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Third Term Plot: A Reveille For Democrats By Samuel Adegbenro
Surely, the third term agents seem to be whistling in the dark as reality continues to show that their project is badly received nationwide. As the third term promoters go for broke, in the face of diminishing credibility and rising popular revulsion against the absurdity, our democracy is confronting one of its grimmest challenges yet since the end of military rule in May 1999. When President Obasanjo was elected in 1999, Nigerians saw our return to democracy as opening the spring of hope. Sadly, the desperate third term campaign has turned such a promising spring into a winter of frustration or dashed hopes. Nigerians are witnessing the worst existence under this government, despite the rapidly rising oil revenues accruing to the accounts of the federal government. We are getting richer yet poorer; such is the paradox of Nigeria’s prosperity! Isn’t this enough defeat for any argument in favour of tenure extension for the President in view of massive poverty aggravation, which his policies have brought on the lives of millions of Nigerians?
Despite their attempt to use ethnic and regional divide to achieve their unpopular agenda, the third term promoters are facing rising resistance across the nation and their desperate strategy to exploit our differences is collapsing everyday. The fact that respected and credible Yoruba leaders such as Professor Wole Soyinka are among the leading opponents of the third term agenda is evident of the broad-based nature of the national hostility to the project. Recently, Prof. Soyinka warned the nation that our apathy to this dangerously unfolding agenda can ultimately make Nigerians slaves in their own country. The third term agenda has the risk of stacking the cards against other Nigerians with legitimate ambition to serve their country, thereby producing a one-horse race in 2007.
The consistent and principled opposition by Professor Soyinka has decisively defeated the silent campaign to convey the impression that the third term agenda is in Yoruba political interest. On the contrary, the campaign is even tarnishing the well-founded reputation of the Yoruba as crusaders for democracy, rule of law, human rights, justice and freedom. We must however, hail the courage of distinguished intellectuals like Soyinka for taking a firm stand against dictatorship, regardless of the ethnic complexion of the perpetrators. Prof. Soyinka’s stance is a promising intervention to salvage the reputation of the Yoruba in whose “interest” the third term agenda is purportedly being promoted.
Professor Soyinka has put to shame those who used to believe that he was opposed to Gen. Babangida’s and Abacha’s dictatorships because they were non-Yoruba. His present position on the third term agenda has knocked the bottom out of the argument that his opposition to dictatorship has ethnic coloration. In fact, as far as majority of the Yoruba people is concerned, Gen. Obasanjo has never been a hero of democracy, despite his pretence to present himself as a democrat in the eyes of the world. The June 12 crisis of 1993 had exposed his hypocrisy about his commitment to democracy. He was so violently jealous of the late Chief Abiola’s national popularity that he lacked the courage to make a decisive public declaration in support of the restoration of Abiola’s mandate. It is a great insult, therefore, to suggest that the Yoruba political interest is being served by President Obasanjo’s brutal efforts to suppress our constitution in order to rule for life.
Despite the moral crisis facing the political career of third term promoters, they are still defying public opinion with their persistent determination to alter and impose a new constitution on Nigerians, which may force frustrated citizens to put up with President Obasanjo’s unpopular rule. And the coming weeks and months may be a litmus test for the resolve of the opposition to tackle the third term monster, which is threatening to swallow up our entire democratic sacrifices to bring President Obasanjo into office.
Nothing is as dangerous as disunity or division among members of the opposition and they must avoid any temptation to play into the hands of the third term campaigners. The “generous” registration of new parties by INEC is nothing more than a poisoned chalice and the opposition must tread carefully in their dealings with such tricks. The purpose of INEC is to spread the apple of discord among the leadership of MRDD and ACD in order to promote a bitter power tussle that may ultimately give the Obasanjo rump of the PDP a walkover in the 2007 election. The PDP is however, like a patient with terminal illness; every doctor knows he is going to die, but nobody can say whether it is today or tomorrow.
However, the opposition must avoid complacency just because of the existing moral hostility to the third term agenda. Courage, tenacity and perseverance must be the main weapon of the opposition. With the police and other security agents being used to frustrate members of anti-third term forces, the opposition must remain focused and firm in their determination to thwart the third term agenda. Throughout history, dictators usually use intimidation to get what they want. Fear feeds tyranny and that is why the pro-third term campaigners are using the police to disrupt anti-third term meetings.
