Just three months ago, opponents of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s plot to extend his tenure were giddy with excitement. Their joy was fallout of the rejection of the President’s design to extend his tenure through an amendment of the constitution. For months, the nation frothed with tension, as it convulsed over Obasanjo’s coy attempt at self-perpetuation. But on 16 May, the National Assembly voted against the bill for tenure extension and 115 other items recommended for consideration by the National Assembly Joint Committee on the Review of the Constitution, headed by Ibrahim Mantu, Deputy Senate President.
Relief! Nigerians lauded the lawmakers, describing their wholesale rejection of constitutional amendment as a victory for democracy. Lawmakers and other figures who supported tenure elongation were heavily castigated and accused of selling their conscience for sums ranging between N40 and N50 million.
Those opposed to the bid, understandably, were no less generous in self-praise. “I feel elated. I believe this is a victory for the Nigerian people. It is a victory for democracy. “It is a victory for the National Assembly. We talk about building institutions; this has built up the strength of the National Assembly. And so, it is a victory that I think all Nigeria should celebrate,” gushed Senator Udo Udoma, Chairman, Senate Committee on National Planning.
Olorunnimbe Mamora, Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Intelligence and Security, explained that the decision of the National Assembly was informed by the reduction of the amendment process into a one-line agenda – third term. “The third term has been causing a lot of tension, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of disquiet within the polity. And we felt as a body of legislators, particularly operating at the highest level of the legislature in this land, we had a duty to take this burden off the people. And we felt the best thing to do in the circumstance was to abort the entire exercise by throwing it away at the second reading.”
Former presidential candidate, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite, was full of praise for the legislators. “We commend the Nigerian Senate and the House of Representatives for their historic striking of the scandal of a brazen self-perpetuation plan sought to be foisted on the Nigerian people by the budding fascist Obasanjo administration,” he said. A week later, Obasanjo heightened Nigerians’ sense of relief by breaking his silence on the raging debate. “I repeat, we should now put the issue behind us,” the President told a gathering of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) bigwigs.
While the President’s words were suggestive of his surrender to popular wish, those who know him were not carried away by the seeming admission of defeat. In fact, many were willing to swear that the President would return with a more daring strategy to prolong his tenure. One of the first people to warn against public complacency was Obasanjo’s deputy, Atiku Abubakar, whose frosty relationship with Obasanjo had degenerated over the self-perpetuation plot. At the peak of celebrations, Atiku congratulated members of the National Assembly, but urged them to remain vigilant because the enemies of democracy were still capable of rekindling the presumably extinguished fires of the third term project.
In similar vein, Alhaji Umaru Dikko, Second Republic Transport Minister, warned of the existence of yet another self-perpetuation plan. Speaking with the Daily Independent, Dikko alleged that there was a “Plan B and even C.” Asked what shape the alleged plans would take, Dikko said he did not know, but alleged that something was still in the offing. While the former minister may be unsure of the form and content of the plans, TheNEWS gathered that Obasanjo is in the process of producing a confusing political mix designed to stalemate next year’s elections and remain in office.
For now, the picture remains incomplete, but the pieces of the jigsaw have already created an unmistakably scary mosaic. According to sources, Obasanjo’s new plot is a multi-tier project designed by the least expected architects. The chief designers, said sources, are former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, and General Aliyu Muhammed Gusau, recently sacked from the position of National Security Adviser (NSA).
Though both men nurse presidential ambitions, sources insisted, they are not averse to having Obasanjo remain in power. Babangida and Gusau were said to have met with Obasanjo and convinced him to consider installing an interim administration next year. Given the failure of the third term agenda and that of its architects to design an alternative, the idea of an interim government was well received by Obasanjo.
With less than a year to the end of his constitutionally-stipulated tenure, the President knew he had to move fast. And he did. About three weeks ago, TheNEWS gathered, Obasanjo took the first step by meeting with Chief Anthony Enahoro, Coordinator, Pro-National Conference Organizations (PRONACO). The meeting, said a source, started with a discussion on the recommendations of the draft constitution produced by PRONACO’s Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC). That exhausted, it moved on to the President’s own wish.
Though he told Enahoro that what he was about to discuss was urgent, the President still opted for a slow and incremental approach. He began by telling Enahoro the problems he is having with picking a successor and how worried he is that his legacies could be erased if a wrong man gets in the saddle. He followed this up with his bother about the infernal exchanges between politicians pushing the cases of their respective zones to produce the president in 2007.
And to snare Enahoro, Obasanjo reeled out names of presidency-seeking politicians, all of whom are unappealing to the PRONACO leader. One after the other, Obasanjo mentioned the names of Atiku, Ibrahim Babangida, former military president, and Aliyu Muhammed Gusau, recently sacked as National Security Adviser.
These men have expressed their interest in the presidency, with Atiku’s ambition the loudest of all. Enahoro was said to have considered the names and concluded that Nigeria was unsafe under any of the three men.
But why would Babangida and Gusau suggest the idea of an interim regime when they both nurse presidential ambitions? Informed sources reckon that the option was considered as a way of shutting out Atiku, who is considered as the leading contender for the presidency. The suggestion also sits well with Obasanjo who, on account of his third term ambition and his hijack of the Peoples Democratic Party structures, was painted by Atiku as an enemy of democracy. It thus offers Obasanjo the chance to prevent his deputy from becoming president.
