The Third Term Russian Roulette

By

Nathaniel Cholom

noorimoon2002@yahoo.com

 

Given the shameless determination by the Senator Mantu Constitution review committee to impose a third term provision, primarily intended to benefit incumbent President Obasanjo, millions of Nigerians are watching unfolding events with increasing perturbation.  The deliberate defiance of popular opinion to amend the constitution at all cost to secure a third term for Gen. Obasanjo has left millions of Nigerian breathless and angry, wondering how a coterie of opportunists, led by Senator Mantu, are determined to pervert our constitutional democracy for the sake of satisfying the frenzied ambition of one man to be an imperial overlord over a country that boasts of producing some of the most educated citizens in the developing world.  Even as they face a hostile and scornful audience in the theatre of their own minds, the third term promoters are still ridiculously ready to defy popular wishes.

 

The open rape on our constitution and democracy could not have been worse even under a full-brown military dictatorship.  In particular, the open defiance of popular sentiments and court injunctions, which are known to be the notorious features of military rule, are today manifesting themselves, despite our current purported democratic order.  When a Federal Court ordered the Mantu Committee to suspend deliberation, following a petition by aggrieved Nigerians, the Chairman of the constitution review committee defied the order.  Worse still, the issue took a dramatic turn when a lawyer and a court bailiff who came to Port Harcourt to serve the injunction, were arrested and bundled into detention.

 

Yet we have a government that continues to pretend that it respects the rule of law and the due process.  However, since the third term agents are stubbornly committed to the political project, they have no qualms telling skeptical Nigerians to go to hell.  And the worst finally happened, when Senator Mantu and pro-third term crusaders on his committee decided to recommend a tenure extension for political office holders, mainly our President whose two year terms of eight years are due to end in May 2007.  Public reaction was swift and indignant as Nigerians were bewildered by a situation where a minority opinion of political opportunists should supersede the larger interest of Nigerians, which is a throwback to the dark days of despotism.

 

The recommendation of three terms of four years for the President and Governors is a reckless defiance of the opinions of Nigerians and a potential time bomb.  For example, Senators Umaru Dahiru Tambuwal and Olu Mamora, who are members of the Mantu Committee, complained to the media after the ill-motivated recommendation that those opposed to the third term agenda were denied the opportunity to contribute to the deliberations in Port Harcourt.

 

With a ready-made agenda, Senator Mantu and his fellow pro-third term advocates eventually decided to give Nigerians a draft constitution that suits their selfish interests and not the genuine aspirations of majority of Nigerians.  At every stage in the emergence of the third term agenda, manipulation rather than due process was at play.  From the manner the President’s men had hijacked the PDP by undemocratic means and de-registered members whose support for third term cannot be guaranteed, and the charade called zonal public hearings, it was unmistakably obviously to any discerning Nigerian that these desperate politicians do not mean well for our country.

 

The third term agenda is a political minefield, but its promoters are so blinded by their desperate and selfish ambitions to remain in office at all cost even when they have clearly overstayed their welcome.  Recently, the American National Intelligence Director, Mr. John Negroponte, had told the Congress that President Obasanjo’s third term ambition is capable of plunging Nigeria into turmoil.

 

However, rather than being sobered by this gloomy prediction and humbled by reason, the third term agents are attacking the messenger because they don’t like the message. The pointless attacks on the Americans for warning us about an obvious reality by Presidential aides in Nigeria demonstrates the degree of desperation the third term agents can go to endanger our future for the sake of their parochial ambitions.

 

Already, the third term agenda has needlessly polarized the nation and for a self-acclaimed hero of Nigerian Civil War like Gen. Obasanjo to be the source of this dangerous national division is beyond the comprehension of any patriotic Nigerian.  What more could Gen. Obasanjo ask of God after being delivered from the ravine of imminent death as a convicted coup offender and transformed into an accidental President, thanks to divine intervention?

 

As an advocate of genuine democratic practice in Africa and a crusader for good governance, millions of Nigerians are left bewildered by what has come over President Obasanjo who once prided himself as a critic of sit-tight tendencies of African dictators.  Strangely, our own President seems to be tarred with the same brush with those African leaders consumed by the ambition to rule for life, regardless of whether their leadership is improving the quality of life of their citizens or not.  Has our President realized the dangerous course the third term agenda is putting our country?  Does he place higher premium on his ambition for perpetual control of political power than the unity or future of Nigeria?

 

One of the misleading and vacuous arguments adduced by President Obasanjo’s defenders is that the General has not told anyone that he is interested in a third term through a tenure extension. With the offensive recommendation by the so-called joint constitutional review committee, headed by Senator Mantu (a notorious third term sympathizer), the credibility of the President has suffered a moral coup de grace.  If the President isn’t a silent collaborator in this project, it is most unlikely if the Mantu Committee would have had the audacity to press ahead with tenure extension, despite the widespread popular hostility to the issue.

 

Surely, there is something the third term promoters know which other Nigerians don’t know. If they had no clear reading of the President’s lips, body language and other gestures of tacit endorsement for their “loyal” efforts, the tenure extension project could have crumbled long ago.  The fact that the advocacy for tenure extension refused to die in spite of public opposition is a clear proof that the President is interested in the project and supporting it actively behind the scene.

 

Since the only man with the final authority to say no to tenure extension advocacy is the President himself, his studied silence over the controversy is every day confirming his role in the affair.  Never in the history of Nigeria has a constitutional amendment or review assumed the image of national scandal as in the case of the current shameless attempt to foist President Obasanjo on the nation after his tenure will have terminated in 2007.

 

It would amount to psychological hallucination for any third term sympathizer to imagine that the battle to railroad tenure extension into our amended version of the 1999 constitution is over.  The methods by which Senator Mantu and his fellow pro-third term propagandists had conducted the public hearings and the subsequent deliberations on the collated “public” submissions deliberately deviated from normal processes of constitutional amendment.  The whole process lacks credibility and legal validity, which is why the matter is now the subject of litigation.  In fact, the decision of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to boycott court sittings for two days in protest against the deliberate and reckless disregard for court orders and the rule of law by the Obasanjo administration has removed the democratic camouflage from the face of this government.

 

Any constitution the pro-third agents ultimately impose on Nigerians will have no legitimacy and popular acceptance; consequently, it may be a recipe for disaster.  But whatever untoward crisis the project avoidably produces in the end, President Obasanjo must take full responsibility for sacrificing Nigeria’s relative political stability at the altar of selfish perpetual ambition to rule.

 

However, those charged with the ultimate responsibility for amending the constitution according to normal and sensible procedures and processes must stop the third term charade in its tracks.  The Mantu Committee has challenged the sovereignty of the Nigerian electorate and it remains to be seen whether the National Assembly and our State Houses of Assembly will have the moral courage to stop the journey into madness, which the third term agenda unabashedly represents.

 

SIGNED:

 

NATHANIEL CHOLOM

Bukuru , Jos

Plateau State.