From Saka Bolaji, Minna
Former Military President, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) has said that he was not the evil genius people considered him to be
IBB rejected this age-long negative insinuation about his person in a media interaction to mark his 75th birthday at his Hilltop mansion in Minna, Niger state capital
He noted that he had had a very humble background, and as a military officer, he was trained to love his fellow human beings..
His words: “I am not the evil that quite a lot of people consider that I am. I have had a very excellent background and by training, we have to love one another. However, I can understand the feeling. But by virtue of the job I was doing, I was bound to be misconstrued and people will take it like that but I consider it as an opinion. As long as I am not what you think I was, I feel satisfied”.
The former President debunked the allegation of looting the treasury while on the saddle, saying if he had gotten half of the money he was alleged to have embezzled, he would have relocated out of the country long ago.
“I read somewhere sometimes ago that they said I stole N12.8 billion and I said if I stole such money, I had no business staying in the country but those are the types of things that one has to live with”.
He admonished the younger generation to carry out research on leadership in order to know the implication of aspiring to leadership positions.
“I hope the younger generation will carry out a research about leadership, people, individual and what role they play in the development of the nation and they can come up with a different conclusion from what is on ground now,” he said.
Responding to a question on his reaction to series of death rumour concerning him, he pointed out that he was not bothered since similar thing was done to late Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe long before his death.
Apart ftom that, IBB noted when his time was up nobody can stop him from death as all mortals must die one day.
“The death rumour is not new, they have done it to Zik, Shehu Shagari and other statesmen, it is not new. Whether I like it or not, I will still die, they are only stating the obvious. The only thing we do not know about death is that we don’t know the cause, time or the place”.
Babangida proposed part-time sessions for the members of the National Assembly as a way of cubbing unnecessary spendings, saying the salaries and allowances of the lawmakers could be channeled to a more productive venture.
“During my public life, there were a number of decisions we took as a military officer or as a political officer (when I was a dictator) that if I had the chance again, I would have done it differently. For example, in 1989, we proposed that the National Assembly should be optional, that is part-time.
“I still believe that if I had the opportunity, I would make the National Assembly part time. I believe in that very strongly, it is all in an effort to cut down the cost of governance”.
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