THISDAYonline

This is a season of revisionism. For Nigeria's chief election annuller, former self-styled Military Presi-dent, self confessed evil genius, later day king maker, master of obfuscation, General Ibrahim Babangida, this must be a rewarding time. His hordes of palace intellectuals and spin doctors have since October last year been doing a "great" job of rewriting history as well as some image laundering. For the first time since Abacha years, IBB has become the main issue in the political news. Every story on 2003 is not complete without him: some engineered by his spin doctors, some sponsored by his adversaries, and some a product of the infertile mind of some lazy reporters.

Anyway, whichever way it is viewed, the Minna General seems to be enjoying it. It helps for good or for ill, in putting him in the consciousness of Nigerians. It is part of the re-write of history project of his tacticians. But let no one quarrel with IBB's attempt to write his own version of events. Afterall, what is history to a General, if not the account of war by the victor. The war of June 12 has been fought and won. The vanquished has been buried, while the victor now enjoys the spoils of war. Thus IBB is now being positioned for 2003 or 2007, whichever suits him. But his campaigners are also quick to note that the June 12 war was not a tidy affair. Like all wars, there were atrocities committed. So they have been telling everyone who cares to listen that "except for June 12 mistake, IBB remains Nigeria's best president". They claim IBB's economic programme re-engineered Nigeria and set the path to industrial progress. "He is Nigeria's only revolutionary who understood Nigerians and tackled the problems from the root". These revisionists must be confronted, lest those Nigerians who were not of voting age during IBB's tenure be brainwashed.

Babangida's problem is not a June 12 creation, rather, June 12 was an anti-climax of his several attempts to toy with this nation since his assumption of office in 1985. The regime actually began to run into crisis from 1986, though it was not clear to many then. His political agenda was inspired from Egypt where the Generals had perfected civilianisation of soldiers through political parties manufactured from the barracks. The birth of SDP and NRC three years later was clearly in that direction. The June 12 episode only aborted that journey. But Nigerians need not reduce IBB's assessment to June 12. What is important now is to ask whether IBB was really a good president. The relevant question is were you really better off under IBB than you were before him or after him? This is one question we have always failed to ask our ex-rulers who think the leadership of this country is their birthright.

Did General Maradonna improve the life of an average Nigerian during his tenure or impoverish him?

The former military president seized power on a liberal platform and with all the contradictions of someone who has always been part of the old establishment. An establishment that in itself is central to Nigeria's lack of progress.

It was therefore not surprising that his liberal leaning became half hearted. Since his intention was to go to Egypt, he needed a populist rhetoric for internal acceptance, and a pro-western economic agenda, as external support for his political agenda. The human rights rhetorics addressed the first, while the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) answered the second.

Those who are familiar with his human rights record can attest today, that it was more of a strategy of acceptance and not a long-term commitment. He was the first president to shut down media houses on a massive scale. Abacha only perfected it. The first to jail a minister for taking a cup of tea and a gold wrist watch, leaving those who were openly inflating contract costs and collecting kickbacks to continue with reckless abandon. He was the first to popularise the arrest and detention of pro-democracy and human rights activists. And the first to close town universities for months.

However, the most destructive aspect of IBB's rule was his economic programme - SAP, which was designed to assuage the western powers and creditors. It was a policy based on a crude theory of money. A supply side economics with little or no demand management content. And being essentially monetary in nature, speculation was bound to rule. The policy did not address the problem of production, neither did it address the human element, the most essential factor in any economic policy. Thus Nigeria, within five years of IBB rule turned from a manufacturing economy, into a rentier one in which bankers were not inclined to risk capital in large scale industrial ventures, but would rather fund trading, speculation, and round tripping with top hierarchy of the regime leading the fray. No wonder scores of kalo-kalo banks sprang up overnight as beneficiaries of rentier era. But while banking flourished, manufacturing, agriculture, mining and the social sectors were left to rot away. Even where they made attempts to provide relief, it was without any synergy. Agriculture was neither linked to industry nor to health. Farmers were to make money through exports which later crashed, and not to feed the nation. Education was aimed at certification and not linked to produce effective man-power for the economy. Power was deployed for personal preservation, not for any visionary purpose. Every institution, be it the army, civil service, university became compromised as long as it achieved stability for the prince. This is what gave birth to the "settlement" culture in the country today, a development that has since become leprous.

To worsen matters, his spin doctors, at the height of this economic armanda said their economic policy was original as it was locally designed and applied. But if the false doctors had studied their history well, they would have realised that they were over two centuries outdated. The first man to introduce and apply SAP ended up being sacrificed to a food riot that nearly claimed his king. This was Turgot, France's Louis XIV's finance minister. He was the originator of SAP and he is still well remembered by the economic physicians for all seasons at the IMF/World Bank offices in Washington, as a bearer of wealth to haves nations, and poverty to haves not. Within three months of the programme introduction, riot broke out and Turgot was sacked by the king. Do you still wonder why IBB sacked two of his finance ministers following series of SAP riot.

Before 1985, an average Nigerian worker would need to work one and half days to buy a whole chicken, by the time IBB left in 1993, he would need to work for 12 days to buy same chicken. Similarly, before IBB came to power, university students graduated as and when due, by the time IBB left in 1993, many students that entered university in 1987 for a four year course were yet to graduate. Those who still doubt this should read the latest World Bank indicting report on the state of education in Nigeria. It is said that the quality of Nigerian graduates in recent years is nothing to write home about. The study said the rot began about 15 years ago. This was when IBB began his reign. Yet the same World Bank fully supported SAP.

In a nutshell, IBB's economic policy did not benefit the people. In fact it impoverished them. But it succeeded in creating emergency and overnight millionaires, mostly military Governors, ministers their aides' wives, girlfriends, concubines and friends, through a primitive assault on public treasury. That explains why many of them would break their necks to ensure IBB returns. His return they hope is a return to the feel good economy. Obasanjo has become an unprofitable venture, cheap money has disappeared. Only IBB can guarantee the good era. They are not interested in you and me or how Nigeria can rival South Africa, Europe or Asia on the economic front, or how to stop the brain drain or guarantee the future of our young ones. They are only interested in their leaking pockets. This is why they are not offering Nigerians any alternative economic policy. Because they have none and by their disposition they can not guarantee any.