In the event of an Atiku victory either at the PDP primaries or the election proper, much of the myth swirling around the two men, particularly Babangida, would be obliterated. The President was said to have stepped up his attempt to win Enahoro’s mind, pleading with the PRONACO leader to prepare a blueprint on ING that would have tenure of between 18 months and two years. Enahoro, TheNEWS gathered, left the meeting, assuring Obasanjo that he was going to consult the various tendencies in the nation’s civil society groups.
Though the President seems to have been goaded into accepting the idea of an interim administration, there are indications that he had been working on a script not particularly dissimilar to the one offered by Babangida and Gusau. On a recent visit to Kwara State, Obasanjo re-affirmed his intention to quit office next year. “Although I will not teach Mr. Dangote how to design his business, but as for me, I am already thinking of my successor,” Obasanjo said while commissioning Dangote Flour Mills, Ilorin, owned by billionaire businessman, Aliko Dangote.
Despite his recently acquired penchant for affirming his plans to quit office, said sources, Obasanjo has, for long, worked on the possibility of contriving a crisis situation as an excuse not to conduct elections in 2007. With the idea of an interim administration, he seems to have been handed the final piece of the puzzle.
Sources attribute the revival of the nation’s North-South dichotomy to Obasanjo’s politics of self-perpetuation. With the rejection of the constitutional amendment bill, this medium gathered, Obasanjo dreamt up the plot of setting the South against the North by goading the former to insist that it must retain the presidency in 2007.
Shortly after, agitation for a president of Southern extraction moved into speed gear, as various groups and individuals from the South-East and South-South zones began insisting that it was the turn of their respective regions to produce the president. The clamor threw up a welter of presidential aspirants, particularly among governors. Names like Peter Odili, Governor of Rivers State and an Obasanjo ally; Obong Victor Attah, Akwa Ibom State Governor; and Donald Duke, Governor of Cross River State, started featuring in discussions on presidential materials. Groups loyal to them also began advertising their credentials.
The South-South zone hinged its agitation on decades of perceived marginalization of the zone through inadequate compensation for its petroleum resources, degradation of its environment and persistent crackdown on its citizens protesting the ill-treatment. More importantly, it argued that the zone is the only one that has never produced a president. At a recent meeting of the South-South Peoples Assembly (SSPA) in Calabar, Governor Duke urged politicians in the zone to come together in the struggle for the presidency.
“We know we all have our individual aspirations, but for me, the ultimate and best approach is to first ensure that the presidency is zoned to the South-South,” he said. He also gave reasons for the agitation, saying: “Although the leadership had clamored for resource control, we should refocus our mind to the realization that the ultimate resource control at this point is the presidency.”
While Duke favors a sedate approach, other elements in the South-South prefer a more robust agitation. Obong Victor Attah, Governor of Akwa Ibom State and a presidential aspirant, has been a particularly loud voice in the agitation. Attar’s style is a bit confrontational, as he has continually challenged the claim of the North to produce the next president. The North claims the existence of a 1998 agreement which stipulates that power must return to the North after residing in the South for eight years under Obasanjo.
However, Southern politicians continue to deny that such an agreement exists. They contend that if such existed, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, former Governor of Kano State, would not have challenged Obasanjo for the PDP ticket in 2003. At a meeting of the Southern Senators Forum held in Yenagoa on 8 July, Attah denied the existence of such an agreement. “People say there is an agreement that after Obasanjo, power will go to the North. They have not given us the basis for that agreement and we are now saying that even if there was an agreement, we have presented overwhelming reasons to say that agreement should be changed. In the past, they have come to us and sought our support and we gave. Why is it now that we want something they are pointing to an agreement?” he asked.
Anabs Sara-Igbe, spokesman of the Rivers Democratic Movement and a PDP top notch, has threatened that there will be crisis if the South-South does not get the presidency in 2007. “If they don’t give us the presidency in 2007, we may have another June 12. Nigeria may not be able to do anything. We would ground the economy of Nigeria; we have the capacity to do that and that may be our last option...because if you push a man to the wall and there is no chance to move again, he would react and that reaction may be deadly,” threatened Sara-Igbe.
In the same vein, an amalgam of Niger Delta militants under the aegis of the Joint Revolutionary Council has threatened to attack Southern governors and politicians who support Northern presidential bids. The group also vowed to remove campaign posters and billboards of Northern presidential candidates, saying: “Their parasitic dependence on the resources of our people has finally come to an end.”
To ensure that its message is heard, the South-South, through the SSPA, is employing the media to present it as angry, abused, marginalized and deserving compensation. The group is using various newspaper advertorials to reach its audience. In a widely published newspaper advertorial last week, SSPA ridiculed the North’s clamor for power shift. “After 39 years of Northern rulership, you now talk of agreement. Agreement koo, Agreement nii,” the advertorial read.
Another one read: “South-East/South-South: 6 months, South-West: 111/2 years by 2007. North: 39 days? No! 39 months? No! 39 years? Yes!! One Nigeria? Haba!” The message seems to be sinking. Already, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has endorsed the zone for the 2007 presidency. On 8 July, CAN direct Christians nationwide to support the South-South agitation for 2007 presidency. Speaking in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, Samuel Salifu, National Secretary of CAN, argued that the region’s quest was legitimate, given its role in the Nigerian economy. “This zone has continued to supply the physical milk that refreshes this country. It has been burning itself to the high heavens that Nigeria may survive. This zone is now asking Nigerians for political leadership. Their quest is legitimate and should attract the sympathy of the Nigerian church for purposes of equity, justice and fair play. We, therefore, appeal to politicians as they slug out the issue of national governance come 2007 to be mindful of a zone that has given Nigeria so much and yet neglected for so long,” he said.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });