Wrong time for IBB to turn 80

You may wonder why? PMB is not as hated today as he was when gap

toothed IBB eased him out of power.

The biggest misadventure of the Buhari/Idiagbon regime was to have executed Bartholomew Owoh and Bernard Ogedengbe retroactively in the vain belief that it will cure the scourge of drug trafficking.

Rather than that, it awakened interest in it. People began to reason that for people to be killed for it, it had to be lucrative.

On the wave of the disconnect, having endeared himself to the people with War Against Indiscipline, IBB emerged as a Messiah.

Then Maradonic promises followed. Structural Adjustment Program without an alternative, (ask Ibrahim Ayagi and Oladele Olashore who though government bankers called IBB's bluff), for eighteen months only but it remained ever green.

IBB was smart but lacked a proper understanding of History. He claimed Chaka the Zulu was his hero. Ayo Ositelu of Punch using Chinese Zodiac branded him a snake and was spot on.

If IBB understood History, he would have known that it was unheard of for government to set up parties for the people to join.

He did and missed his place in Guinness book of records because he preferred perfidy to legacy, by opting for self perpetuation instead of the Glory of a statesman.

Perhaps that informed his failed attempt at a come back but elections are won not on assumptions but on profile.

IBB did himself no good. In spite of his military rank and grandstanding, he left office in spite of himself, famously saying that he was stepping aside.

His place in world history would have been assured had he not begun a journey he intended to end nowhere.

The pity of it all was that IBB was indeed a personification of Evil. Was it Dele Giwa, Mamman Vatsa, death of student Unionism, militarization of the campus, settlement syndrome across board, civil servants, the military and even teachers?

He enjoyed displaying mischief and sophistry to no good end.

My judgement may be harsh but how do you sell a bad product? I made no choices for IBB. I was only a bewildered on looker putting down recollections of a sordid past from a brutal pretender.

No doubt IBB had his admirers but he was the architect of June 12, the annulled Elections. Revisionists have tried to no end. Even IBB is not done regaling us with tales of who dun it. 

Like him or hate him, turning 80 at other times but now would have been more salutary. PMB is a sad reminder of the emergence on the scene of a false Messiah.