The name Liad Tella is a household name in the media circle and socio-political space of Nigeria and beyond. The journalism teacher and political scientist is not happy with his constituency, the media, which he alleges contributed alongside some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), to the present sorry state of the country.
In this interview with Razaq Bamidele, the Iwo, Osun State-born veteran journalist, said former military president, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (retd.), did tremendously well in office for the country. However, he lamented that his colleagues in the media, who had the responsibility to communicate the truth and the fact as it were to the public, shirked their responsibility by not seeing anything good in his administration. Whereas in the cardinal principle of journalism, according to him, facts are sacred, comment is free, in some issues under the IBB regime like that of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), facts became not sacred; they became sacrificed.
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Tella posited that the greatest error of IBB’s life was the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by his friend, Bashorun MKO Abiola. Nevertheless, Tella wonders why he (IBB) is yet to offer Nigerians a well-deserved public apology.
How did it all start, sir?
When Buhari was in power as Head of State, he offended the media by promulgating Decree 4 through which he sentenced two journalists to jail for publishing an exclusive story that was not even false. It was outrageous. Pure investigative professional efforts by two journalists. Tunde Thompson was the writer of the story. Nduka Irabor was the editor of the Evening Guardian that published the story. What really was their offence? Their alleged offence was that the military government decided to release foreign postings and a journalist performing his duties came across the story and wrote it. Whether it has been officially announced or not, it was his duty to report the story. That was the offence of Buhari and the media shot him down. They declared both open and internal war against the the Buhari regime.
We had earlier won Buhari and Idiagbon on the first day of their regime. In the first press conference addressed by Buhari, he gave the signal that he was going to tamper with the press. And some of us like Chief Olusegun Osoba, Chief Adenaike and Peter Ajayi, I joined them as my senior colleagues to arrange the venue for the press conference. I was the first journalist to report for that assignment while those I mentioned were arranging chairs and as a responsible junior, I joined them and we thought we were doing our nation the best we could. We were shocked when he said they were going to tamper with the media and we immediately signalled to Idiagbon that we wanted to meet him or the Head of State because we knew that declaration was going to be dangerous.
But instead of the Head of State to meet us or his deputy, the Chief of General Staff, we were directed to meet Ibrahim Alfa, the Chief of Air Staff. We met severally along with other top journalists, so many of us, about ten or eleven and we tried to explain that declaring war on the press would not be profitable for the regime. They turned deaf ears to all our entreaties. All our hands of friendship extended to them were rejected. So, we started firing from the hips. We praised the government when government was doing well, but we were fighting the government and eventually, the government was brought down particularly by the press.
Was that government that bad?
No, Buhari really meant well for the country. He was the most focused, most disciplined and most determined regime in the history of Nigeria. But because he turned his back to the press rather than seek cooperation of the press, the beauty of what he wanted to do was not ventilated to the world. We only painted him as a brute dictator. But dictatorship at that time was necessary for Nigeria. And even now, it is still necessary for Nigeria.
What do you mean by that, sir?
Nigerians are too relaxed. They carry the concept of freedom of speech beyond imaginable boundary. Most of the things we do here cannot be done in America. Most of the things critics say here cannot be said in America or Britain. The system will take care of them. And we know that the system will take care of them if they transgress. There is no freedom that has no boundary. Freedom without boundary is licence for chaos. The concept of free speech and freedom of speech has been driven to a ridiculous level in Nigeria. And we must find a way of addressing that.
Sir, with due respect, are you serious with that assertion?
Yes. The National Assembly even wanted to enact the law to regulate the social media; we all kicked against it. Even the Americans and Western Embassies were sponsoring Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to destabilise Nigeria. What is not allowed in their countries is allowed in Nigeria and they are saying it is the right of Nigerians to destroy themselves. The greater the instability level in Nigeria the better for Europe, particularly Western Europe. So, we won’t be able to concentrate on development. Look at what has happened.
Six LAUTECH Scientists, medical Scientists were at the level of breakthough to develop vaccine for COVID-19. Even if there is breakthrough at all, they (Western World) would not allow it to fly. But Nigerian government would allow it to fly. They are rationing and fashioning vaccine for us! We have 210 million people in Nigeria. The vaccine allocated to Nigeria is less than 10 million. That is medical imperialism. Commit suicide if you like, that is what they are saying.
How did Babangida now come onto the scene?
