Posted by By FEMI BABAFEMI, SOLA FANAWOPO and OLA AGBAJE on
As the controversy generated by the draft constitution smuggled by the Presidency into the ongoing National Political Reform Conference rages on, fresh fears are now being expressed that the ultimate goal might be to make Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo president for life.
As the controversy generated by the draft constitution smuggled by the Presidency into the ongoing National Political Reform Conference rages on, fresh fears are now being expressed that the ultimate goal might be to make Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo president for life.
Alhaji Mohammed Murtala, Deputy National Welfare Officer of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) told Daily Sun that "although this might appear remote, the plot is receiving serious attention from the Obasanjo political machine".
Rather than the purported scheming for a third term for the President, the ANPP chieftain says the latest fear is that the real plot is more sinister than just another four-year term.
This position was further confirmed by a member of the House of Representatives from the NorthEast who equally spoke to Daily Sun over the telephone. "It is even beyond extending the existing four year mandate by another two years - to terminate in 2009 - or manipulating the constitution to enable Obasanjo kick-start the proposed six-years single-term arrangement… "The ultimate goal is for life presidency", he insisted.
He said that the only drawback to enshrining this life presidency arrangement into the constitution is not even the widespread opposition that the proposals in the recent draft constitution have engendered. "The only thing holding them back is the fear of possible opposition and reprisals from the United States and other western governments that have hitherto been supportive of the Obasanjo government."
Now, the lawmaker continued, the real agenda for the confab is beginning to emerge. It is Obasanjo's way of achieving through the backdoor, what he could not push through at the National Assembly. "What stopped the presidency from articulating this same suspicious memorandum to the National Assembly committee charged with collecting suggestions for reviewing the constitution? Is it now when this handpicked government people finish fashioning out a constitution that the Presidency would then begin to blackmail us to pass it into law?"
The permutations
Insisting that plans are in top gear to ensure that Obasanjo stays in office beyond 2007, he said "the plot is really to make it an indefinite stay and ensure that he dies on the seat, considering that he is already an old man".
Reminded that the president is only 68 years, the legislator said, "that is what the official records say. Talk to his classmates and townsmen, I am sure you'll get a different figure".
The lawmaker's insinuations are coming on the heels of another by a Professor in Ibadan who recently celebrated his 80th birthday. The said Professor had only stopped short of swearing that he could not possibly be older than Obasanjo by more than three years.
The professor's claim is further re-enforced by the fact that Prince Bola Ajibola, former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, who was Obasanjo's junior at the Baptist Boys High School (BBHS) in Abeokuta turned 71 last month.
When all these are viewed against the backdrop that young Obasanjo did not have a speedy journey through primary and secondary schools, the lawmaker says, "we can put two and two together to arrive at a more realistic age"
Incidentally, the president has never really claimed that his official age was sacrosanct.
But the lawmaker would not let go: "If we assume, therefore, that the President is about 77 years old now, how many more years does he hope to live? At the expiration of the present mandate, he'd be about 80. Add another six years to that and you'll see reason with me that the game plan is to have a man in power that would be president until the day he dies. Does life presidency come by any other definition?" he asked.
According to him, the plot is to keep Obasanjo at Aso Rock until such a time that death would take him away, adding that this desires derives from the President's own fear of life out of power.
"I don't know what Obasanjo has done (though I might have a few suspicions) that is making him so scared of returning to an ordinary life. And now, because he does not want to go back to his Ota farm, he is determined to drag the country back into the woods. It is the same formula that Robert Mugabe is using in Zimbabwe that has seen him holding unto power since 1980," he pointed out.
Forget life presidency - ANPP chieftain
But Murtala, one of the core pro-Buhari elements in the ANPP says, "life presidency is one huge joke we can never accept".
"We have raised this suspicion before. We have weighed the options and we know that it could spell disaster. If some one does not have where to retire to or is afraid of retirement, we should not all be punished for it".
Dismissing the claim that some people have been mounting pressure on the president to run again in 2007, Murtala told Daily Sun in a telephone chat: "We have already accepted too much from Obasanjo. This is no Togo. We are trying to run a democracy here and two terms are just enough for one person. We will never accept third term, let alone life presidency".
