Former Military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (retd), has said that he should be regarded as a saint given the level of corruption that pervades the Nigerian society today. According to Babangida, those who held contrary opinion about the activities of his regime did so out of
ignorance of what he did while in office. He stated: “Maybe I have to accept that but anybody with a sense of fairness has no option but to call us saints.
I give you an example, in a year; I was making less than $7 billion in oil revenue but in the same period there were governments that were making between $200 billion and $300 billion. With $7 billion, I did the best I could but with $200 billion there is still a lot to be achieved.
I don’t have all the facts but if what I read in the papers is what is currently happening, then I think we were saints.” Babangida further claimed that he did his best to stabilize the Naira, leaving the exchange rate at N22 to the dollar. Now the Naira is exchanging for between N193 and N200.
“Let us take Abuja for example. I built it. Today, we have a brand new capital; we used that money. I gave you a Third Mainland bridge, Lagos, which you cannot build today with all the money that Nigeria is making.”….. we need to tender unreserved apologies to ds saint of a man…….
