IBB begins preparations for 2011 elections •Plans campaign structure similar to MKO Abiola’s Hope ’93

Written by Dipo Laleye

NIGERIAN Tribune can author-itatively report that former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, will run for president in the 2011 general election.

The finding is contrary to the position being presented by the General that he was still consultating with various political and economic interest groups across the land to enable him to form an opinion.

Nigerian Tribune can confidently say that General Babangida confided his intention in a group of Nigerians resident outside the country when the group paid him a visit at his Minna Hilltop mansion on Sunday.

The group, operating under the Nigeria Project, had as members, Chief Roberts Folayan, Mr Yemi George Adeyemo and the woman leader, Mrs Maco Thomson.

It was gathered from sources close to the meeting between the former military president and members of the Nigeria Project that General Babangida said “this time, it is for real, there is no going back.”

General Babangida, according to the source, who was at the meeting which lasted almost two hours, told his guests that he wanted a well-articulated and coordinated campaign that would lead to total victory in the presidential election.

“I want something similar to the Hope ’93 campaign,” he said, apparently referring to the style adopted by the late Chief MKO Abiola, which led to his victory in the 1993 presidential election, regarded as the freest election ever held in the country.

Babangida, who was said to have left for Abuja on Sunday night to continue his parley with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, also reportedly gave the Nigeria Project the green light to commence mass mobilisation of Nigerians at home and in the diaspora for the “great task ahead.”

Both Chief Roberts and Mr Adeyemo, when contacted at one of the hotels where they lodged, declined to confirm or deny the story.

Adeyemo said “Yes, we visited General Babangida on Sunday, but our visit was to commiserate with him on the death of his wife.”

The Nigeria Project was in the forefront of the campaign for the realisation of the IBB for President in 2007, before the project collapsed.

Source: NIGERIAN Tribune

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