BREAKING: IBB To Nigerians: Send Buhari Home With Your Votes In 2019 | CNR
Ibrahim Babangida and Mohammadu Buhari |
Former Military President, Ibrahim Babangida has called on Nigerians to endeavour to vote out President Mohammadu Buhari in next year's general elections.
The former Nigerian leader who made call in statement Sunday titled: "Towards a National Rebirth", said that the country need new breed of leadership with requisite capacity to manage our diversities and jump-start a process of launching the country on the super high way of technology-driven leadership in line with the dynamics of modern governance.
Read full text of the statement below.
FULL TEXT OF THE STATEMENT
TOWARDS A NATIONAL REBIRTH
In the past few months and weeks, I have played host to many concerned Nigerians who have continued to express legitimate and patriotic worry about the state of affairs in the country. Some of them have continued to agonize about the turn of events and expressly worried why we have not gotten our leadership compass right as a country with so much potential and opportunity for all. Some, out of frustration, have elected to interrogate the leadership question and wondered aloud why it has taken this long from independence till date to discover the right model on account of our peculiarities. At 57, we are still a nation in search of the right leadership to contend with the dynamics of a 21st century Nigeria.
Having been privileged to preside
over this great country, interacted with all categories of persons, dissected
all shades of opinions, understudied different ethnic groupings; I can
rightfully conclude that our strength lies in our diversity. But exploring and
exploiting that diversity as a huge potential has remained a hard nut to crack,
not because we have not made efforts, but building a consensus on any national
issue often has to go through the incinerator of those diverse ethnic
configurations. Opinions in Nigeria are not limited to the borders of the
political elite; in fact, every Nigerian no matter how young or old, has an
opinion on any national issue. And it is the function of discerning leadership
to understand these elemental undercurrents in the discharge of state
responsibilities.
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WHERE WE ARE
There is no gainsaying the fact that
Nigeria is at a major crossroads at this moment in its history; the choices we
are going to make as a nation regarding the leadership question of this country
and the vision for our political, economic and religious future will be largely
determined by the nature or kind of change that we pursue, the kind of change
that we need and the kind of change that we get. A lot depends on our roles
both as followers and leaders in our political undertakings. As we proceed to find
the right thesis that would resolve the leadership question, we must bear in
mind a formula that could engender national development and the undiluted
commitment of our leaders to a resurgence of the moral and ethical foundations
that brought us to where we are as a pluralistic and multi-ethnic society.
Nigeria, before now, has been on the
one hand our dear native land, where tribes and tongues may differ but in
brotherhood we stand, and on the other hand a nation that continues to struggle
with itself and in every way stumbling and willful in its quest to become a
modern state, starting from the first republic till date. With our huge
investments in the African emancipation movements and the various contributions
that were made by our leadership to extricate South Africa from colonial grip,
Nigeria became the giant of Africa during that period. But having gone through
leadership failures, we no longer possess the sobriety to claim that status.
And we all are guilty.
We have experimented with
Parliamentary and Presidential systems of government amid military interregnum
at various times of our national history. We have made some progress, but not
good enough to situate us on the pedestal we so desirously crave for. It is
little wonder therefore that we need to deliberately provoke systems and models
that will put paid to this recycling leadership experimentation to embrace new
generational leadership evolution with the essential attributes of responsive,
responsible and proactive leadership configuration to confront the several
challenges that we presently face. In 2019 and beyond, we should come
to a national consensus that we need new breed leadership with requisite
capacity to manage our diversities and jump-start a process of launching the
country on the super highway of technology-driven leadership in line with the
dynamics of modern governance. It is short of saying enough of this analogue
system. Let’s give way for digital leadership orientation with all the
trappings of consultative, constructive, communicative, interactive and
utility-driven approach where everyone has a role to play in the process of
enthroning accountability and transparency in governance.