During the era of Babangida, when he introduced Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), as I said before, Britain also introduced SAP. Margret Thatcher was there for 16 years and drove SAP throughout and Britain came out of the woods. Did we allow our own to be like that? We were shooting critics down to encourage them. We were sponsoring insurgency against our leadership in the name of democracy in the name of freedom of speech. What are the Americans doing to the black Americans? They are killing them like fowls!
I am still on the necessity of dictatorship…..
(Cuts in…), Okay, let us look at it this way. When Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida came on board, he came in with open arms. A smiling Head of State and not a frowning Head of State like Buhari and Idiagbon. An accommodating Head of State. A military man that believed in public atmosphere debate on major policy thrust of the government, giving opportunities for discussions, robust debates, robust contributions, and aggregating to move the country forward. That was an aberration in the military regime.
But we loved it until Dele Giwa was assassinated. The assassination of Dele Giwa changed the tune of the relationship between the press and IBB regime. I was a news editor at the Concord Newspapers at that time. And what led to Dele Giwa’s death should have been unravelled by the police. But they failed to do so. And that gave room to a lot of speculations. The family of the first citizen of the country was blackmailed. Why? Because the person that brought the parcel to Dele Giwa was reported to have said that, “This parcel is from the presidency.”
I kept asking myself, are the military so daft? Are the intelligence community so daft that they would want to participate in eliminating somebody, and they would give room for the Office of the President to be pointedly think out as a result of the bomb that would kill that person? At the benefit of my old age now, I say, there are a lot of ways the military can do the neat job without necessarily having to say that this parcel is from the presidency.
Then I ask myself, Soyinka, who was one of the Newswatch reporters based in London was on the same dining table with Dele Giwa. How come he was not injured? How come that he escaped unscratched? Not even a bruise on his body. And they were sitting face to face on the dining table. The power of the bomb was such that tore into pieces the upper region of Dele Giwa including his limbs. What kind of military operation was that? Did they know that Soyinka was arrested? Was he asked questions on how his boss was eliminated? He said his boss put the envelope from the presidency on his lap and was opening it. And that it was in the process of opening it that the thing blasted off.
Must he put the thing on his lap on the dining table before opening it? What was he expecting from the presidency? The scooter/dispatch man that brought the killer envelope, how heavy was the letter? For the bomb to have that impact, it must be especially heavy. And Dele Giwa as an investigative journalist, a writer of note, would ordinarily have the intelligence to be careful when handling such a thing.
But it was the era of drug pushers. And drug pushers can be very deadly. I remember that Gloria Okon was the centre point of this when she was caught at the Kano airport and detained and she escaped from detention. It was said that she was a courier for Maryam Babangida. And I asked myself, with the volume of money that is available in the presidency, with the volume of donation that comes in from state governments, from companies, from sundry sources, is it a profitable venture for a First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to engage in drug pushing? What is the amount of money she was going to realise? We have seen money. We have seen Abacha’s wife in stupendous money without pushing drug. We have seen Jonathan’s wife in stupendous money without pushing drug. So, why should the wife of the president engage in drug pushing? These are fundamental questions that events that happened after Babangida brought to life that we journalists should reflect upon and begin reinvestigations. I wish I were younger, I would have probably engaged in the deep investigation.
What about one Gloria Okon you just mentioned?
The story of Gloria Okon was sent to me from London that she was in London, partying and enjoying herself. And her picture in that party was sent to me, as the News Editor of Concord. But on a second thought, Fidel Odum, the Nigerian London Correspondent of Concord, was in London. I sent a telex to him that this and this addresses were sent to me, Gloria Okon was supposed to be there. I asked him to please find out either through Nigerian community, Delta Community or Igbo community in London,to find out for me and give me a report on the issue within the next one week. There was nothing urgent in that story. It must be properly investigated.
Within that one week, Fidel Odum fired back with a longish report that the address did not exist and that all efforts to locate Gloria Okon in London proved abortive. All the same, I wrote the story and put our London Correspondent’s report as an addendum. It was reflected in one single powerful intro and I took the story to Ben Echonam, the Editor of the Concord to look at it. Ben said, “Liad, this story is very dangerous. You don’t know drug pushers; they will stop at nothing to eliminate.” He took the story and tucked it in his drawer and said he was going to call Fidel Odum. He called Fidel Odum on phone and Fidel repeated all that was in the story. That was how the story was technically killed by the editor. The editor has the knife and the yam. So, my duty as news editor is to get the best exclusive story and bring it in.
