Former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida has described as fake news claims that he is endorsing a military takeover due to the state of the nation.
This is in reaction to an X account with the name #General_Ibbro in which former President Ibrahim Babangida, was alleged to have endorsed the virtues of military rule over democratic governance.
In a statement by his media aide, Mahmoud Abdullahi, the dubious account carries IBB’s picture and name, and the coat of arms of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for added effect, but it does not belong to him, nor does the former President sanction any post appearing there.
The statement further added that, in the past, and more famously during the presidential election last year, it posted a blatant falsehood that the former President had endorsed a particular presidential candidate and his party, thereby causing public confusion and some embarrassment to the elder statesman.
According to Abdullahi, General Babangida believes that Nigeria’s democracy is resilient and has come to stay and that we must do everything we can to safeguard the process.
He added that as a country currently facing several challenges, the former President has always expressed the view that we will eventually overcome these challenges and come out a stronger, more progressive nation saying, the solution to our problems, is “more” democracy, not less.
General Babangida truly believes that the era of military intervention in Nigeria’s politics is long gone and he has said how proud he is that the Nigerian military has stood firmly behind multiple democratic governments in this country since 1999, thus giving us the longest run of civilian administration since independence.
According to him, “there seems very little they can do to make the overseers of X remove or sanction this tiresome account, so we are again obliged to advise the general public to ignore any post from this account that purportedly claims to represent my opinion”.
The statement therefore calls on media professionals and social media users to be more discerning and make the necessary efforts to get confirmation before sharing messages attributed to former President Babangida on X or any social media platform.
