Honourable Usman Bugaje, one of the vocal voices in the House of Representatives, speaks on the undying plot to extend Obasanjo?s tenure. He spoke with DESMOND UTOMWEN
Has the battle to stop third term been lost?
No, it is not lost. In fact, it is just the beginning, and I can assure you that it is now very clear to them that they do not have the two-thirds majority. They simply do not have it and they cannot have it. So, I do not know what magic they are going to use. The useless motion they brought to the floor of the House to thank the President for assenting to the Budget (which is an unprecedented sycophancy) was to test the waters and see how many people they have and it was clear to them that they do not have the number. They do not even have the simple majority.
But the leadership of the House shamelessly rigged the vote in front of everybody. And everybody can now see where they stand. And where does this leave the House if the leadership can tactically rig and work for the third term project?
No, the House is still determined. The fact of the matter is that they do not have the numbers. But because they are lawless, I do not expect them to really follow the due process. I expect that they will be busy cooking plans to go round and possibly kidnap some members to stop them from coming. And of course, even if they kidnap anybody, they still would not have to produce 240 members to support it. And it is going to be by division. But I do not know if they are going to allow themselves to go through it by following the due process because the moment they do that, they know they have lost.
What if the Oyo option that led to the removal of the Governor is adopted?
Of course you know that the case is still being challenged in court.
Going to court later would mean medicine after death.
If they succeed in doing a kangaroo arrangement, then what they will be doing will be taking the battle to the street, and the ordinary people of this country will fight them and I can assure you of that. I understand that Chief Anenih has boasted that they should not worry about Nigerians (that he had seen them before and if they decide to stay in power the people cannot resist them). But he will be shocked to discover the resistance of Nigerians this time around.
What would members like you do if the leadership of the House decides to actually help the President achieve this agenda?
The members are going to resist that. I cannot come on the pages of the papers to start telling you what we intend to do. But I can assure you that we are going to resist that and these people are not going to get away with the crime they have been committing in the last six years.
So third term must fail?
Of course it has to fail and it must fail. It has no support of the National Assembly and the people of this country. So, I cannot see how they are going to do it. It is not going to be possible.
But with all the hundreds of millions of Naira being promised lawmakers don?t you think these people would be tempted to support this bid and collect the money?
As you can see, papers are reporting now that $4million was shared on this Port Harcourt retreat. I understand the Governor of Rivers gave about N100million and his Bayelsa counterpart also gave something. I understand also that some Governors have been asked to contribute money by
Chief Tony Anenih and they are demanding that the Federal Government should talk to EFCC first. And these things are all coming out in the open and people like Mantu and Anenih are being linked with the business of collecting money and doing the bidding of the President. They have been doing it for long and nothing is happening. We have seen the case of el-Rufai alleging that Mantu demanded about N54million from him, which was not really investigated. It was glossed over and he was protected because of his special relationship with the President. And there are so many other scams that are even involving the President and they are all over the place.
With all these now, do you see the President being consumed by this agenda if he doesn?t listen to wise counsel?
I hope it will consume people like Mantu first. But I don?t think the
President will listen to wise counsel. He is all-wise, so why should he listen to any words of wisdom? He is all-wise, all-knowing and almighty, so he doesn?t need to listen to anyone. What he wants is what must be done. So we will give him time and see how far he can go.
How would you assess INEC and the lack of preparations for election so far? Do you see election being conducted in 2007?
Well, the President is working on a fall-back position. If for any reason he is sure he cannot get a third term, he wants to first truncate the election process so that we all will get trapped in a corner whereby we cannot conduct elections. And then he will now ask for a six -month extension from the Senate, and then another six months (and it will go on and on). And maybe before the six months expires, he will have to cook up something that will allow him to continue because he wants to rule for life. You don?t need any evidence because they are all in the open.
Some believe he has the other option of wanting to clear the coast towards imposing a stooge on the people.