The recent disruption of anti-third term meeting, to have been held at the Sheraton Hotel Abuja, was a good example of the shape of things to come, especially the tough challenges the opposition must cope with in the coming weeks and months. We may witness more arrests, blackmail, intimation and harassment of the opposition. What the third term campaigners fail to acknowledge is that, once the moral battle against you is stronger, there is a limit you can swim against the tide. And there is a limit beyond which you cannot push the people too far, especially citizens that are opposed to an agenda intended to rule them against their wishes.
Unarguably, the third term campaigners are desperate and they would not mind using any weapon to force the opposition into retreat or submission. Unless the opposition is ready to muster the courage and face up to the challenges of the moment, the third promoters can even treat us like dirt and get away with it.
In fact, the major challenge before the anti-third term elements is the battle to defeat fear. Fear is the first weakness that dictators seek to exploit in their opponents. In the words of the Indian political sage, Mahatma Ghandi, “there are tyrants where there are cowards.” And since fear feeds aggression, at every stage the third term promoters discover that intimidation of the opposition is helping their cause, they may have increasing audacity to impose life dictatorship on Nigerians. Can we afford to let our country become a nation of sheep, ruled by the wolves or murderers of democracy currently plotting a tenure extension for President Obasanjo?
However, one is impressed by the courage of the Vice-President to publicly repudiate the third term agenda, which sparked off his rift with the President in the first place. With a third term agenda, which seeks to render the office of the Vice-President irrelevant and turn the country into one-man’s fiefdom through absurd manipulation of the constitution, it would be ridiculous for any sensible Nigerian to expect Atiku Abubakar to endorse illegality in the name of the so-called 100-percent loyalty to the President (mind you, not to the constitution or Nigeria). The Vice-President had demonstrated extraordinary equanimity under maximum provocation and humiliation in the name of meeting President Obasanjo’s ridiculous standards of personal fealty.
In fairness to the Vice-President, the man has suffered enough humiliation at the hands of the most vindictive President ever known in Nigerian history. Does loyalty suggest licking someone’s boot and receiving kicks from the same boots in return? Loyalty is mutual between a Vice-President and his boss. And if Atiku Abubakar has now realized that extending loyalty to Gen. Obasanjo is like giving a mirror to a blind man and decided to assert himself, the President is largely to blame for turning a seemingly meek deputy into a loyal dog driven at bay, ready to defend itself against the aggressor. Vice President Atiku Abubakar has no reason therefore, to resign because he openly condemned the attempt to mutilate our constitution to enable the President exceed his term limit. After all, was he not elected on a common ticket in his own right with the President?
Even a worm can turn, so goes an English saying. Vice President Atiku Abubakar had made more political sacrifices than necessary all in the name of loyalty to a boss that demands idolatrous devotion. The needless crisis of confidence between Gen. Obasanjo and Atiku was the creation of the President because of his disingenuous attitude about the third term agenda.
Sidelined, humiliated, unappreciated and his supporters de-registered from the PDP, why should the Vice President stupidly throw his weight behind a project which is unpopular or which is intended to gratify the ambition of one man to rule perpetually? While different political associations are canvassing support for Gen. Obasanjo’s third term ambition, Atiku is even being denied the right to be loved or admired by others. The Turaki vanguard, a political association of Atiku’s admirers, is now taken before the court, charged with operating as an illegal association at a time other associations are campaigning for the third term such as the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), which is allowed to operate freely and publicly giving a personal donation of five million naira by the President. Is this double standard consistent with integrity which is the flaunted virtue of the President?
In the face of this open political persecution and campaign of hate against Atiku, are the gloves not off? How much more dirt can he continue to swallow? Why shouldn’t he associate with fellow democrats when democracy is long dead and buried in the PDP? A party like the PDP, packed with un-elected leaders, lacks any moral right to question disgruntled members who seek genuine platform to associate. Docility or cowardice inspires no respect and Atiku is right on course for resisting the enthronement of dictatorship under the guise of practicing democracy in Nigeria.
Mr Adegbenro, a pro-democracy activist and political commentator
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