About six months after. This same story blew up in the Newswatch. You know they were bold and bolder than most of us, but I wasn’t a coward in journalism. I can pride myself for that. But when it comes to professionalism, I stand by professionalism. That was the beginning of distress between the media and Babangida.
Now Babangida is crucified for the free fall of the naira that has ballooned to almost N600 to a dollar. Nigerian naira became like the Benin Republic CFA and like Ghanaian cedi. If a child is too young to know the history of his great grandfather, the elders in the community would remind him and tell him the contributions of his great grandfather to that community. Before Buhari came in, the economy was going down. When Buhari came in, the economy was so bad that we couldn’t finance three months import for Nigeria. And when a country cannot finance three months import, it is considered as bankrupt. So, we resorted to what is called counter trade. The counter trade is ‘come and carry our oil as much as you can to offset our daily import bill’.
So many oil cartels came into it and that was the beginning of corruption in the NNPC. Let anybody prove me wrong. We didn’t have the capacity at that time to take an accurate measures of the crude oil that was being produced and exported. It was not computer-based. We have not got to the digital age. We were at the analogue age.
So, when Babangida came in, the economy was down, totally down to the extent that in an interview with some of us senior journalists, Babangida said it was a surprise the economy of Nigeria had not collapsed. This means that the invisible aspect of Nigeria’s economy was driving the economy harder than the visible side of the economy. We would require N1.1bn loan from the IMF to shore up the finances of the country and make the industries in Nigeria to continue to produce and work.
All the radicals, the loud mouths, pseudo economists and super economists came out with three to four months debate in the newspapers, insisting that, IMF loan is a kiss of death! That was the language. That we would devalue the naira. IMF demanded that we should devalue the naira either by two and a half per cent or by 5%. The sing song then was that we had home grown economy policy to liberate Nigeria from depending on IMF. The media pages were filled up with ‘No to IMF, No to IMF.’ Debate was too strong. That was the fault of Babangida because he allowed unprecedented debate on an issue of deep national security. Economy is the first national security. When the economy is strong, there is national security. Unfortunately, we shut it down.
Babangida went to Saudi Arabia for Umrah and met the Saudi King. He opened up to him on the state of the economy and that we needed loans to shore up our economy. Saudi agreed to give Nigeria N5 billion interest-free loan instead of the N2.5 billion asked for, payable when able. That language was too strong. The Brentwood institutions – The IMF, the World Bank said no, Saudi could not do that, alleging that Saudi wanted to kill Brentwood institutions. America came in and said no, no, Saudi could not give direct loan to governments. That, if you want to give a loan, pass it through the IMF. And Saudi said no, that they don’t collect interest on their loans. What America failed to tell the world was that the highest level of their indebtedness was to Saudi Arabia till today. And they are even collecting advances from Saudi Arabia without interest. They never wanted Nigeria to enjoy such a facility. And the loan was blocked when the Brentwood institutions were the Super Powers, they blocked direct loan from Saudi Arabia to Nigeria. Then we resorted to home grown economy called the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).
SAP was not manufactured by the military. It was propounded by the Nigerian economists. And we started the implementation of SAP. Interestingly, Britain, India, Brazil, Pakistan, Malaysia, were all going through the same economic depression as a result of global economic crisis. They borrowed the idea from Nigeria. Britain started her own SAP under Margret Thatcher. Pakistan, Brazil, Argentina, Malaysia and some about other eleven countries, we started making do with what we could produce in Nigeria. We didn’t have money to import spare parts for machinery. That was the time we began fabrication of machinery and equipment in Nigeria. That would have catapulted us to the first level of industrial revolution in Nigeria.
And that was the time they brought out the idea of Better Life for Rural Women in Nigeria. That was the time rural roads were massively constructed into the bushes across the country under DIFRI. That was the time we began massive production of food crops. As a matter of fact, we began home grown wheat in Jigawa and Borno areas of Nigeria because we didn’t have money again to import wheat and we started using cassava and corn mixed with wheat to produce bread in this country. Can’t we reason or are we so forgetful? And things were going on like that. Most of the fabricating centres, Nigerian Railway in Yaba became one of the producers of spare parts companies in Nigeria. There was one in Agege, one in Kaduna. The Igbo in the East started manufacturing and Onitsha was booming with locally fabricated tools. Yes, they were not the best, but corrections were being made, improvements were being achieved.