Those pressurising the President to run
He said that the claim that some faceless people were pressurising the President to run again was only a part of the plot. "It was just to test the waters. And now when everyone is asking him to name these people pressurising him to run, they have propped up Greg Mbadiwe".
Mbadiwe who was nominated to the ongoing confab by Obasanjo to represent the youths was until now the Ambassador to Congo before the envoys were recalled. His nomination had drawn sharp criticism from several youth leaders - both within and outside the confab. His critics had insisted that Mbadiwe was too much of an establishment person to sincerely represent Nigerian youths at the confab. They also argued that until his nomination, he had not openly been associated with any of the more known youth groups in the country.
But if Murtala chose his words carefully, the same cannot be said of another delegate from the South-South who insisted he is a more authentic representative of Nigerian youths.
"I suspect he is broke and hungry", he said of Mbadiwe. "After selling off the choice property that his father, the late K.O. Mbadiwe, left behind in both Lagos and Enugu, he is now ready to do all the dirty jobs that more discerning politicians would not touch with a long pole - all in exchange for some lucre. We know whose agenda he is pushing".
"But come to think of it", he continued, "why would anybody in his right senses want Obasanjo back? Is it that he has helped us fix NEPA after all these six years? Are our roads now motorable? Have the decayed infrastructure been restored? Or is it because he has, in his final two years, decided to do some publicity stunts with fighting corruption? How many convictions have we got since then? Who arranges the bail of some of the big fish suspects?"
No way for Obasanjo - Azike
But Ziggy Azike, a member of the Judiciary and Legal Reform Committee of the confab, refuses to join issues with Mbadiwe on his call for a perpetuation of Obasanjo in office. Rather, he reassures that there is "no plan to make Obasanjo kick-start anything".
Speaking to Daily Sun on the phone late Friday, Azike said: "We have already thrown out the draft constitution that they are talking about. As a member of the Judiciary and Legal Reform Committee, I am telling you that the said memorandum or draft constitution is not one of the documents we are working with. We did not even consider it.
Reminded that Alhaji Waziri Mohammed, another federal delegate to the confab has promised that the draft constitution will be presented to the confab this week, Azike said: "Waziri is just one member of the committee. What I am telling you is that the committee has taken its decision not to consider the memorandum".
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President Olusegun Obasanjo has described the wide-spread talk about his third term agenda as annoying while carpeting those behind the rumour as people with hidden agenda.
Responding to a question during the monthly presidential media chat "The President speaks", President Olusegun Obasanjo said he had never told anybody in the on-going conference on political reforms on what to do while he challenged anyone with a contrary view to come out with his facts.
His words: "I have never told anybody in the conference privately that this is what he should do, if anybody says I have told him so, let him come out, so, when they talk about hidden agenda, it is annoying.
Hidden agenda to do what? I don't do things like that."
"But one thing I will like to tell you is that people judge by their own standard if they are in that position, they will have hidden agenda and we must fight that."
To bultress his point, he narrated an incident former Head of State Gen. Mohammadu Buhari reported to him when they worked together years ago.
According to him "I want to make one reference to my colleague, Mohammadu Buhari when I was a military head of state, he came to me one day, he was in charge of petroleum then.
He said "Sir I am really really saddened by what somebody has come to say to me". And I said what was it? He said the man came and said to him "You're in-charge of petroleum, that means five per cent barrel must be sticking to your finger.
We were producing about 1.5 million barrel per day then. So you see that is what that man would do if he were there.
So he believes Muhammadu Buhari must be doing the same thing. But Muhammadu Buhari was not doing anything of such for all I know at that time. And the poor was very unhappy about that. I just told him not to worry about that I said to him, ‘ that man was judging you by his own standard. So that is what is happening. People judge by their own standard. Their standard is a standard that is not acceptable for this country and we must tell them".
Speaking on the report that the federal government was planning to sack about 80,000 workers from its service, President Obasanjo said the move was part of on-going reform by his administration.
He said in many offices, about three or four persons are doing what a single official should do thus encouring laziness and inefficiency.
He however assured that those who "will be eased out" in the process will have to be paid their entitlements before leaving office, stressing that those that will eventually lose their jobs will be encouraged to go into other sectors of the economy, a move, he said will make the economy to be better of.