Posted by By STEVE NWOSU on
Despite the vow by Gbenga, son of President Olusegun Obasanjo, that his father will not run for another term in office, Daily Sun can authoritatively report that the engine of the third term campaign is still alive and roaring and is now set to launch another major push for the actualisation of the controversial agenda.
Despite the vow by Gbenga, son of President Olusegun Obasanjo, that his father will not run for another term in office, Daily Sun can authoritatively report that the engine of the third term campaign is still alive and roaring and is now set to launch another major push for the actualisation of the controversial agenda.
The latest effort, Daily Sun scooped, is to come in the form of top level meetings to officially endorse the project. It will kick off tomorrow (Wednesday) night with a meeting of the top echelon of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abuja. This would be followed on Thursday with another meeting of PDP governors, also slated for Abuja.
Gbenga Obasanjo had, in the now controversial interview with THE NEWS magazine stated that he was "not aware of this third term thing", adding: "My father is a man of integrity; he doesn't have any intention to remain in office beyond 2007. He is already building a retirement home and a library in Abeokuta. He is an old man. He may look young to the outside world, but he is an old man. I personally think he is older than 70 years".
But it would seem the young Obasanjo had either run his mouth too early or he is not in the picture of happenings around the presidency. For, as Daily Sun gathered, the re-invigorated campaign is being spearheaded by Governors Abdullahi Adamu and Ahmed Makarfi of Nasarawa and Kaduna states respectively, while chairman of PDP's Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih, is said to be playing an oversight role on the developments.
The gameplan
The game plan for the latest onslaught, like those before it, is hinged on amending the subsisting 1999 Constitution. However, the meetings are also aimed at widening the support base for the project which has lost so much support in the last few months. It is projected that after the meetings, a lot more political notables would be able to openly speak in favour of third term, or at least soften their previous hardline stands.
A usually reliable Daily Sun source hinted that the meetings are billed to examine a proposal to remove the phrase "1999 Constitution" from the anticipated new constitution and rename the new document "Nigerian Constitution".
With that singular amendment, the expected constitution would thus become a new document altogether - independent of, and nullifying all what happened under the now operative 1999 Constitution. Obasanjo would, as a result, be starting out on a clean sheet.
A precedence already exists for this. The Aso Rock spin-doctors would be citing the precedence set by the Supreme Court ruling on the third term' governors case which enabled the likes of Prince Abubakar Audu, Jolly Nyame, Bukar Ibrahim and Chief Segun Osoba to stand governorship election in 2003.
The court, at that time, had insisted that the constitution under which the four men stood their first elections was different from the 1999 constitution which governed the 2003 elections. It, therefore, ruled that they had had only one term as governors - 1999 - 2004.
The third term campaigners, Daily Sun also learnt, are equally not unaware of the twin implication of pushing this amendment through. It means that, having discountenanced the two terms which Obasanjo has done under the 1999 constitution, the new document would put him in a position to seek three fresh terms that could terminate in 2019 or 2022, depending on whether the legislators approve a four-year term or five-year term.
Problem
Despite that the meeting is being spearheaded by two of their own, many of the PDP governors from the North are not too comfortable with this latest development. Daily Sun gathered that this reluctance of the northern PDP governors may in fact pose the first major hurdle for the latest drive.
It would be recalled that the said governors, were party to the last meeting of the Northern Governors which, a few months ago, had taken a common stand against the third term agenda, with a call that the presidency must return to the North by 2007.
The governors, like some of their colleagues from the South, are scared that endorsing the third term project would run against the wishes of their people.
One of them who informed Daily Sun about the Abuja meetings put this fear succinctly: "Even if someone is convinced or takes money to back this thing, it would still be tough facing the people at home. Who would guarantee your safety if the people back home get angry with you enough to burn you down with everything you own?", he asked.
There is also said to be a mild opposition from two governors of the South-South who are believed to nurse their own individual presidential ambitions. Their reasoning is that for any of them to ever realise the ambition, Obasanjo would have to go.
To get out of this Catch 22 situation, the resolve among the northern governors, Daily Sun gathered, is to pretend to go along with the project but scuttle it, through their state assemblies, when the time comes for approving the prerequisite constitutional amendment to clear the road for President Obasanjo to contest another term in office.
EFCC again
Despite the fact that even the governors who were hitherto complacent over the third term issue have now begun to rise against it, the proponents of the controversial agenda are not giving up. The reasons are not far to seek: Besides the fact that not many of the governors can look Aso Rock in the face and say no to third term, there is said to be yet another arm-twisting tactic involved - the EFCC.
Daily Sun gathered that the third term campaigners have since called up the dossiers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on virtually all the governors and the damning finds therein are now being used to blackmail dissenting ones into line.
Having seen how this tested method worked wonders in Bayelsa, Oyo and now moving to Plateau, not many governors are said to be ready to take the plunge in the opposite direction.
Neither Irukwu nor Mbu
Asked why the opposing governors would not rally round the duo of Chief Matthew Mbu and Prof. Joe Irukwu in their push to ensure that either a South-South or South-East person emerges as president in 2007, the Daily Sun source expressed doubts over the two men.
He said their fear was hinged on the fact that, until recently, both men had never projected themselves as being critical of Obasanjo and that they might not be dogged enough fighters to follow the crusade to the end when pressure begins to come from Aso Rock.
In fact, the source expressed fear that both platforms could eventually be hijacked by Obasanjo and the third term campaigners when the chips are down.
Hear him: "Now, all one can glean from their crusade is that they want power retained in the South. They don't want it to go to the North. But what happens when the North is eventually pushed out of the picture and the presidency is retained in the South? Who is there now that can stop Obasanjo if he wants to take it again?" He said this is more frightening viewed against the backdrop that the presidency has loads of documents to blackmail all of the most prominent South-South presidential prospects.
Wooing the Service chiefs
Daily Sun further gathered that while the proponents of the elongation of term project keep at their brief, they are not unaware of the threat posed by the military and a possible insurrection from the barracks - no matter how remote.
They have therefore moved in to neutralise whatever disaffection that might come from there. Plans have, as a result, been put in motion to ensure that the present crop of service chiefs are retained until the end of the 2007. Although most of them, including the Inspector General of Police who was supposed to proceed on terminal leave last year, are due for retirement, they are said to have had their tenures extended and have been retained in their positions.
What this now means is that although the service chiefs have always held their jobs at the pleasure of President Obasanjo, it has become even more so now that their retirements have been pushed further away. Their only job, it now seems, is to reciprocate this presidential benevolence and ensure that the barracks are as calm as ice water.