Former Military dictator, PDP member and presidential aspirant Ibrahim Badamasi Babagida once described himself as then evil genius. The impact of his ingenuity on Nigeria was without doubt visible or all to see. He did what previous rulers could not do. He experimented with Nigeria as his whims and caprices dictated. For him Nigeria was a lab to test his intellectualism. He gathered around himself some of the brightest professors in Nigeria and often read very long contradictory speeches which often sent his listeners to sleep, only waking up to hear the bombshell of decisions.
Of course, he was right to have to have regarded himself as better than the military rulers before him. He accomplished what they could not do. Gowon changed his mind on the handover, saying 1975 was unrealistic and got booted out of office and was, in addition, implicated in a coup plot. Babangida changed in his mind about 1989, 1990 and 1992 without facing much problem. It was the 1993 elections that chased him out of the village in a most famous stepping aside drama.
He introduced the structural adjustment programme, which Buhari before did not want to do. His was intensive and oppressive than Shagari€„¢s austerity measures. He id not think he was going to have street riots but he got them. In 1989 scores of young people across the country were killed
The evil rained on the people increased at all levels as corruption was officialised. Public officials were no longer afraid of showing off wealth and properties they acquired while in office. It was therefore not surprising that he declared that Nigeria economy had defied understanding. The expectations that it was going to collapse and street riots would tear every apart were did not come to pass.
The unfriendliness to people increased and distortions in the economy have just increased. Things seems so strange and bad. Nigeria has moved from just being a developing country to being failing state. Corruption has been so rife that Nigeria at a point got the rank of being the most corrupt country in the world.
One of the distortions in the economy is Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
As it becomes more beautiful it becomes more user unfriendly. Un,like most other parts of the world, for instance,, people don€„¢t live in the city centre of Abuja. When night falls the poor people have to get out of Abuja and only reappear in the morning to clean the city for the rich.
The poor and lowly paid are stuck in places like Mararaba, Nyanya, Masaka, Kubwa among others. Apart from Kubwa all other settlements do not have water. Electricity is a luxury affordable by only those who can afford, low quality, noisy and climate unfriendly Chinese generators.
The traffic holds up from Nyanya nad Mararaba to the city centre have made the Lagos traffic hold up children play.
Interestingly, El Rufai Ahmed Nasir, a descendant of peasants from Zaria, who seems to have a passionate hatred for the poor, closed corner shops and the small scale businesses that kept so many young people employed.
Now while the new Minister of the Federal capital says that crimes has reduced in the city centre, crimes have increased in the suburbs, especially at Nyanya and Mararaba. Night falls have become nightmares. Gunshots have become the regular feature of night life in Mararaba. Stories of ritual killings, 419 and sundry crimes have become rampant.
What a tragedy!!!!!!!!