The Third Term Plot and the Man Behind It

By

Dr. Abubakar A. Muhammad

In a recent interview with the Punch Newspapers, a member of the National Assembly, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, one of my truly admired House members from Sokoto State had said: “The third Term thing is immoral, unconstitutional, and by the Grace of God, it will fail.” This is a remarkable statement by one of the members of the Senator Ibrahim Mantu so called Constitution Review Committee, a committee that as we all heard has been riddled with all kinds of corruption, money laundering, arm twisting, and promises of free plots and free tickets back to the National Assembly, all in pursuit of the dream of Olusegun Obasanjo’s Third Term Project. We have heard about the distribution of bags of money to pro-Third Term members of the National Assembly at first amounting to N50 million and now up to N70 million courtesy of OBJ, the anti-corruption ‘crusader.’ The initial N50 million was first dolled to the 80 members of the Mantu Review Committee, money that was allegedly reduced along the way to the distribution line by both Mantu and Senator Dalhatu Tafida, a senior member and insider within the Mantu’s Constitution Review Committee. In part, naked greed by the leaders of the Mantu committee was the episode that actually brought to light the way the tenure extension project had been turned into a commercial venture by an egocentric so desperate and driven to continue as an Emperor and a villain dictator of these great Nations that make up the Nigerian Commonwealth. It must be mentioned in passing that not all the members of the Ibrahim Mantu Constitution Review Committee were enticed by the OBJ largesse; rather honorable members like Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, Sa’idu Dansadau, Uche Chukwumeriji, Abdul Ningi and others were caught in the middle because they were chosen by the National Assembly to be members of the Constitution Review Committee and were appalled just like the rest of us when a clause on the tenure extension for the president was smuggled into the so called proposals for amendments of the Constitution. It is also on record that these honorable members and others of their political bent and patriotism walked out of the Port Harcourt meeting of the Mantu Constitution Review Committee to protest the grotesque and wicked manipulation of the evaluation of results of the stage-managed zonal public hearing as Ibrahim Mantu, the chairman of the committee, was about to impose the Third Term Agenda agreement on the rest of the members of his committee. It is important, indeed remarkable to observe that since the Port Harcourt meeting of the Constitution Review Committee numerous organizations including the NGOs, numerous political groups, comprising of members of the ruling PDP; ANPP; ACD; and AD; the socio-cultural groups like the Arewa Consultative Forum; the Afenifere; Ohaneize Ndigbo and the Movement 2007, to mention a few, have all sprang to defend not only democracy but the very unity and integrity of this great country. In short the anti-Third Term Plot is a Nigerian issue and Nigerians of all colors, creed and political orientations are making great strides to defend our hard earned democracy and unity as one Nation under God, the Almighty. And so the anti-Third Term Declaration is neither regional nor political in the sense of partisanship and only enemies of Nigeria will fail to see the great danger and calamity that are in store for the country should the despot Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo succeed to remain in office one day after May 29, 2007, in gross violation of our cherished Constitution. This is the man who earlier on told Nigerians that he was eager to go back to his Ota Farm to live with hogs and chicken; this is the man who had told all his predecessors from General Gowon to Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha to leave Dordan Barracks and Asorock when they were oscillating between leaving and staying in power; this is the man who against all odds was released from the prison as a sentenced criminal but was then pardoned to take up the Nigerian civilian leadership in order to assuage the vanguards who were demonstrating over the June 12 injustice committed by the military: and this is the man who allegedly employed heavy handed illegalities, including brutality, political murders, use of law enforcement agents, and numerous election frauds of the ‘419 elections’ by promising to complete the second term our constitution has provided the incumbent. Yet the eleven years in office [including three years as head of military junta] have done nothing to satiate this dangerously greedy man who in the view of many Nigerians poses the greatest threat to peaceful coexistence in Nigeria. Because he has made up his mind, General Olusegun Obasanjo is not one to listen and take heed of the advice of his own Yoruba Elders’ Forum who, at their last meeting, had warned him that any attempt to prolong his stay beyond May 29, 2007, will bring about a civil war in Nigeria. Rather, he chose humiliation because defeat of his plot for tenure extension is now a fait accompli in both the Houses of the Senate and the Representative Assembly.

