Babangida who was speaking on a talk show in a television programme, Straight Talk, on CHANNELS Television said all the candidates have shown passion for the unity of the country and therefore, he endorses all of them.
According to Leadership, the gap-toothed retired General, was asked by the programme presenter, Kadaria Ahmed if he endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan as was reported in some sections of the media, Babangida said, “I did allude to that, I said I found him as someone who has a very strong belief about the unity of this country.
“Those of us who fought the civil war, I still carry a bullet here as a permanent reminder in me, anything that talks about Nigeria’s unity, I get impassioned about it. So what I said is that the president believes in the unity of this country and any other person who believes in the unity of this country should support the president to keep the country one.
“Well, as far as 2015 is concerned all the presidential candidates, 14 of them have my blessing. The only difference, I did mention it, is that, I have not been able to read what they have to offer to this country and I am going to do that. Whoever offers what I was looking forward to I will cast my vote,” he said.
The Minna-born General also spoke about Late Gen. Sani Abacha saying that he never Abacha was going to seize power from the leader of the then interim government headed by the Chief Ernest Shonekan.
“It never crossed my mind that Abacha would overthrow the interim government, quite honestly, it never did. When he executed the coup, it didn’t come to me as a surprise because all of you in this country gave him the wherewithal to do it. A coup always succeeds if there was a frustration in the society and that frustration was orchestrated.
“I governed for eight years using decree, that interim government was given a constitution and that constitution was supported by a law. So, as far as I’m concerned, it was not illegitimate. It was legitimately done as it’s done in military government all over the world,” he said.
IBB as he is fondly called, tasked Nigerians and Muslims in particular to stand up and fight against Boko Haram, saying the group was hell-bent on giving Islam a bad name. “Nigerians have to mobilise against the Boko Haram and that will make it easy to winning the war,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has raised the alarm over what it describes as “fresh moves by anti-democratic forces to use the courts to postpone or scuttle next month’s general elections”.
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