The Nigerian Pressitude Love Affairs with Dictators and Nation-Wreckers: A Classical Case of Stockholm’s Syndrome
It is impossible for a patriotic Nigerian not to feel sad and embarrassed by the country's current state of affairs, especially those of us born in the 1960s, and have a genuine love and concern for the country's progress.
Unfortunately, as the lot of Nigeria nosedived to unimaginable abysmal levels, the shameless and amoral kleptomaniac mis-rulers continue to behave as if they live in a parallel universe.
Put bluntly, Nigeria's political elite have neither care nor empathy for their compatriots. The more Nigerians groan in agony, the more its reprobate and cretinous leaders ululate to their vuvuzelas.
Witness what happened on Sunday, February 20, 2025, when the Nigerian press treated citizens to the spectacle of the movers and shakers of that unfortunate country, including the sitting president, gathered in lavish celebration of a man whose name should be synonymous with treachery, brutality, deception, destruction, and nation-wrecking - Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.
The occasion? A book launch in honor of a man who once held Nigeria in an iron grip, plundered its wealth, killed many, and left millions of its citizens in crushing poverty.
In any sane society, a man with Babangida’s record would be living out his days in infamy, at best, rotting in a prison cell. In China and Vietnam, such a man would have been tried and executed for betraying his people. But in Nigeria, where the lines between hero and villain are blurred and obliterated, the grand criminal is celebrated instead.
As the champagne flowed and large sums of money were donated to the former manipulative and ruthless military dictator, the Nigerian press covered the event in breathless admiration as though this were an occasion to be proud of.
Whichever way we throw it around, this is not just a national disgrace; it is an indictment of the Nigerian media, which, instead of holding power to account, has become an enthusiastic enabler of those who ruined the country. Unlike in the past, today’s Nigeria press landscape appears to be inhabited by shamelessly corrupt people with no honor, morals, ethics, or integrity.
How else could any person of honor and conscience give tribune to IBB?
Although Nigeria has had a checkered history, Ibrahim Babangida was the architect of the country’s descent into chaos. IBB combined brute force with guile to institutionalize corruption, economic sabotage, and political instability. Self-satisfied with his Machiavellian manipulations, Babangida dubbed himself the “Maradona.”
Here are just ten of his most egregious crimes against the Nigerian people:
1. The Murder of Dele Giwa
On October 19, 1986, a parcel bomb delivered to the home of journalist Dele Giwa exploded in his hands, killing him instantly. This was the first (and so far, only) instance of assassination by letter bomb in Nigeria’s history. Dele Giwa had been investigating the link between Babangida’s regime and the drug cartels. A few days before his death, IBB’s State Security Service (SSS) interrogated the famous journalist on trumped-up allegations of plotting against the state.
2. The IMF-Imposed Structural Adjustment Program (SAP)
Few policies have devastated Nigeria’s socio-economic progress, such as Babangida’s embrace of the IMF-imposed Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). Against the will of his compatriots, IBB imposed this neoliberal economic strangulation, which destroyed the country’s nascent industrial base, devalued the naira, and pushed millions into poverty.
Like many Africans, Nigerians protested vehemently against SAP, knowing instinctively that it would ruin them. But Babangida, ever the servant of foreign interests, foisted it on the country with devastating consequences, from which the country reels up to today. The results of SAP were catastrophic: hyperinflation, mass unemployment, and the dismantling of social services. Today, Nigeria still suffers from the ruinous effects of SAP, as the economy remains fragile and overly dependent on oil exports.
3. Drug Cartel Connections
It was under Babangida’s rule that Nigeria became a hub for international drug trafficking. Babangida never provided answers to the numerous allegations linking his regime to the narcotic trade.
4. The Endless Transition-to-Democracy Scam
Babangida was a master of deception. Between 1985 and 1993, he manipulated Nigeria’s political system, pretending to transition the country to democracy while doing everything possible to remain in power. His elaborate schemes (scam is a better word) banning and unbanning politicians, forming and dissolving political parties, and endless delays - kept the country in perpetual political limbo. For eight years, he ran Nigeria like a personal fiefdom, only to eventually betray the very transition he had promised.
5. The Annulment of the June 12, 1993 Election
Without a doubt, the most infamous act of Babangida’s rule was his annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, widely regarded as the freest and fairest in Nigerian history. Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, a personal friend of Babangida, won that election in a landslide. But Babangida, unwilling to relinquish power, canceled the results and plunged Nigeria into chaos. His actions led to years of instability, culminating in the dictatorship of Sani Abacha and Abiola’s eventual death in detention. In his book, the dictator tries to tell the tale that the annulment was done without his authority. The lying thief did not tell us how the most momentous decision in his eight years of misrule could have been made without his authority.
