Nigerians had by now become inured to martial music on the radio announcing another coup; the gun-toting soldiers on the streets had become a normal part of the landscape. Because we had never really known, appreciably, any other way of life, we came to accept our brutalization matter-of-factly. We were ruled by decrees and whims, human rights became not rights but privileges to be given or withheld by the new ruler in uniform. Fela, the late Afrobeat maestro, referred to this state of things when he said in one of his songs:

You can’t dash me human rights

Human rights na my property.

You can’t dash me my property.

(Incidentally, because of his bold anti-military messages, Fela was to serve multiple jail terms.) We lived with guns to our heads.

The de-professionalization and total politicization of the Nigerian military was to occur during the eight-year Babangida regime. The General was given the nickname ‘Maradona’ after the Argentinian soccer star because of his ability to dribble the country about. Bribery and corruption were turned into veritable tools of governance. Even the staunchly anti-military Wole Soyinka was somehow inveigled into accepting a government post under IBB. First, IBB promised to return the country to civil rule in 1990, but he pushed the date forward to 1993 using the Orkar coup of April 1990 as a pretext. But the General scored an own goal when, after the 1993 elections in which M KO Abiola, a Yoruba, ran against Bashir Tofa, a Hausa, and in which Abiola was generally assumed to be the winner, he annulled the election results. This historic event was to serve as the beginning of the end for the uneasy acceptance which the military had so far enjoyed. It threw the country into turmoil; the North–South ethnic polarization reached unprecedented heights. The South wanted blood. The country came to the verge of another civil war. IBB had to bow out in disgrace, putting in his place the unpopular Interim National Government of Ernest Shoenekan, which was to last only three months. IBB’s exit was really nothing but a clearing of space for Abacha’s entrance.