We Were Saints Compared With Today’s Leaders – IBB

Former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB, has taken a dig at the current administration saying those who served during his military regime were saints compared to the current level of corruption in Nigeria.

Babangida spoke in an interview with Trust TV on Sunday monitored by THE WHISTLER in Abuja.

Babangida, who’s hardly seen in public due to failing health, ruled Nigeria from 1985 to 1993 after a coup that ousted the military administration of current Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari.

He introduced controversial reforms, notably the Structural Adjustment Programme, which critics say sapped the country of key resources due to the austerity measures put in place by the International Monetary Funds, IMF and the World Bank.

His transition to civil rule programme led to an unending transition which culminated in the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election.

The election was widely believed to have been won by late Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party, SDP.

The crisis precipitated by the annulment forced him to step aside, while Appointing late Earnest Shonekan as head of an interim government.

The Gulf War of 1991 led to sharp increase in oil prices with Nigeria making an excess of $12.4 billion, which remains unaccounted for under the Babangida regime.

But on Sunday, he said, “I sacked a governor for misappropriating N300,000. Now there are people — we read in the papers, thank God there are papers to read and social media and so on— who steal N2 billion, N3 billion and nobody is saying they are corrupt; only us because we are military, that is all.

“I still maintain that we are saints if you compare somebody who is accused of stealing N3 billion compare him against somebody with N300,000 then I think we are saints,” he averred.

He explained that he had a solution against corruption and suggested it but was neglected because it came from him.

He said,
“I sold an idea but because it came from me, nobody likes it, nobody will like to hear it:

“Identify areas of corruption and attack them from the source. I read in one of the newspapers where a judge was complaining that they are not well remunerated by the public and that is a sure source of corruption.

“Wherever you have a system where you have a lot of control there will be corruption.

“So what did we try to do? We got government not to be involved in things like production.

“Anything to do with ‘I have to come to you and you will always think you are doing me a favour, so maybe I should reciprocate it’; that is the sort of thing.

“And that is why we introduced freeing the economy; you don’t need a licence to be graded Grade A; your groundnut or cocoa or cotton or whatever it is.

“You don’t need to go to the Central Bank or to go to banks to get foreign exchange.

“There are Bureaux de Change. They set it up in market areas, where you can easily go and get it.

“So the sources of corruption has to be identified and attacked,” he said.