Lifestyle
IBB is 84 today! The ‘Maradona’ who became president at 44 (PHOTOS)
Born August 17, 1941 in Minna, Nigeria, Ibrahim Babangida became Nigeria’s military president at 44 in 1985 after removing Muhammadu Buhari from office.
He rose through the ranks and was known for his courage—he played a major role in suppressing an attempted cøup in 1976 when he walked into a rëbel-held radio station unarmed.
After Murtala Mohammed became the military head of state in 1975, Babangida joined his Supreme Military Council. He played a significant role in the cøup that replaced the civilian government of Shehu Shagari with the military regime led by Muhammad Buhari. However, deep dissatisfaction with Buhari’s restrictive governance led Babangida to oust Buhari in August 1985.
Upon taking over, Babangida reduced the governmental control of the press and released a number of detainees from the former civilian government. However, he faced the same economic problems that Buhari had struggled with and the same domestic dissatisfaction. He came to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund and received new loans from the World Bank, but the resultant devaluation of the naira, the local currency, led to social unrest, which he addressed by dissolving part of the Nigeria Labour Congress and temporarily closing the universities.
Babangida announced early in 1986 that a civilian government would be formed by 1990, later extending the date by two years to allow more time for preparation. He decreed that no politician from the civilian regimes or office-holding military officials could stand as candidates. He allowed no political parties during the transition period and approved only two political parties when campaigning began – the National Republican Convention and the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
As a further move to show that he was firmly in control, Babangida dissolved the Armed Forces Ruling Council in favour of smaller bodies and dismissed many of his closest military colleagues. An attempted cøup in April 1990 led by Major Gideon Orkar was quickly contained. Babangida later announced that Nigeria had suspended its membership in the Islamic Conference Organization amid speculation among southern Nigerians that he was trying to make the country Islamic. The long-planned transfer of the federal capital from Lagos to Abuja, a location in central Nigeria, was completed under Babangida in 1991.
The fulfillment of Babangida’s pledge of a return to civilian government seemed imminent when a presidential election was finally held in 1993. Initial results indicated that businessman Moshood Abiola, the SDP candidate, was the apparent winner, but, before the official results were announced, Babangida annulled the election—a decision which proved to be controversial and unpopular. In the wake of the civil unrest that ensued, he handed control of the country over to an interim civilian panel headed by businessman Ernest Shonekan and stepped down from government. In 2025 Babangida expressed his regret over the annulment of the election.
On the regional stage, Babangida was instrumental in changing the orientation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Although it had been strictly an economic body, Babangida succeeded in having ECOWAS use ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) troops to restore stability in Liberia after civil war erupted in that country.
Credit: Babangida’s memoir, A Journey in Service: An Autobiography, was released in 2025.
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