Ayegba Israel Ebije
8 January 2009
Former Military President retired General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, who returned from Guinea yesterday, said the military coup in the West African country is timely and patriotic.
Babangida,who was in Guinea as an envoy of President Umaru Yar'adua, told the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) that the military intervention has saved the country from another theatre of human and material waste. He said the country was already polarised and tensed before the armed forces came up to save the situation.
The former military president explained that the tenure of the Guinean parliament had expired two years ago but no elections were held to renew its mandate. He said the slated 2008 elections failed to hold before the death of former President Lansana Conte.
"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 coupists, and it would be unfair to say they have come to power to stay.
"I think we as outsiders should put our acts together to help the new leadership of Guinea to get the country back to its feet as that is about the most important thing they need from all and not criticism," he said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Ojo Madueke had said on Monday that Nigeria will not recognise the coupists. He said Nigeria was monitoring the events in Guinea and would convene an extra ordinary session of the ECOWAS on January 10 where it will come down hard on the coup plotters.
Reacting to this, Baba-ngida said, "The minister has no clue of what the situation really is on ground in Guinea. But aside that I'm only acting on the matching order of the president, therefore he is on his own."
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ambassador Bagudu Hirse, who was on Babangida's entourage, said the Guinean military leadership deserve the sympathy of African countries.
He said the new Guinea rulers made it clear to the Nigerian delegation that they were not in power for material gains but to make sure that the country returns to democracy as soon as possible.
Captain Moussa Camara took over power in Guinea after the death of President Conte last month.
Camara, 44, was until recently a little-known captain in the supply corps. He studied at the Gamal Abdel Nasser University in the capital Conakry from where he obtained a diploma in Econ-omy and Finance.
He attended a military training course in Germany after 2004 and is believed to speak German. He has been greeted as a hero by crowds in Conakry. Even opposition parties have cautiously welcomed the military coup, but have called for elections to be held this year.
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THE RIDICULING OF DIPLOMACY. I am not (and nobody should be) surprise to see IBB endorsing a coup anyway. What else would one expect from him? I am rather concerned about the ignorance or disregard of diplomacy. The person to blame for this poverty of foreign diplomatic moves is first of all the man at the helm who chose a notorious Capone of coup plotting to go as an envoy of democracy. In the first place it is a ridiculing of our type of democracy. It is a caricature of image building. The chaos that IBB represents is hard to… [Read Full Text]
Hear the forces of backwardness, re-emerge from nowhere. Babangida is an epitome what went wrong with post-independence Africa. After he got helping others make coups he made his own.
Nigeria has moved on. Hmmm, let's see, between an envoy and a foreign minister, who carries real clout ? Yes, no doubt, ofcourse the latter.
Besides Camara is supposed to, through a democratic rpocess, to hand Guinea back to civilian rulers.
As much as I abhor Babangida and all that he stands for, we cannot absolve the Nigerian politicians' greed and lack of vision as justification for the resulting coups. We are witnessing another one of those civilian politicians in action. There is always a causal relationship with outcomes. If you dont want military coups, then civilian politicians should govern wisely with the public opinion serving as barometer of their performance. Emperor Yar rulership is even worse than some military juntas we've had. I applaud Babangida for his reasonable comment on Guinea. As for the envoy versus diplomat “thing”, I stand… [Read Full Text]
I prefer substance over styled superficiliaties, nicities and platitudes of diplomancy which are always suspect. Look at what Mbeki's vaunted experience in quiet diplomacy has done to Zimbabwe's election debacle ?
Experience is over-rated and is always advanced by losers or frustrated careerists stuck in a career rut.
Besides I would rather listen to new and substantive political views than flowery tales from monsters of the past.
Your point made no sense. Perhaps you could rephrase your assertions to fit the issue at hand, i.e., justification for Guinea's gameplan to develop its unique democratic process. Who knows, 5 years from now, with adequate gameplan initiated by this coupist to design their democratic process, Guinea may surpass Nigeria in its democratic performance and economic growth pattern, as Nigeria continues to pretend while running a sham to follow-follow, copy-copy others, blindly with no vision of its own that is endemic to fit our unique culture, on the premise that one size does not fit all.
Let me try to break it down in simple terms. To me the Babangidas represent the failed (monstrous) past whereas the new Nigerian leadership or adminstration represents a more democratic the future.
If Guinea becomes more democratic that would be for better for Africa. My contention is that the notion that juntas will bring that about is a fantasy, a pipe-dream as history has shown.
Nigeria's (and the rest of ECOWAS) job at this importune moment is not to cuddle, placate, and appease coup makers in the false hope that they will somehow be any different from the failed juntas… [Read Full Text]
I hate to be an apologist for the likes of Babangida but where in his statement did he say that he wants the juntas to stay permanently as you claimed in your last statement. His observation was for ECOWAS not to impose unnecessary sanctions that eventually will harden the junta and thereby punish the good people of Guinea, inadvertently. After all, the people of Guinea applauded the juntas, anyway, and that is their right and what should matter most, not some foreign invisible hands telling them how to think & run their country. The point been made here is; if… [Read Full Text]
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For once, I would agree with Babangida on this. Military coups in West Africa are often caused by the excesses of the Politicians' unbridled greed and lack of unity to work proactively on behalf of the electorates they promised to serve. I don’t see how ECOWAS should deny recognition for this junta if it promised to put in place, within a reasonable time, a game plan to educate the public and the politicians about their respective roles and limitations b4 campaign for elections begin so the people have enough information to make a wise choice. Democracy in name alone does… [Read Full Text]