Former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida has said that former President Goodluck Jonathan lost the 2015 elections because he was inexperienced not because he was incompetent.
General Babangida who spoke with The Interview magazine in the December 2015 edition disagreed with critics who described the former President as incompetent. He said “If you use inexperience, I will buy that.”
He also spoke about a wide range of issues including the botched Orkar coup of 1990. While recounting the events, he said “They obviously didn’t have a lot of experience. It was during the fasting period.
“We were still in Dodan Barracks then. My wife got up from sleep and said she had noticed very unusual movement of troops from one end to the other. So she woke me up and said I should look through the window.
”I found troops moving from one end to the other. The next thing I heard was shooting going on. We tried to put a small party together. It was about 1.30am. Then the guards, the bodyguards said let’s check out of this place. I was a bit stubborn. I told them I was not leaving. It didn’t occur to me that we had a bunker at Dodan Barracks.
“We had, but it didn’t occur to me to use it. And so, they came. I said the only thing I would concede to, I would evacuate my family. My wife had her last born, who was just a few months old, with her. So they evacuated them to a safe house.
“So, I remained with a few bodyguards. We decided to get out and move around. We went to a safe house around Surulere. I had a bodyguard, Omuah. We just moved in there. From there, we established communication. I later established communication with Abacha, Raji Rasaki (who was governor of Lagos then) and the other. They had mobilised their troops.
“Abacha didn’t save my life in the Orkar coup. We worked together to crush Orkar’s coup.”