On his return from Guinea as the Federal Government's special envoy to the beleaguered country, the former military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, shocked the world when he described the military coup in that West African country as well-timed and nationalistic. Babangida who made the statement during a Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) programme also reasoned that the military intervention in Guinea had saved the country from another theatre of human and material waste. He said the country was already polarised and tense before the armed forces came up to save the situation.
In his grand eulogy of the Guinean military adventurers, IBB stated, "For God's sake they were patriotic to make sure that the country remains intact. From what we could see upon arrival at the country, the people are on the side of the coup plotters, and it would be unfair to say they have come to power to stay". The former President therefore enjoined Nigeria and the international community to "help the new leadership in Guinea get the country back to its feet". He further justified the coup on the grounds that while the poll slated for 2008 failed to hold before the death of the former President, Lansana Conte, the tenure of the Guinean parliament had expired two years earlier without the government conducting fresh elections to renew its mandate.
Surprisingly, IBB gave the impression that his statement represented the FG's official position on the Guinean putsch. Apart from dismissing the statement of the Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, that Nigeria would not recognise the coup plotters, Babangida insinuated that the minister had no clue of what the situation on the ground really was in Guinea. The former military president distanced himself and the Yar'Adua government from the minister's commendable stance against the coup when he said that, he was acting on the "orders of the president; therefore he (Maduekwe) is on his own."
But, contrary to IBB's claim, President Yar'Adua later condemned the coup. During a meeting he summoned on the change of government, the heads of government in Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) condemned the coup and suspended Guinea from all its meetings until a constitutional order is restored in the country. At the forum, President Yar'Adua, who is also the ECOWAS Chairman, enjoined his fellow Heads of State to be united in condemning the coup.
As a private citizen in a democratic society, Babangida cannot be denied his basic rights, including the right to hold opinion and the freedom to express it. The problem, however, is that as a beneficiary of a similar aberration in Nigeria and the Head of State that annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election acclaimed to be the freest and fairest so far in the country, IBB may not have weaned himself from the ignoble role of the military in African politics. Indeed, what is baffling is the maze of confusion the IBB's statement has spawned and the diplomatic opprobrium it has brought to the country.
The diplomatic mess has been compounded by the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bagudu Hirse, who stated that the Guinean military leadership deserved the sympathy of African countries. Hirse was on Babangida's entourage to Guinea. Yet, Hirse has not resigned for openly disagreeing with the government on a major diplomatic issue.
The incident has sent a wrong signal that the Yar'Adua administration is incoherent and divided. Was IBB who refused to accept the sanctity of the ballot box in his country a suitable person for such an assignment that required upholding the best democratic ideals? The government should apologise to the nation for sending a man with dubious democratic credentials on such a sensitive diplomatic mission.
Since there can always be countless justifications for coup, the claim by IBB that he made the statement on behalf of the Yar'Adua administration is capable of being interpreted as a blanket endorsement for undemocratic change of government in unstable democracies, including Nigeria. The government should, therefore, reassure Nigerians that the nation's democracy is not under threat from military adventurers who can always fabricate reasons for any violent change of power