6. Institutionalizing Corruption
Nigeria has always been tainted with whiffs of corruption, but Babangida didn’t just steal; he normalized looting on an industrial scale. Under his watch, billions of dollars vanished, and the culture of unaccountability became entrenched. Under him, the infamous $12.4 billion Gulf War oil windfall disappeared.
7. The Marginalization of the Middle Class
Things were not all rosy in Nigeria before Babangida, but the country had a thriving middle class - the locomotive that drives the modern economy. Babangida’s economic policies, particularly SAP, obliterated it. The once-flourishing professional class—teachers, doctors, engineers, trained at huge expenses — descended into poverty, leading to a massive brain drain. Nigeria has never recovered.
8. Destruction of Educational Institutions
This is among the greatest tragedies of Babagida’s rule. Through his imposition of SAP, Babangida underfunded education, which led to the collapse of universities and secondary schools. Lecturers went on endless strikes, students protested, and the education system deteriorated. The effects are still visible today: millions of poorly educated youth with no prospects. Having a dysfunctional education system has become normalized in the country.
9. Weakening of National Institutions
Like the Machiavelli that he was, Babangida’s style of rule was based on grand manipulation. He undermined the judiciary, turned the military into a political tool, and weakened national institutions to serve his personal interests. He created a system where loyalty to him mattered more than competence. It is this destruction of state institutions that still haunts Nigeria today.
10. The Rise of Ethnic and Religious Tensions
By playing different groups against each other, Babangida deepened ethnic and religious divisions in Nigeria. His decision to register Nigeria as a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 1986, without public debate, sowed seeds of discord that continue to fuel religious conflicts in the country till today.
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” — Marcus Garvey
As one watches the unholy celebration of IBB and his self-serving book, the question arises: How does a nation so grievously wounded by a man like Babangida turn around and celebrate him?
What has become of the Nigerian press that should act as the voice of the people but instead sing the praises of their tormentors?
The answer could be found in what psychologists call Stockholm Syndrome - the condition where hostages develop affection for their captors.
Nigerians, brutalized for decades by corrupt and predatory leaders, have been conditioned to see their oppressors as indispensable. Babangida and his ilk have mastered the art of rewriting history, portraying themselves as “statesmen” instead of the wretched criminals they are.
To redeem themselves and their country, Nigerians must wake up and call their media people to order. The spectacle of watching criminals like Babangida and co being celebrated should be embarrassing to normal people. The Nigerian press must stop normalizing abnormalities - they should stop rehabilitating and celebrating criminals.
Nigerians must find ways to put an end to the celebration of those who looted and murdered with impunity. People like Babangida should be held accountable, not honored with book launches.
In China, men like him are shot for their crimes against the people. It is an option that Nigeria should employ if the country has to regain its footing.
These are what some great minds think of journalists:
All newspaper and journalistic activity is an intellectual brothel from which there is no retreat. - Leo Tolstoy
“If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands too shaky to perform operations, he becomes a journalist.” - Norman Mailer
“Journalism has changed… partisanship is very much a part of journalism now.” -Leslie Moonves
“The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.”
As far as I'm concerned, it's a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity.” - Hunter S. Thompson
“I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.” - Christopher Hitchens
“What you read in the newspapers, hear on the radio and see on television, is hardly even the truth as seen by experts; it is the wishful thinking of journalists, seen through filters of prejudice and ignorance.” - Hans Eysenck
“… editorial board ranging from CNN to WaPo and NYT with WSJ is a collection of not only corrupts prostitutes (non-corrupt prostitutes provide honest service for the money) but a collection of cretins with credentials in BS as are their "experts" (e.g., Petraeus, Keane or Forbes' own David Axe).
Moreover, Journalism Schools all across the world are nothing more than degree mills for feeble-minded chimpanzees who couldn't understand quadratic equations, as are all those Ph.Ds in this shit and "professors", who are shysters, in every single Ivy League "journalism" program. Finally, somebody begins to call them out.” - Andrei Martyanov.
©️ Fẹ̀mi Akọ̀mọ̀làfẹ̀
(Farmer, Writer, Published Author, Essayist, Polemicist, Satirist, and Social Commentator.)
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