. An official panel said the regime simply stole the money through various financial shenanigans.
—Jide Osokoya