I love being criticised –Babangida

Erstwhile Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida (Rtd), has said that he is unperturbed when people criticise him.

He stated this while expressing worries that Nigerians have only been interested to talk about the cancellation of June 12, 1993 elections and not about what could have possibly went wrong.

General Babangida, who stated this when he spoke during an exclusive interview on Roadmap 2019, a Channels Television programme, which aired on Monday, also wondered why nobody is giving him credit for conducting the election that has continued to be adjudged the freest Nigeria ever had.

The 1993 election which was allegedly won by late Moshood Abiola, but later cancelled by the then military government headed by Babangida, has continued to attract criticism for the general.

Abiola, then candidate of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) was believed to have defeated Bashir Tofa, candidate of the defunct National Republican Convention (NCP).

In the interview 25 years after that election, Babangida said, “Nobody has ever sat down to say the two persons (he, Babangida and Abiola) are friends, what went wrong? We tried to rationalise why we had to do what we did but nobody is prepared to listen to us.

“I have never seen anybody write anything on this to try to give people a different version altogether. He (Abiola) knew my feeling; I knew his feeling about the country generally because I do talk about Nigeria with the presumed winner of the truly democratically freest election. We even talked about it during the crisis itself.”

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Asked if he had any plans to write an autobiography, he said, “People may not read it because it’s coming from a dictator. Yea, he cancelled June 12 and that will kill the thing about the book, but I will try. I hope one day if God spares my life I will discuss about it (June 12 elections) because I still believe people don’t get what we were trying to put across.”

The former military junta, during the interview, also expressed his desire to see a young person as leader of the country.

He said, “What I want to see is a young man that has what I will call ‘four in one”. I want to see a young man who has a vision of a man called Obafemi Awolowo; I want to see a young man who has the charisma of a man called the Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello; I want to see a young man who has the eloquence and education and powers of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe; and I want to see a young man who has convictions like General (Olusegun) Obasanjo.”

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