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The Booby - Traps For Third Term Campaigners By Donatus Ifeanyi
The sense of self-congratulation and seeming detachment from reality of the third term promoters has left millions of Nigerians thunder-struck by the arrogance of men who are determined to enslave the nation to their ridiculous ambition to rule fellow citizens willy-nilly. Emboldened by the self-serving recommendations of the Senator Mantu led Joint Constitutional Review Committee (JCRC), which faithfully played to their script, the pro-third term advocates have been gloating over their tenuous victory to foist life dictatorship on Nigerians.
Even as respected and credible clergymen such as Archbishop John Onaiyekan have continued to attack the stupidity, undesirability and futility of the third term enterprise, its promoters appear to be as shamelessly daring as ever. Their confidence is curiously building up because they believe they have the financial muscle and the weapon of state terror to intimidate their opponents either into retreat or submission. Either way, the third term proponents are convinced they have all it takes to have their way. In fact, even the rapidly raging maelstrom of widespread national hostility to the obnoxious recommendation by the Mantu Committee to foist President on Nigerians through tenure extension does not seem to sway the conscience of the third term advocates.
However, whatever the advocates third term agenda stand to gain personally from the Mantu Committee recommendations, the supporters of the project should ask themselves whether President Obasanjo is worth dying for or risking their reputation for. For State Governors and members of the National Assembly who are promoting a third term for President Obasanjo, they seem to have taken a risk which is not worth taking at all, at least for a man like Obasanjo who has a notorious reputation of a master that humiliates and destroys his slaves; he is a Gen. that takes pleasure in stabbing those that laboured for him in the back. Have these pro-third term Senators, Governors and Representatives realized that they are putting their own necks in Gen. Obasanjo’s malicious noose? Are they not digging their own graves through their blind support for tenure extension for a Gen. that has no regard for the rule of law, the constitution and basic democratic tenets, despite his public pretension to the contrary?
The gravest mortal threat to our democracy is to endorse tenure extension for a President with inherent autocratic tendencies. In his theory about the separation of powers, the French liberal philosopher, Charles Montesquieu, feared that with too much concentration of power in the hands of one person, a body of persons or institution, there is the tendency towards tyranny, which ultimately harms the very society the leaders seek to serve. The French Philosopher clearly foresaw the dangers of giving a leader too much power. When we give our leaders more powers than they deserve and even making them appear infallible or indispensable (as is the case in Nigeria today), we run the risk of creating a dangerous monster we cannot ultimately control or tame.
Our President is already impossibly arrogant and self-righteous and, now that the Mantu Committee has awarded him a tenure extension against the existing term limits in the 1999 constitution, Gen. Obasanjo is thus given unlimited licence to rule Nigeria according to his impulses. With the proposed removal of immunity clause for Governors under section 308 of the 1999 constitution by the Mantu Committee and a likely introduction of a bill to the National Assembly to grant President Obasanjo life immunity, the lawmakers and Governors in support of tenure extension for Obasanjo may eventually regret doing so. But by the time they realize the stupidity of supporting a third term for President Obasanjo, it would be rather too late to save the pro-third term Senators, Reps and Governors from being devoured by the Frankenstein monster they have created.
Nowhere in the democratic world are constitutions amended merely to sate the thirst for perpetual power by a few leaders with dictatorial ambitions. In fact, the larger interests of the society usually influence constitutional amendments. In Nigeria, however, the primary motivation for the recent proposed amendments by the widely reviled Senator Mantu led JCRC was to gratify President Obasanjo’s stubborn ambition to rule for life, despite the current widespread discontent with his dictatorial style of leadership. Can a man with President Obasanjo’s antecedents of treachery, vindictiveness, ingratitude and schadenfreude (a German term for malicious enjoyment at the misfortunes of others), be trusted with excessive power in a democracy? Indeed, should such a man who demands idolatrous devotion in the name of “total” loyalty be invested with the privilege of being the first leader to have the constitution amended to enable him exceed his term limit in power?
The mood of celebration in the camp of those fanatically supporting tenure extension for the President may be short-lived in the end when Gen. Obasanjo begins to obliterate the efforts of anyone that ever laboured to bring about his historic elongation of tenure from his memory! With Gen. Obasanjo invested with such enormous powers, the majority, if not all of the pro-third term Governors, may end their political career in the slammer; so are Senators and Reps in the tenure extension train likely to suffer a similar fate once the tenure extension and life immunity proposed for President Obasanjo succeeds in the end.
Intoxicated by unlimited powers and pixilated by a conviction of his own indispensability, the President may one day announce to his baffled citizens that he has dissolved the National Assembly over a certain disagreement! It means that the very National Assembly that created the detested Mantu Committee may fall a victim of its own myopia, gullibility and miscalculation. Since the leopard can hardly ever change its spots, it would be too naïve to trust President Obasanjo to behave according to democratic standards of decency. Anyone who keenly fellows the recent Indonesian political experience where a falling dictator attempted to dissolve parliament, but was frustrated by the military, should not be surprised if Gen. Obasanjo takes the same course to settle scores with the National Assembly. Intolerant of opposition and haunted by a sense of inflated patriotism, President Obasanjo may not have a minute’s hesitation to deal with the National Assembly or any Governor that crosses his path.
Therefore, can Senators, Governors and Representatives in the third term train afford not to see the potential dangers of investing excessive powers in the hands of President Obasanjo, who hasn’t changed his nature of betraying friends and others that ever worked for his own success? With Obasanjo’s popularity rating at the lowest ebb, can pro-third term Governors and Senators take a position inconsistent with the wider interest of the Nigerian electorate? Likely to lose their immunity and without a certainty of enjoying tenure extension, which is generously handed to Obasanjo on a plate by Senator Mantu, the pro-third term Governors are gambling with their own political future. They must keep their eyes on the ball because, once the tenure extension for the President succeeds, the General is going to rule with an ever crushing iron-hand. And consequently, his dictatorship will blur the line between genuine democracy and tyranny. These Governors and Senators must confront their conscience and weigh the consequences of the problems they may ultimately create for our democracy through unwarranted and unpopular tenure extension for imperial lord Obasanjo!
The irony of it all, however, is that the anti-corruption crusade of the Obasanjo administration is one of the policies being cited to justify tenure extension. Yet this same morality-driven administration is using corrupt means to achieve tenure extension ambition. It is an open secret that money has been changing hands to induce support for this detested political project.
SIGNED: DONATUS IFEANYI Dept of Pol. Science Abia State University, Uturu
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