Nigeria, Feb. 27 -- You cannot quarrel about how a man tells his story. It is his business. However, the pseudo-autobiography of the former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, is more than the retired general telling a story of his own life. A Journey in Service is a long, tortuous journey to penitence, which arrives at its destination, if it does at all, leaving its memory behind.

After 32 years of deflecting, dissembling, dodging and denial, the former military president finally gets as close as possible to remorse, then stops short of saying sorry for his betrayal of his country by blaming several dead and a few feeble living.

And yet, Babangida, being Babangida, reserved the best part of his book for himself. He left the ...