Social Media Post In Praise Of Military Govt Not From Me, Ignore It-IBB

Retired General Ibrahim Babangida, a former military president, has denied having any connection with a controversial social media post that was in praise of military government,.

Team@orientactualmags.com learned that Babangida, who made this clarification in a statement that was issued in Minna  by his media aide, Mahmud Abdullahi, also restated his commitment to democratic system of government..

The retired General, who was the nation’s Military President between 1985 and 1993, has also urged all Nigerians to, not only embrace democratic government but also ensure its success.

The statement urged media practitioners and social media users in the country to endeavour to seek authenticity of such social media posts before circulating them or making it a news item.

‘Our attention has been drawn to a post on a parody account on X, formerly known as twitter, which carries the handle, @General_Ibbro, in which former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, GCFR, was supposed to have endorsed the virtues of military  government over democratic governance.

This dubious account carries our principal’s picture and name and the coat of arms of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for added effect but it does not belong to him nor does the former President sanction any post appearing there.

In the past and more famously during the presidential election last year, it posted a blatant falsehood that the former President had endorsed a particular presidential candidate and his party, thereby causing public confusion and some embarrassment to the Elder Statesman.

We have just learned that it has posted a similarly fake statement where the former President was supposed to have said that Nigeria has the best years under military, democracy made things worst.

We want to state unequivocally that neither the twitter nor X account which is essentially a parody or pretend account, nor the statement made therein ever belonged to the retired General.

For the avoidance of doubt, retired  General Babangida  believes that Nigeria’s democracy is resilient and has come to stay and that we must do everything we can to safeguard the process.

As a nation, we are currently facing a number of challenges but the former president has always expressed the view that we will eventually overcome these challenges and come out a stronger, more progressive nation. The solution to our problems as he had said previously, is ‘more’ democracy, not less.

General Babangida truly believes that the era of military intervention in Nigeria’s politics is long gone and he has said how proud he is that the Nigerian military has stood firmly behind multiple democratic governments in this country since 1999, thus, giving us the longest run of civilian administration since independence.

The user of this unfortunate parody account which we gathered was traditionally supposed to be an account that imitates or at least mirror the sentiments of the original twitter or X account that it copies, has serially chosen to use the account to undermine democracy and spread stories capable of causing animosity.

Sadly, there seems very little we can do to make the overseers of X or twitter to remove or sanction this tiresome account, so, we are again obliged to advise the general public to ignore any post from this account that purportedly claims to represent General Babangida’s opinion’ the statement added-Team@orientactualmags.com  Do you have any information you wish to share with us? Do you want us to cover your event or programme? Kindly send SMS to 08059100286, 09094171980 or get in touch via orientactualmag@gmail.com.  Thank you