Obasanjo Should Not Allow Himself
to Become Nigeria’s Public Enemy No.1
By
Yakub
Abdalla
For the past 2 years
people have been screaming, shouting and crying on the manner that
Obasanjo has been trying desperately to change (review/Amend) the 1999
Constitution of Nigeria. Until now Obasanjo has chickened
out of saying categorically whether he sanctioned the 419 manner in
which this constitutional amendment has been going on nor whether he
intends to benefit from it. However recently, the whole saga has
become a PDP agenda, officially. Ali/Ojo have made it clear that PDP
lawmakers would face the wrath of the party (Obj) if any one of them
decided to vote against the 3rd term extension. Gradually
they are explaining to us how credible Obasanjo has been, having laid
the foundation of proper polity in
Nigeria, and so he should be allowed
to continue until God knows when (Obasanjo will have to consult God on
when he would leave). This was what OJO MADUEKE advocated for on
the 10th December
2006 (day of the PDP Convention) when he hosted Foreign Chapter
officials. Yet he ashamedly denied these facts at an orchestrated
press conference recently in
Abuja, in which he even claimed he never met me.
My reply to his press conference is, “it takes a man to tell the
truth”.
Obasanjo is being re-packaged to
Nigerians as angelica rather than the
crooked old man who has presided over the most horrible
non-accountable government since
Nigeria was formed. On the domestic
front nothing works, no not one. What works, I ask. Is it security,
energy, transport, education, employment, value of our economy? What
works, GSM? Well, we pay the most expensive phone tariff in the
world.
What makes me sad
about the whole situation is that the very people who misled Abacha
and almost got Obasanjo killed on the alter of term extension are
the same people reading the same script they wrote to Abacha, in
order to mislead Obasanjo. I am annoyed because Obasanjo has fallen
for the political deception of Anenih, Ojo and Jerry. To me, these
people are
Nigeria’s
public enemy No.1, and what a sad old man Obasanjo will end to be,
if he continues down this path.
Why are Nigerians vehement in
this opposition?
Some Nigerians are yet to understand
the reasons for our vehemence on this constitutional fraud. I am
making an attempt here to provide a short review of the
constitutional journey from 1999 to date and I hope this might help,
if such people are seeking the truth. For the avoidance of doubt, I
believe Nigerians are excellent judges of excellence, and those on
the fence will now join the opposition to this charade, called third
term extension.
Shortly after the inauguration of this
administration in 1999, indeed there was a clamour for the amendment
of the 1999 Constitution. Obasanjo, in response to these clamours
set up the Clement Ebri committee to consult and harmonize the views
of Nigerians on the sections of the constitution that needed
amendments. After the exercise, Mr. Ebri submitted his report and at
no point in the committee's report was any person or community or
group of persons was quoted as requesting for a three four-year
terms or single term of six years for either for the President
and/or Governors.
It is now a known fact that during the
last year's National Political Reforms Conference set up by
Obasanjo, a committee under Prof. Jerry Gana and Kanu Agabi
attempted to smuggle in a 419 draft constitution,
in which a section recommended three terms of four years for the
President and Governors. This fraud was quickly sensed by patriotic
Nigerians and was not even admitted into the Conference's plenary
for debate, and not to talk of making its final report.
We also need to take cognizance of the
fact that the different sub-committees on constitutional amendments
conducted individual public hearings, and at no time was the issue
of three terms of four years raised for public debate.
The question that every intelligent
Nigerian should ask is, if the three terms of four years (third
term) did not feature in the report of the Ebri committee, neither
did it feature in National Political Reforms Conference, or even
that of the sub-committees, how did it suddenly appear as an
amendment of section 103 of the constitution? How was it smuggled in
and who smuggled it into the proposals recommended for amendment?
And even if there was an oversight on
the part of the Conference and the President wanted Nigerians to
consider this matter of three terms, is it not an abuse of
Nigeria’s legal intelligence to
adopt a beer salesman to marshal the amendment of our constitution?
Since when did a salesman become a constitutional lawyer?
I make bold to say that I am sure that
Obasanjo has been part of this ojoro plot
to perpetuate himself in office since the word go, and so he should
stop pretending to be innocent. If this is to be considered an
unkind accusation, could someone please tell me who created the Ebri
Committee? What has happened to the Ebri report? Who created the
National Political Reforms Conference? Were the deliberations of the
sub-committees the raw materials for the report of the confab? If
the basis of the constitutional amendment is the Confab, then how
did we arrive at third term while it was not in the report?
Now that every sensible Nigerian is
refusing to be associated with this political fraud, we have started
seeing the desperate steps of the Obasanjo government. Repression,
intimidation and oppression have returned to our menu, ala Abatcha.
We should however know that one fraud leads to another. Political
fraud leads to financial fraud, financial fraud leads to economic
fraud and economic fraud leads to political fraud. It’s a vicious
cycle. We can now see how government money is being used to buy
peoples conscience (lobbying?) and this in turn will perpetuate
economic corruption.
What moral right has Obasanjo to
accuse others of corruption while he is presiding over the most
corrupt political party ever created in
Nigeria? What moral right has
Obasanjo to accuse others of waste and mismanagement while he is
squandering trillions of Naira because he has adopted the Abatcha
legacy?
Conclusion
Nigeria’s
democracy is indeed being threatened by undemocratic and dictatorial
forces. We recognize that this is a disease that needs serious
attention. Some diseases are however so serious that the only way to
deal with it is surgery. I hope Nigerians would go for surgery than
allow our democratic process to be derailed. The men and women in
the National Assembly should do what is right, even if it will cost
them their party membership. The problem is that if they fail to do
the right thing, Nigerians will vote them off the scene and they
would have wished they have done the right thing, REFUSE TO BE
CORRUPTED BY OBASANJO’S SQUANDERING TENDENCIES. Nigerians will
forever regret a missed opportunity if they allow this grand
political fraud to succeed. This is a classic example of political
‘419’ fraud.
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