Don?t fall into that trick. Look, don?t let anybody play with our intelligence for God?s sake. IBB tried the same trick, we saw it; Abacha did the same thing and none of them came out to say so in a very open and straightforward manner. The same thing is happening today to Obasanjo.
This kind of thing that they do is contraband. They don?t sell it in the open market. If you sell cocaine now for example, you will hide it.
You can?t bring it to the open. You make calls to those who need it and in secret you transact your business. We saw how Jerry Gana tried to smuggle in this thing through the back door during the political reform conference but it failed. And when Senator Hambagda was used to smuggle in the thing into the sub-committee report, it again was rejected. So, where do you think these people are getting the money and resources they are spending? Where else? It is very clear. Look at the people who are supporting and championing the cause. You don?t need any further conviction. We have gone beyond that point and it is obvious. There are people who wanted to move motions against some of the unconstitutional activities of the President and when he got wind of it, he called them and threatened that they must never dare to stand against what he wants to do. Perhaps these people could have spoken to the press but they couldn?t because of fear that they might receive the treatment meted to some people who had to be killed in very suspicious circumstances. But we know all these things for a fact.
If some of you have been so cowed, what do we expect from the rest and what hope for the country?
Some of them however defied the threat anyway, so it depends on the individuals. But again, it doesn?t matter if you think about 100 of them are cowards, if there are people who are mercenaries, prostitutes who would collect money and do the President?s bidding, let them be. But the fact is that they still cannot make up to two-thirds, which is the basic requirement. So we are not really worried about these people. But I can assure you that we will expose them and their constituencies will deal with them. Not necessarily now; it could be sometime in the future.
But nobody has really come out to say that he has been given or even offered...
Again, this is like cocaine. Nobody will come out to share this money
But they are there and sometimes we see them jubilating after they have collected the money. And your colleagues would come back and say: you better go; I have collected my own. It is not really a secret. It is just that everybody is hiding it in a way that you cannot have evidence to probe or take him to court. But eventually if it continues, this money may fall in the hands of the wrong persons who will be prepared to put it on the table and say this is the money.
Is it true that some of these members are being made to sign for this money?
I really do not know how they operate. But I think that the Unity
Forum, for one, has different methods. And when Tony Anenih met with his mercenaries recently in Chelsea Hotel, they told him that they don?t want long stories, that he should just tell them how much he was giving them. He looked around and saw faces that he did not trust. So he said: no, the matter would be discussed with only a few individuals. So he now asked them to send two people from each state and they met recently inside the Villa and they discussed and negotiated on how much they should be given. I don?t know the exact amount they agreed upon but I understand that they agreed on what should go to the Senate and the House. The senators wanted a bigger share and the members said no, for this purpose the votes are the same and it is not a thing the Senate would do exclusively. And that seemed to have thrown a little spanner in the works. So maybe they will resolve that through some consultations. But we will definitely hear how far they have settled.
As somebody who is very close to the Vice-President, is it true that he is considering the option of moving into ACD in his bid to actualise his presidential ambition.
Tell me, if you belong to a party where you have been blocked completely, and you have so much support, what would you do? You consider other options. So the Vice-President has numerous options to choose from and when the time comes he will decide. And beyond that, the
Vice-President, like other citizens in this country, has the responsibility to stop the ugly third term bid. This is because that is going to derail this country and when that happens, it is going to bring about chaos. And when this happens, it will destabilize the whole continent. This fear is not being expressed by Nigerians alone but also foreigners. Look at the extent to which the rest of the continent depends on Nigeria?s economy.
In other words, neither the PDP nor the President can stop the Vice-President?
They can?t. How? The PDP actually will be trying to save themselves because many people are already going out of the PDP, though I am still in the PDP, and you must know that politics is all about people. It is not a garrison like Ahmadu Ali said. I hope that we will be able to sweep all these dictators in power away so that we can have a credible democracy.
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