Then came the popular refrains like SAP is sapping us, the suffering is too much. My brother, there is no gain without pain. There is no way to make omelette without breaking eggs. We were then trying to break the shell so as to get good omelette to eat when there was public outcry against SAP. The outcry was led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was an ex-Head of State. He was leading the pressure on Babangida. He used one language that we will never forget; SAP must have a human face, and everybody was singing it like cannery. And what was the result of that? We began criticism of SAP.
Even at a breaking point, Margaret Thatcher did not allow revision of the British Adjustment Programme. They kept on pushing and pushing as she was there for 15 years and Britain broke out of economic recession to become prosperous again. Pakistan did. Brazil did, Argentina did. Many other countries did. But our own was truncated with excessive media debate.
Where did the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) get involved?
Before that time, we never knew about the concept of human rights organiSations in the history of Nigeria between 1960 and1987/88. That time when it started fruiting, maybe one or two or three like the Centre for Democracy (CD), started the war that we must drive the military away. And in the call to drive the military away, we saw nothing good in the military. I have gone to this historical length to refresh our memory that the Nigerian radicals and the emerging pro-democracy advocates made the country technically ungovernable. Babangida was pushing on. Let us look at the achievements of Babangida in governance.
The Third Mainland Bridge was abandoned. The metro project of Lagos State under the Lateef Jakande administration that could have liberated Lagos State from traffic jam was abandoned. But the Third Mainland Bridge was completed by the Babangida Regime. I don’t want to single him out as an individual. It was his regime. So many expressways were constructed under the regime like the Kaduna-Kano, Abuja, Benin-Ore. In the east, roads were built in scores. Even movement to Abuja, which was at snail pace, because there was no money coming in, Babangida took the bull by the horns and started the monumental infrastructure there. 80 per cent of the projects could be credited to Babangida, including the National Assembly, the International Conference and many more.
How much was the price of a barrel of oil then? It was sold as low as $9 per dollar. When the SAP came in, it dovetailed into SFEM, a double window for foreign currency. Manufacturers would patronise one section. Non-manufacturers would patronise another section. That was the beginning of the free fall of naira. When IMF asked us to devalue our naira, it was for about two and a half per cent to 5%. But when the SFEM came into operation, the first devaluation was about 30%. From IMF 3 -5% naira, was exchanging for 14.8 to one dollar. What percentage is that? Who pressured the government to adopt that system? Were we not, my colleagues, my seniors, in the media, if we had advised the government not to follow the loud mouths and that the government should go ahead and take the IMF loan, we would have saved the country from the economic collapse.
When SFEM started, free fall of naira began N3. 50, to N5, to N11, to N21 to N35 to a dollar. And we have never been able to arrest the fall of naira ever since. It was a suicidal mission. We committed suicide on the naira exchange rate. Rather than take the 5% IMF devaluation, we substituted it ourselves with the free fall of the naira. When the news that Saudi Arabia wanted to give Nigeria a N5 billion loan, the Christian community rose like a Trojan horse, saying Babangida wanted to Islamise Nigeria. It is an Islamisation agenda and so on. And because about 90 per cent of the media are owned by Christians, Muslims could not defend themselves. The loan had nothing to do with Islam. Islam does not pressurise us to Islamise. Allah said, Islam is His own religion and He is the One to propagate it.
That is why I said the media that has the responsibility to communicate the truth and the fact as it was shirked its responsibility. In the cardinal principle of journalism, facts are sacred, the comment is free. In the issue of the OIC, the fact became no sacred, it became sacrificed. And things have never been the same again since that time till today in terms of the religious relationship between the Muslims and Christian in Nigeria.
Going by this picture of Babangida you have painted, are you saying the former military president was a saint through and through while in the saddle?
Babangida did tremendously well for this country. However the greatest error of his life was the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election won by his friend, Bashorun MKO Abiola. That annulment was very, very unpatriotic. Yes, he was (allegedly) threatened with the gun pointed at his head by some cabal in the military, but cowards die many times before their deaths…! You are a soldier. If you can pay the supreme price for your country to survive, go ahead and pay it. Adekunle Fajuyi paid a supreme price. If Fajuyi had not laid down his life and Aguyi Ironsi was killed in the West, this country would have turned into pieces earlier and faster than anything. But Fajuyi laid down his life for Nigeria to be united. That is why when the Igbo say Yoruba are betrayers, I feel annoyed. They are unappreciative of the sacrifice of Yoruba.
At the time of the civil war, the Yoruba fought on the side of unity. That was the only option available to us. There was no regret about it and there would be no regret about it by the West. To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done. Yakubu Gowon was neither Hausa nor Fulani. And even with his name, Yakubu, he was never for one minute of his life a Muslim. And interestingly, Ojukwu used that as propaganda that Nigeria was waging an Islamic war against the Igbo; that the Head of State was a Muslim.
