Call Him ‘Inexperience’ Not ‘Clueless’, IBB Mocks GEJ
Babangida who spoke with The Interview magazine in the December 2015
edition as published by The Cable, said the problem with Jonathan was
that he was inexperienced rather than clueless or incompetent as some
Nigerians alleged.The retired general, who described Jonathan as a very pleasant person, said he meant well for Nigeria.
When the former military president was asked about his view that Jonathan is a good person but was “incompetent,” he said: “If you use inexperience, I will buy that.”
The elder statesman declined to comment on whom he actually voted for between Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, who was declared the winer of the presidential poll. The relationship between Babangida and Buhari was not so great as it was Babangida who overthrew Buhari’s government in 1985 in a bloodless coup.
When Babangida was asked if he played a double game by showing support for both Jonathan and Buhari during their visits to him, he explained that he was “intelligent enough” to know that he had “only one vote.”
He spoke further with the magazine on a wide range of issues, especially the failed military coup of 1990 at Dodan Barracks, which was the seat of power then, and how he was saved by his late wife, Maryam. Babangida denied being saved by his then chief of army staff, the late Gen Sani Abacha, and on reports that he hid in a bunker to elude the coup plotters, he said: “They obviously didn’t have a lot of experience.”
“It was during the fasting period. We were still in Dodan Barracks then. My wife got up from sleep and said she had noticed very unusual movement of troops from one end to the other. So she woke me up and said I should look through the window. I found troops moving from one end to the other.
“The next thing I heard was shooting going on. We tried to put a small party together. It was about 1.30am. Then the guards, the bodyguards said let’s check out of this place. I was a bit stubborn. I told them I was not leaving. It didn’t occur to me that we had a bunker at Dodan Barracks. We had, but it didn’t occur to me to use it. And so, they came. I said the only thing I would concede to, I would evacuate my family. My wife had her last born, who was just a few months old, with her. So they evacuated them to a safe house. It was the house of one of the officers working with me
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