Search Site: OnlineNigeria

Letter to Presidents Obasanjo on Third Term Agenda - On Obj's vist to the White House

We welcome you to the United States and hope that your visit today with President George W. Bush for all the stated official reasons, including discussions about "strengthening democratic institutions", is a fruitful one.

Concerned Nigerians in the Diaspora

Washington, DC,  USA

March 29, 2006

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR

President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces

The Federal Republic of Nigeria

c/o Prof. George Obiozor

Ambassador of Nigeria to the United States

Washington, DC, USA

Your Excellency:

We welcome you to the United States and hope that your visit today with President George W. Bush for all the stated official reasons, including  discussions about "strengthening democratic institutions", is a fruitful one. 

We,  the undersigned Nigerian citizens in North America, write to express our outright and implacable opposition to on-going legislative moves in our country Nigeria to amend the constitution to allow, inter alia,  the executives in Nigeria (president and governors) three four-year terms.  This is being widely interpreted as intended to immediately benefit the affected incumbents, including yourself.   

Prior official denials of the amendment move are no longer tenable, now that the Nigerian National Assembly's Joint Committee on Constitutional Review (JCRC) has recently approved it, despite widespread opposition at various zonal public hearings.   We are fully aware that the amendment still requires approval by two-thirds of members of the National Assembly and two-thirds of our thirty-six state assemblies.   However, the tension arising from the very possibility of the extension of terms is causing political ripples, heating up of the Nigerian polity, and holding up the political processes that should by now be leading up to an orderly transfer of power in May 2007.

All the governors and yourself who have sworn twice (in 1999 and 2003) to uphold the two-term limit of the 1999 Constitution must respect and obey it.   The question of leadership of any country is a continuous process.  No one leader or set of leaders can see a country's development to its logical end.   In a democracy, each leader makes his or her contributions and leaves the stage to others according to the constitution

Consequently you must resist any temptations of "sit-tightism"  of which too many of our African leaders have been accused. Such schemes to remain in power willy-nilly have tarnished the reputations of some of your predecessors in Nigeria. Your hard-earned reputation, your current international standing and your prospective legacy are all at stake at this time.   Nigeria must act as an example to the rest of the West African sub-region, to Africa, and to the World.  We do not want " things to fall apart" in our country on your insistence to remain in power beyond 2007.   The consequences will be too dire.

Your  occasional denials about your lack of interest in extending your term by any means are noted by us.   However, they have been few and far between and not sufficiently categorical.  In any case,  your spokespersons and top party officials have either been evasive or even pugnacious about the desirability of your third- or higher-term prospects.

Your current visit to the United States therefore presents another golden opportunity in the glare of the whole world to right matters.   Nothing will aid the strengthening of democratic institutions in our country more than your eschewing of an unconstitutional move that lacks integrity.

President Obasanjo, please seize the opportunity; redeem the moment; do the right thing.   During this visit, we urge you to publicly denounce these campaigns and unequivocally dissociate yourself from any scheme that will enable you and some others to contest for a return to power in 2007.

Once again, we welcome you to the United States, and we wish you a safe journey back home.

Sincerely:

Mobolaji E. Aluko, PhD

President, NDM