I am particularly enamored that
Nigerians are becoming more and more conscious of their rights; and their
ability to speak truth to power and interrogate those elected to represent them
without fear of arrest and harassment. These are part of the ennobling
principles of representative democracy. As citizens in a democracy, it is our
civic responsibility to demand accountability and transparency. Our elected
leaders owe us that simple but remarkable accountability creed. Whenever we
criticize them, it is not that we do not like their guts; it is just that as
stakeholders in the political economy of the country, we also carry certain
responsibilities.
In the past few months also, I have
taken time to reflect on a number of issues plaguing the country. I get
frightened by their dimensions. I get worried by their colourations. I get
perplexed by their gory themes. From Southern Kaduna to Taraba state, from
Benue state to Rivers, from Edo state to Zamfara, it has been a theatre of
blood with cake of crimson. In Dansadau in Zamfara state recently, North-West
of Nigeria, over 200 souls were wasted for no justifiable reason. The pogrom in
Benue state has left me wondering if truly this is the same country some of us
fought to keep together. I am alarmed by the amount of blood-letting across the
land. Nigeria is now being described as a land where blood flows like river,
where tears have refused to dry up. Almost on a daily basis, we are both
mourning and grieving, and often times left helpless by the sophistication of
crimes. The Boko Haram challenge has remained unabated even though there has
been commendable effort by government to maximally downgrade them. I will
professionally advise that the battle be taken to the inner fortress of Sambisa
Forest rather than responding to the insurgents’ ambushes from time to time.
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THINKING ALOUD
In the fullness of our present
realities, we need to cooperate with President Muhammadu Buhari to complete his
term of office on May 29th, 2019 and collectively prepare the way for new generation
leaders to assume the mantle of leadership of the country. While offering this
advice, I speak as a stakeholder, former president, concerned Nigerian and a
patriot who desires to see new paradigms in our shared commitment to get this
country running. While saying this also, I do not intend to deny President
Buhari his inalienable right to vote and be voted for, but there comes a time
in the life of a nation, when personal ambition should not override national
interest. This is the time for us to reinvent the will and tap into the
resourcefulness of the younger generation, stimulate their entrepreneurial
initiatives and provoke a conduce environment to grow national economy both at
the micro and macro levels.
Contemporary leadership has to be
proactive and not reactive. It must factor in citizens’ participation. Its
language of discourse must be persuasive not agitated and abusive. It must give
room for confidence building. It must build consensus and form aggregate
opinion on any issue to reflect the wishes of the people across the country. It
must gauge the mood of the country at every point in time in order to send the
right message. It must share in their aspirations and give them cause to have
confidence in the system. Modern leadership is not just about “fighting”
corruption, it is about plugging the leakages and building systems that will militate
against corruption. Accountability in leadership should flow from copious
examples. It goes beyond mere sloganeering. My support for a new breed
leadership derives from the understanding that it will show a marked departure
from recycled leadership to creating new paradigms that will breathe fresh air
into our present polluted leadership actuality.
My intervention in the governance
process of Nigeria wasn’t an accident of history. Even as a military
government, we had a clear-cut policy agenda on what we needed to achieve. We
recruited some of the best brains and introduced policies that remain some of
the best in our effort to re-engineer our polity and nation. We saw the future
of Nigeria but lack of continuity in government and of policies killed some of
our intentions and initiatives. Even though we did not provide answers to all
the developmental challenges that confronted us as at that time, we were not
short of taking decisions whenever the need arose.
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GROWING INSECURITY ON OUR HANDS
The unchecked activities of the
herdsmen have continued to raise doubt on the capacity of this government to
handle with dispatch, security concerns that continue to threaten our dear
nation; suicide bombings, kidnappings, armed banditry, ethnic clashes and other
divisive tendencies. We need to bring different actors to the roundtable.
