Posted by Segun Olatunji (Kaduna) and Emeka Madunagu on
A coalition of civil society groups under the aegis of the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has threatened to make Nigeria ungovernable if President Olusegun Obasanjo bows to pressure to stay in office beyond 2007.
A coalition of civil society groups under the aegis of the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has threatened to make Nigeria ungovernable if President Olusegun Obasanjo bows to pressure to stay in office beyond 2007.
Also, the United Kingdom has said it is only Nigerians who can determine their next president.
TMG's Chairman, Mr. Festus Okoye, declared in an interview with our correspondent on Wednesday in Kaduna that the coalition was closely watching the situation, warning that those interests pressurizing Obasanjo to stay beyond 2007 should get ready for a civil disobedience campaign.
TMG is the umbrella body for civil society groups which monitored Nigeria's democratic march since 1999.
According to Okoye, the coalition would in conjunction with other members of the civil society in the country mobilize Nigerians against such a move because they believed that President Obasanjo and his supporters ought to respect the 1999 Constitution.
He said that Nigerians had become wiser as a result of their experiences with such attempts in the past, expressing the belief that Obasanjo would not allow himself to be deceived by sycophants into extending his tenure.
According to him, 'It was before that we said nobody can run for three terms in this country, that nobody can succeed himself. We can no longer take anything for granted. But one assurance we want to give is that anybody who takes this country for a ride that he wants to run for a third term, in clear violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, will find the Nigerian people a handful. We are going to make sure that the person who has violated the constitution, who has violated the rule of law, who does not have respect for the Nigerian people does not rule this country and we are going to make this country ungovernable for such a person.
'We are going to make sure that whoever takes power other than through constitutional means does not govern. So, I think that all the governors, special advisers and others who are now telling Obasanjo that after eight years in power that he's God-ordained, that he has the anointing and that he's the only one who can take Nigeria to the promised land, had better watch it because the Nigerian people and civil society will make this country ungovernable if anybody wants to roll back our democratic and constitutional gains. So, we are not going to tolerate that and let them just better forget it because we are going to prepare for that kind of eventuality."
The TMG chairman further alleged that the signs of a self-succession bid by President Obasanjo were evident in the controversy that rocked the just-concluded National Political Reform Conference over the smuggling of a 'pre-determined draft constitution" into the talkshop's working documents.
Meanwhile, Press and Political Affairs Officer of the British High Commission, Abuja, Mr. Graeme Bannatyne, reacted to speculations that some foreign countries, notably members of the Paris Club of the creditors, were also part of third term plot.
In a text message to our correspondent penultimate Thursday, the diplomat said, 'UK cannot speak for the Paris Club. UK believes the election of the next president is an issue to be decided by the Nigerian people and no-one else."
SATURDAY PUNCH, July 30, 2005