IBB Again, Again?



Former military ruler, Ibraim Badamasi Babangida has declared that he will seek the ruling party's nomination for the presidential election next year, challenging Goodluck Jonathan, the incumbent president.

He believes that PDP's "zoning formula" can help him in seeking the nomination.

Ibrahim Babangida, who was forced to step down in 1993, announced his ambition in a speech on Monday, just a day after the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar announced his intention.

"The PDP accepts that all of us including Jonathan have the right to contest and I will exercise my franchise," he said in a speech.

Babangida seized power in a coup in August 1985 and ruled the country under a shadow of massive corruption, fraud, assassinations, and drug peddling. Eight years later, he was forced to step down after annulling an election that was generally regarded as fair without reason. 

The 69-year-old is a Muslim from the state of Niger, and he had declared previously that the generation of Nigerians below is age lack the capacity to govern themselves.

An unwritten agreement in the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) says power should rotate between the north and south, meaning the next president should be a northerner if the principle is maintained.

But PDP said on Thursday that President Jonathan has the right to contest the election, because the unusual circumstances in which he took over the presidency warranted a suspension of the zoning rules.

President Jonathan was sworn in as president in May after Umaru Yar'Adua, his predecessor, died of illness part way through his first term.

President Goodluck Jonathan has not yet said whether he plans to stand, but a bid would need the support of northerners within the PDP to be guaranteed victory in the polls.

Atiku Abubakar, from the north and former Nigerian vice-president, has also declared his intention to seek the PDP nomination on Sunday 15th August.

Yar'Adua had left Nigeria for medical treatment in November, and power was transferred to Jonathan, then vice-president, in February after rounds of legal wrangling.


President Olusegun Obasanjo, had governed Nigeria as an army general, from 1976 to 1979. He was then elected as president in 1999 and stayed in power until 2007 as a civilian.

There was a consensus, among the people in the north especially, that Obasanjo should be elected. But with Babangida there's no such consensus.