Government must generate platform to interact and dialogue on the issues with a
view to finding permanent solutions to the crises. The festering nature of this
crisis is an inelegant testimony to the sharp divisions and polarizations that
exist across the country. For example, this is not the first time herdsmen
engage in pastoral nomadism but the anger in the land is suggestive of the
absence of mutual love and togetherness that once defined our nationality. We
must collectively rise up to the occasion and do something urgently to arrest
this drift. If left unchecked, it portends danger to our collective existence
as one nation bound by common destiny; and may snowball into another internecine
warfare that would not be good for nation-building.
We have to reorient the minds of the
herdsmen or gun-men to embrace ranching as a new and modern way to herd cattle.
We also need to expand the capacity of the Nigeria Police, the Nigeria Army,
the Navy and Air Force to provide the necessary security for all. We need to
catch up with modern sophistication in crime detection and crime fighting. Due
to the peculiarity of our country, we must begin community policing to close
the gaps that presently exist in our policing system. We cannot continue to use
old methods and expect new results. We just have to constructively engage the
people from time to time through platforms that would help them ventilate their
opinions and viewpoints.
THE CHANGE MANTRA
When the ruling party campaigned
with the change mantra, I had thought they would device new methods, provoke
new initiatives and proffer new ways to addressing some of our developmental
problems. By now, in line with her manifesto, one would have thought that the
APC will give fillip to the idea of devolution of powers and tinker with
processes that would strengthen and reform the various sectors of the economy.
Like I did state in my previous statement late last year, devolution of power
or restructuring is an idea whose time has come if we must be honest with
ourselves. We need to critically address the issue and take informed positions
based on the expectations of the people on how to make the union work better.
Political parties should not exploit this as a decoy to woo voters because
election time is here. We need to begin the process of restructuring both in
the letter and spirit of it.
For example, I still cannot
reconcile why my state government would not be allowed to fix the Minna-Suleja
road, simply because it is called Federal Government road, or why state
governments cannot run their own policing system to support the Federal Police.
We are still experiencing huge infrastructural deficit across the country and
one had thought the APC-led Federal Government would behave differently from
their counterparts in previous administrations. I am hesitant to ask; where is
the promised change?
LOOKING AHEAD
At this point of our national
history, we must take some rather useful decisions that would lead to real
development and promote peaceful co-existence among all the nationalities. We
must be unanimous in what we desire for our country; new generation leadership,
result-driven leadership, sound political foundation, demonetization of our
politics, enhanced internal democracy, elimination of impunity in our politics,
inclusiveness in decision-making, and promotion of citizens’ participation in
our democratic process. The search for that new breed leadership must start now
as we prepare for 2019 election.
I get
worried when politicians visit to inform me about their aspirations and what
you hear in terms of budgetary allocations for electoral contest does not cover
voters’ education but very ridiculous sub-heads. A typical aspirant in Nigeria
draws up budget to cover INEC, Police, Army and men and officers of the Civil
Defense, instead of talking of voters’ education, mobilization and
sensitization. Even where benchmarks are set for electoral expenditure,
monitoring and compliance are always difficult to adhere to. We truly need to
reform the political system. And we must deliberately get fresh hands involved
for improved participation.
We need new ways and new approaches
in our political order. We need a national rebirth. We need a rebranded Nigeria
and rebranded politics. It is not so much for the people, but for the
institutions that are put in place to promote our political engagements. We
must strengthen the one man one vote mantra. It is often ridiculous for me when
people use smaller countries in our West Africa sub-region as handy references
of how democracy should be. It beggars our giant of Africa status.
The next election in 2019 therefore
presents us a unique opportunity to reinvent the will and provoke fresh
leadership that would immediately begin the process of healing the wounds in
the land and ensuring that the wishes and aspirations of the people are
realized in building and sustaining national cohesion and consensus. I pray the
Almighty Allah grant us the gift of good life to witness that glorious dawn in
2019. Amen. I have not written an open letter to the President, I have just
shared my thoughts with fellow compatriots on the need to enthrone younger
blood into the mainstream of our political leadership starting from 2019.
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