So, if I look at the history of Babangida’s administration, the layout of his economic system, the SAP and infrastructural achievements of his time, he did excellently well for this country. If anybody wants to countermine me, he should google. Google has liberated the world from falsification and blackmail for those who want to learn.
Against this backdrop, what advice will you like to give the media your constituency?
My colleagues in the media should go down memory lane, investigate, research and put the fact straight at all times. How many assassinations of prominent Nigerians did we have under the regime of IBB? How many assassinations of prominent Nigerians did we have under the Obasanjo regime? Who should be vilified?
As a political scientist, politician and prominent stakeholder in Nigeria, what is your take on the political situation in the country?
The presidential system we inherited from Muritala /Obasanjo regime was a dysfunctional system. The presidential system of government in a nation brought up under a parliamentary system is mis-normal. The culture is not there to back up the system. Under the presidential system, we are operating, the president governs only for about two years and immediately after the two years, we begin preparation for another round of elections that come up next two years. No governance again. How to win the election becomes the priority for both the president and the governors. What kind of system is that?
And when he wins for a second term, he becomes untouchable with presidential immunity. And after two years of his second term, the party will put pressure on him that they must win again. So, he also loses focus on governance by leading the campaign. For how long are we to do this? The presidential system is too costly to run. It is even too costly for politicians. As a member of the House of Representatives, all you need is your consistency to win and then go and negotiate for power at the top.
To become a prime minister, you cannot spend up to one over 1000 of what you need to spend to become the president of this country. Governance has been monetised.
When I contested the election for a seat in the House of Representatives, I campaigned for about three to four years and I spent above N80 million. Those who were collecting the money from me were not even my constituency people. Were they not my party people? And they expected me to go and serve them. How? Though I have made up my mind to go and serve them, how do I pay back the debt I incurred during the campaigns? I lost the election. If I were not a journalist, who was not money-minded when I was in practice, I would not have come out of the woods. Those whom Allah sent me to, I promoted them without conditionality. I didn’t collect a dime. I didn’t collect any envelope from anybody. Those were the people, who said, ‘Liad, you should not be disgraced while we are still around. And they came to my rescue by giving me some jobs to do. That was what I have been managing myself with till today.
The parliamentary system is far less expensive than the presidential system and much more stable. Let there be moving of motions here and there so that we can trot and trot and learn the process over time. The presidential system can never and will never be in favour of Nigeria in terms of political stability and economic development. We would be groping in the dark all the time. The National Assembly and those who have tasted the power of the presidential system should save Nigeria and fear Allah and the day they would be held accountable, should revert from presidential system to parliamentary system of government for the good of the country and her citizens.
We did not allow the parliamentarian system to thrive, to remodel itself, to learn from experience. The first election after independence was the 1965 general election. And the regional election was in 1964. Those were the first elections and we used the experience of the first election to judge. We should have allowed the system to subsist to learn from our mistakes. We would have been probably one of the greatest countries in the world today.
Look at western Nigeria under Awolowo. Look at northern Nigeria under Sadauna. Sadauna was a very good Muslim but never discriminated against Christianity. He opened the door of opportunity for everybody without consideration for creed or religion. He was a passionate leader. He realised the weakness of the North and he insisted that North would be ready for governance when they had the machinery to manage and trot on. If Papa Awolowo had allowed Pa Enahoro’s 1953 motion for independence to prevail and we got our Independence in 1957 as programmed, the North would have probably got its independence either in 1963 or sometime later. The East would have got its independence in 1962 or 1963.
Maybe, under the new global trend, we would still have come together as a Nigeria, as the Europeans came together to form EU. And we could have been up and better for it. There was a time during the military regime that the North signed an agreement with the western region on recruitment of teachers. My uncle was one of those recruited to go to the North-west, as teachers in their secondary schools and their Teachers’ Training Colleges because there was no autonomous power to drive that system. The West went up there. Otherwise, Indians and Pakistanis were brought in as teachers, then Sadauna realised that these people could not teach our culture and northerners brought in teachers from western Nigeria in the same country.
It was with agreement. Some teachers were in that agreement for ten years. Many did not return after ten years. They stayed back and they are northerners today. What is wrong in that? It fostered love, brotherhood, cooperation and understanding. Those were the four legs of the stool that kept Nigeria united.