Posted by By Percy Owaiye on
The title is not original. In fact, it is a borrowing from the coinage used to refer to the car gifts that military officers received during the administration of then President Ibrahim Babangida.
The title is not original. In fact, it is a borrowing from the coinage used to refer to the car gifts that military officers received during the administration of then President Ibrahim Babangida. Senior and not-so-senior military officers got money with which they bought cars as direct gifts from their C-in-C. Considering the number who benefitted, it was up to that time a novelty. The benefitting officers were pleasantly surprised, and the number of cars on our roads jumped significantly. It was the first of its kind. And there were more ‘firsts' to come.
But before we continue, we must make a clarification. This writer, in an unpublished piece he wrote in 2000( in the spring of Obasanjo's first term) titled: Obasanjo, Militocracy and the rest of us argued then that from what could be seen from the ex-military ruler's second coming, it was probably better not to encourage any military man to aspire to the office. The argument was that we would be seeing them in their diminished and warped forms. I agree that it was early then in the life of Obasanjo's administration, but as the scriptures say and corroborated by an Igbo proverb, it is never too early in the day to tell which corn will mature and which will not. If Obasanjo has pulled any surprise since then, it is in his ability to continue to surrender great initiatives and to blunder on, the only exception being his single-minded focus on the debt-relief drive and the expected success therefrom. I am in complete disagreement with attempts by both well-meaning and professional critics to denigrate from his achievement in this regard. A relief is a relief, by any name called. The truth is that many of us, including this writer, thought that it was a mission impossible, because of our well-advertised wealth potential second only to our squandermania.
But this must not be read as a call for the blanket ban of any category of citizens - far from it. One might add too that one does not need to be a military apologist to see the danger in a temporary or long-term ban for any group of professionals from aspiring to any political office in the land as was canvassed at the just-ended (can't say, concluded) National Political Reforms Conference (NPRC). Let us put it mildly and say that such attempts cannot be sustained by logic and enduring traditions. What is prudent is to continue to seek for aspirants who would fulfil the best dreams of the citizenry. Returning to the Babangida era, some have taken a critical look at that period and have concluded that that era institutionalized corruption. It may well have, but have we looked at the intentions of that long-suffering leadership with the benefit of hindsight?
Maybe another way of looking at it, is to say that the regime institutionalized innovation. I say this because Nigerians are faced with a choice of another kind.
And what they must be asking themselves seriously now is: would they rather have institutionalized stinginess, especially in the midst of higher returns from oil sales? Never look down on spiritual things, even supposedly from ‘odd men'. The much-loved Jesus Christ of today was an odd-ball in his day. And the point to make first is that Babangida and the incumbent have different spiritual destinies. Whereas the former means surplus and opportunity, the latter may well mean scarcity and sorrow, not minding the best of intentions. Don't ask for any proof of this. Spiritual things hardly have any, but they happen.
As we focus on the home stretch in our march towards 2007, the question that should be uppermost in our minds should be: would we have more of the same or make a clean break with tradition? Now, the instinctive answer would have been: let us have a break! But where is the possibility? What is the preparation? Everywhere people have had the kind of break one is advocating, it has been carefully and pains-takingly planned for. It was not happenstance. Nigerians are alien to orderly, disciplined planning and sustained and untainted advocacy. Many who start out as ‘comrades' and freedom-fighters end up in latter life as mere attention-seekers, hecklers and apo-logists for despots and some of them are in our highest law-making houses!
Just take one look at the names that have been freely dropped as contenders for the top office at the national level and the inescapable conclu-sion is that we are condemned to more of the same, at least for the foreseeable future. And if this is the case, shouldn't we seek solace in the time tested wisdom- 'the devil we know...!"
Come to think of it, the IBB era was not an unmitigated disaster. Again, if you can take your mind off the June 12 sacrilege (for that was what it was), perhaps the rest of the period can be put in proper perspective. And you would credit that era as having engaged the best collection of minds and tendencies ever to be assembled by one govern-ment in the history of this nation. That era too, it would be seen as having come up with the most policies, many of which changed our traditional mould of thinking and expanded the frontiers of government. In this wise, we must salute the re-engineering that gave birth to such interventionist agencies like DFFRI, People's Bank, and reforms in the core banking and political sectors which gave birth to the daring and innovative 'Option A4" under which the promise of the June 12 1993 election was achieved. The majority of us, and I am sure the retired general himself, still regret the missed opportunity, and the chance to enter into the record books.
No doubt about it, that would remain an albatross for General Babangida, even now as he contemplates his role and chances in 2007. Does he deserve another chance at the top job; and the chance to correct his mistake? That is a present conjecture and a matter for time. Only time, and I hope Nigerians will tell.
Mr. Owaiye is a staff of Vanguard
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