KANO – In his open letter titled Abacha’s Legacy Shines Where Yours Faltered, Sameer Lukman, Personal Assistant and Media Head to HC Land and Physical Planning, Kano State, challenges General Ibrahim Babangida’s portrayal of historical events in his memoir, A Journey in Service, launched on February 20, 2025.
Lukman criticizes Babangida for attempting to shift responsibility for the annulment of the June 12, 1993, election onto General Sani Abacha, calling it a “convenient rewrite of history.”
Babangida claims in his book that Abacha was his “biggest headache” and that he was unaware of the annulment, asserting that it was executed without his authorization while he was in Katsina.
Truth Live News learned that he recalls being “alarmed” when the press secretary to his deputy, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, made the announcement.
“To suddenly have an announcement made without my authority was, to put it mildly, alarming,” Babangida writes, further stating that he later discovered that “the ‘forces’ led by General Sani Abacha annulled the elections.”
Lukman dismisses this as an attempt to evade accountability, pointing out that Babangida was the Commander-in-Chief and had the power to prevent the annulment.
He questions why Babangida appointed Abacha as Chief of Defence Staff and left him as a key figure in the Interim National Government if he truly considered him a destabilizing force.
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Lukman also challenges Babangida’s portrayal of Abacha as an untrustworthy schemer, reminding him that Abacha had previously saved him during the 1990 Orkar coup.
The Media Head on his X handle criticizes Babangida’s legacy, arguing that his rule weakened Nigeria economically and politically.
He highlights that Babangida’s Structural Adjustment Program devalued the naira, caused inflation, and led to mass impoverishment, while corruption thrived under his watch.
In contrast, Lukman defends Abacha’s leadership, crediting him with stabilizing Nigeria.
He notes that Abacha increased Nigeria’s foreign reserves from $494 million to $9.6 billion, reduced external debt, and curbed inflation from 54% to 8.5%, all while oil prices remained low. “Abacha took power in 1993 not to ruin Nigeria, but to steady it,” he asserts.
Lukman concludes that Babangida’s attempt to revise history cannot erase the economic and political damage caused by his regime, nor can it diminish Abacha’s more tangible contributions to Nigeria’s stability.