Posted by By Samod Bibioku on
As moves to amend the 1999 Constitution to allow President Olusegun Obasanjo seek a third term in office continue to generate tension in the polity, relations between the President and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has taken turn for the worse.
• Abacha connection
As moves to amend the 1999 Constitution to allow President Olusegun Obasanjo seek a third term in office continue to generate tension in the polity, relations between the President and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has taken turn for the worse.
The ACF, which is vehemently opposed to any tenure extension for the President, has taken a decision not to recognise Obasanjo as Nigeria's president after May 29, 2007.
Beyond that, it also called on all Muslims in the country to pray against the success of the third term agenda.
Sunday Sun reliably gathered that the decision not to recognise Obasanjo after May 29, 2007, is premised on the realisation that the recommendation of a third term of office for the President by the Joint National Assembly Committee on the Review of the Constitution may sail through the National Assembly despite opposition from some members.
Responsible for the emergence of Obasanjo as President in 1999, the North, of which ACF purports to speak for, views the entire third term agenda as an act of ingratitude, claiming it was its turn in 2007 to produce the next president.
The President, by wanting a third term, they reason, amounts to a betrayal since that would deny them the opportunity to produce the president.
Ironically, Obasanjo, according to a source, believes it is the northernpower oligarchy and not him, that has betrayed their long standing relationship.
The President, Sunday Sun gathered, is angry with the old guard of the northern political establishment for allegedly abandoning him to his fate during his detention for a fathom coup by the regime of the late General Sani Abacha.
Under Obasanjo as Head of State between 1976-1979, a northerner and his second in command, Major General Musa Yar' Adua, was very influential to the extent that some observers believed Obasanjo gave him too much power.
Obasanjo, it is believed, feels that having been very 'generous" to one of their own, the least he expected of the North was to speak out against his incarceration, which they did not do.
On what the President makes of the agitation by Igbo to produce the President in 2007, the same sources disclosed that the President believes after the late Owelle of Onitsha, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Igbo lack credible presidential materials.
For the South-South, President Obasanjo, said the source, considers it suicidal for Nigeria as a nation should the oil-rich zone be allowed to produce the president in 2007.
'The President believes that with the 13 percent derivation principle, there was already too much money in the region. Giving them political power would be handing over the nation to them. Besides, with increased insurgent attacks in the region, Baba is not sure that the zone would not secede once given the presidency," the source volunteered.