Posted by By PAUL ORUDE, Bauchi on
Second Republic Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr. Ibrahim Tahir, says the onslaught by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), against General Ibrahim Babangida will neither succeed nor mar his credibility to run for the presidency in 2007.
Second Republic Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr. Ibrahim Tahir, says the onslaught by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), against General Ibrahim Babangida will neither succeed nor mar his credibility to run for the presidency in 2007.
Speaking to Daily Sun in Bauchi, Tahir believes Babangida did not commit the multiple offences he is being accused of, including allegedly squandering over $12.5 billion oil windfall, controversial killing of his bosom friend and comrade-at-arms Gen Mamman Vatsa over coup plot, among others.
'The guiding principle of democracy is founded upon the mystique of election, which is an expression of the people's choice," Tahir stated. 'The right of all men to stand elections, and be voted for is the qualifying rules of the election, undiluted for any purpose. Personal opinion is personal opinion; it has no greater status than that."
Babangida, who ruled as military president between 1985 and 1993, left the country in tatters, after annulling the June 12, 1993 presidential elections won by Bashorun M.K.O.Abiola, is warming up to run in 2007.
Babangida and his family have been in the eye of the storm in recent times with the arrest of his eldest son, Mohammed, by the EFCC and the commission's investigations into the several cases of alleged corruption and abuse of office pending against the former leader.
'Oil windfall, the man who wrote the report, Okigbo, was my best friend," Tahir said. 'I've searched high and low in the Okigbo report wherein Babangida took anything or stole anything. I found none. Okigbo was my best friend. I talked to him and he said it was really unfortunate in our country how people make it. There is $2.8 billion allegation which melted in the glare of the klieglights. When the late Tai Solarin was asked to justify his campaign about $2.8 billion stolen by the departing government of Shehu Shagari, he said he heard it at a bus stop. For God sake!
'And that was the foundation of his action. Some guy was talking about it at the bus stop, and he believed it, and the whole nation was about to be set on fire. Same with this oil windfall.
June 12
On the annulment of the June 12 election by Babangida, Tahir said, 'This business of annulment of June 12, people are very funny. When Babangida opens his mouth about June 12, some people will run and hide. People who made delegation to see him, asking him to annul June 12 and he refused...
'People should let the game be played by the rule. Let the fun, the rhythm and the whole drama of the game, let it be heard, the roar of the crowd, the boos, the bad egg stuff, rotten tomatoes throw, but at the end of the day, let's vote according to conscience and if Babangida wins, why not?
'Adam Clentinpow was reputedly a criminal and the people in Harlem kept voting him back into congress. Sometimes he left congress to serve some jail term, and returned.
'I hold it against no man that the past may have something against him. But this campaign, why should I join a campaign against Babangida? He is a warm person. Against the general opinion, he is shy and he is not somebody who likes exposing himself. He is not a talkative, rather, a quiet person.
'As the tiniest person in the neighbourhood, he went through a test growing up that made him tough, wily, crafty, and that has been further exacerbated by the creed of the tank officer, a strategic arm of decision. Babangida is always weighing things, he is not rash, and people say that he is Maradona, I think that is cautious, careful, and he is intelligent, it doesn't take him long to decipher what somebody is making out
Dele Giwa
You know, intelligence services are very complicated and arms traders are more complicated than intelligence services. If you stumble on gun running, which Dele Giwa did, real powerful machinery of gun running, and he began to start an expose and the people made promises and deals with Giwa, and that parcel was delivered to him. I don't believe from state house, but from some gun running organisations which adopted that sign.
Vatsa
Speaking on the recently revisited issue of the killing of Vatsa 20 years ago by the family who think Vatsa was innocent; Tahir said 'I noticed first that this Vatsa matter is now 20 years. That is a very long time in which to recall anything. On what foundation Mrs. Vatsa can pin anything?
'Apart from the obscurity of the issue, because of distance from history, and because of the fact that the record of military matters tend on the whole, to be closely guided, I doubt if the military machine will want its document or its proceedings be brought out to public scrutiny.
'There is the other question that Obasanjo is now in power. I pray his wish will be granted by Almighty Allah so that somehow, one day, he will be able to put his feet up by the fire, to reflect on the past, I pray no one is going to come after him with emotional outburst.
'Matters of state in Nigeria, are being reduced to very farcical dimensions. We are rapidly beginning to be sent to the level not just of a banana republic, but below the banana republic, something like the comic story of Peter Ustinov, about an imaginary state in which everything is a kind of an absurdity.
'I have deep sympathy for this woman, and I have deeper sympathy for the son, but, being a great friend of his father, I cannot say he was guilty or not because I was not privy to the court martial."