By Onoja John
In celebration of the 81st Birthday of the former head of state, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB 2022 Dialogue Series was convened by IBB’s daughter, Aisha Babangida and instituted by the Ibrahim and Mariam Babangida Presidential Library & Museum tagged “Issues In Africa’s Democratic Journey.”
The 2022 IBB Legacy dialogue slated for Thursday, August 25th, 2022 , at the African Hall of the International Conference Centre beginning at 10:00am was set against the immediate backdrop of Nigeria’s 2023 transition elections reflecting the issues surrounding the triumphs and travails of democracy on the continent from prestigious industry leaders and past presidential characters, as well as panel
discussions from some of the most inspiring Africans that ever left a social, political, or economic mark in their regions.
These inspiring Africans includes, the Social Democratic Party(SDP) Presidential candidate Prince Adewole Adebayo, Hon. Minister of FCT, Alhaji Musa Bello, Former Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, his excellency Engineer Namadi sambo, the presidential candidate of Action Alliance (AA) Alhaji Hamza Al-mustapha amongst others.
The former minister of Youth and sports Hon. Minister Solomon Dalung in a short speech stated the importance of our democratic leaders in implementing a proper working educational system ahead of the forth coming 2023 general elections.
The SDP presidential candidate Prince Adewole Adebayo was selected as a distinguished guest at this year’s dialogue based on his personal merit and professional track record in contributing to the democratic development of the Nigerian polity.
Prince Adewole Adebayo started by acknowledging the governing classes.
Moving forward, he said that both the problems and solutions of Nigeria are in this room.
In his words to the public he said;
“IBB left a legacy. Legacy takes time because things takes time to mature, things takes time to make sense and things make sense to different generations in different ways.
IBB was a youth when he took over power and these wonderful things he has done, was done when he was a youth. So it breaks the myth that, you have to be very old and tired before you can make sense in politics”.
Referring to the celebrant, Prince Adebayo disclosed that the General will take praises and criticism same way.
He further pointed out that whatever errors IBB made, whatever achievement he made is not an excuse for us to have a government that is worse than the one he ran.
Adebayo stated that when interrogating any regime in Nigeria, there should be no excuse not to consolidate where they got it right and learn lessons from where they got it wrong and that is one lesson he has learnt as a leader, that he will not make the same mistake made by an earlier leader and he will never spoil anything they have got right.
” I am not saddened or burdened and annoyed that I met insecurity, I met poverty. As a leader, whatever challenge I meet that time is the challenge I’m meant to come and solve. So we find solutions to them.
We for our generation and the Social Democratic party, are not worried, we are not in despair, and we have hope that these problems when you give us the opportunity we would solve the problem Prince Adebayo said”.
The presidential candidate concluded by saying that, whatever the crises in Nigeria today, there are no national crises of any dimension that you can not resolve through Gen. Babangida because almost everybody in every sphere of life academics, military, political, and administrative has a connection to him. And if we use that medium, there’s no issue that we cannot resolve in this country and we should try as much as possible to raise leaders, Youth or older people, whatever leaders who will not be divisive, who will be leaders who will unite the country because the problem we are crying about in this country, they pay to insignificance to the problems other countries are facing.
Thank you, he remarked.
