Kaduna Chukwuma Patrick Nzeogwu
By Vitus Ozoke (PhD)
Ibrahim Babangida is an all-round evil man. Even good news is bad news when told by him. If a 20-year-old student researcher had found, after methodical research, that the 1966 so-called Igbo coup was not an Igbo coup after all, that 20-year-old researcher would have been celebrated as an instant national hero. But when Ibrahim Babangida, an 83-year-old insider and eyewitness to that 1966 event, makes similar declaration, he should not be viewed as a hero and truth-teller; instead, the question should be asked: when did Babangida become aware of that piece of truth?
Why has it taken Ibrahim Babangida almost 60 years to tell a piece of truth that he has known from day one? Even if he thought he would not have been believed if he had spoken his truth the day or months or a few years after the coup, because he didn’t think he had the clout, what about the 8 years during which he occupied the highest seat and had the loudest megaphone in the country? Why did Ibrahim Babangida sit on a vital and critical piece of truth for 60 years? The Igbo had suffered and continue to suffer existentially as a result of the conspiratorial lies about that 1966 coup. Ibrahim Babangida knew that. He knew the truth in 1966, just as he knew the truth in 1976, 1986, 1996, 2006, 2016. He knew the truth in 2024. He knew the truth in the 8 years he ruled the country as a military dictator. Why now? Why in 2025?
Ibrahim Babangida has been around and has watched millions of ndị Igbo killed, suffer incalculable property and economic losses, suffer the injustices and inequities of political isolation and marginalization, all because of the conspired and concocted lies of the 1966 coup being masterminded by young Igbo officers. Babangida knew the truth right from the jump, but he chose to watch the lies fester and suppurate into a national cancer. Heck, he even took part in the civil war against the Igbo. Babangida has tens of thousands of Igbo blood on his hand. So, what is an 83-year-old Babangida trying to accomplish by coming clean with all these confessional truths – the 1966 coup, the June 12 elections, and MKO Abiola? Is Babangida’s inevitable mortality staring him in the face? Like the coward that he has admitted to being on this side, is Babangida also petrified of life of torture and torment on the other side? Is that what this whole epiphanous nonsense is about?
The verdict is already in on Ibrahim Babangida’s caricature of a memoir. It is a vain desperate but disgusting attempt at revisionist history not worth any drop of ink wasted in publishing it. Nigerians are unanimous on that verdict. Well, almost unanimous, because you still have inglorious folks like Arthur Eze who made a complete fool of himself with that rambling and incoherent display at the book launch. Talking about Babangida having no enemies. Really? What an ignoramus. What part of June 12 did Arthur Eze miss? Such an ignorant and disgraceful display of sycophantic and fawning desperation. So, even with his belated admissions and confessions, Babangida is not a hero, he has never been a hero, and will never be a hero. Ibrahim Babangida is a despicable devil of the villainous species. His comeuppance awaits, if not already upon him.
But what about General Matthew Olusegun Obasanjo? What about General Jack Yakubu Gowon? What about General Muhammad Buhari? They are Babangida’s still-living historical contemporaries. Like General Ibrahim Babangida, they saw 1966 coup up close and, perhaps, personal. Like Babangida, they have, at different times, ruled Nigeria after the 1966 coup. They have wielded the loudest megaphones in the country. And they have watched the Igbo bear the burden and suffer the consequences of a vile and malicious lie. Why didn’t they tell the truth about the 1966 coup? Why didn’t they debunk the deadly lie? Why haven’t they done that still? Gowon is 90 years old; Obasanjo is 87, and Buhari is 82. What are they still waiting for? Will they take the truth, their truth, to their graves? We wait, as only time will tell.
- OZOKE is a lawyer, human rights activist, and public commentator based in the United States