As I had stated on this forum OBJ suffers from two main problems to want to stay in office. He has allegedly committed numerous transgressions against the Nigerian people, including brigandage, budget misappropriations, and outright mismanagement of the Nigerian treasury, never mind the self-conceited image he is desperate to create among the gullible that he is anti-corruption czar. He had, time without number, violated and trashed the Nigerian constitution through mutilation and abandonment of its numerous requirements for the past seven years, and he still continues to do so knowing he is not likely to be impeached under the current weak leaders of the National Assembly. These and numerous other crimes OBJ has allegedly committed are certain to have his mind made up that tenure extension, after all, will save him the horrors of going back to the jail where he rightly belongs. So it should be understood that when OBJ announced he was ‘ready to die for Nigeria’, he was telling us his readiness for battle with Nigerians, majority of whom have resolved he must leave Asorock on May 29, 2007. And it will be stated again that money inducements, intimidation by his selective watchdogs like the EFCC, ICCP, SSS, and other law enforcement agencies will not save the presidency for this thoroughly corrupt, and despotic president. Lets I sound very optimistic and conclusive; I have no intention to create the feeling that the hoodlums and nincompoops the president has employed to actualize the scam of his tenure extension have been defeated at this time. Certainly not! The battle has just begun and I expect in days to come it will be intensified even after members of the National Assembly succeed to foil the constitutional amendment to elongate the life of this sadistic and hopeless administration. The president’s diehard supporters and bootlickers who stand to gain by his stay in office beyond May 2007, are certain to come up with other condemnable gimmicks and illegalities through the coming months till next year’s elections. After all we know most of the members of Peoples’ Despotic Party in the National and State Assemblies did not win their seats, including their leader, Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo. What guarantee then do we have the party of crooks will take its sure defeat on the extension of the president’s tenure lightly? And so it is going to be a tortuous and bruising fight, perhaps a fight up to the finish line on May 29, 2007, when our new president will take the oath of office: “to defend and protect the Nigerian Constitution.” Remember, until quite recently, neither the president nor his handlers within the party of destruction have come clean to declare that Mr. President is indeed the man behind the Third Term Plot. The man OBJ is under the spell of wanton greed which is why he plays the game of hide and seek; a game he does not have courage to speak the truth at any time and for any reason. And then he has among his army of uncouth, inept, and misguided ‘advisors’ an ex-army colonel, Dr.Ahmadu Ali, who not knowing what politics is about runs the PDP like a cult organization that uses all kinds of brutality, coercion, intimidation, blackmail, and even murder to force members of the cult into submission. Part of Ali’s image problem as chairman of the Peoples’ Despotic Party was that he had already earned the name of a despot when as a one time Minister of Education he ran down our Institutions of Higher Learning. He has never recovered from the image of one whose his hands were soiled with innocent blood having ordered the army and police to kill demonstrating students on sight at the Ahmadu Bello University. It is obvious the president was impressed by Ahmadu Ali’s heavy-handed brutality to impose him on the PDP by replacing Audu Oghbe, a man known for his good manners and political wit. Yes, Colonel Ali was OBJ’s preference to Audu because the president is obsessed with what he calls 100% loyalty and he is now getting it from a man of robotic mind and instincts. Just hear him cursing and chastising his own party members, those that we are entitled by our constitution to call distinguished and honorable. While praising Ibrahim Mantu for ‘carrying out his assignment’ [tazarce plot], Ali then accused the anti-Third Term distinguished and honorable members of the National Assembly of: “Allowing themselves to be led by the nose. That is what happens when you have too many children. Some of them will definitely deviate from the path laid out for them by their parents and behave out of tune.” While the PDP chairman makes pathetic analogy of members of the National Assembly from his party as ‘deviating’ children, it is troubling the chairman of the ‘largest party in Africa’ does not appear to have a brain the size of an ant. Otherwise how could he coerce and intimidate elected members of the National Assembly by ordering them to violate our Constitution to satisfy the evil intentions of Mr. President? Call the members what you will they are supposed to have been elected into the National Assembly unlike the chairman who the president had imposed on the PDP hierarchy. Dr. Ahmadu Ali’s other comments are equally frightening and nauseating. He sees his party, not the Nigerian people, as one ‘elected’ to frame our Constitution and he boasts: “This is the first time that an elected government is trying to produce a constitution. The subterfuge that the opposition and media have driven Nigeria into is to give the amendment a skewed perspective.” When did it become the responsibility of a government, and not the people, to produce a Constitution for the country? One should remind the chairman that even the military juntas, undemocratic as their rule was, did not use their positions to force or bribe the public to change our Constitution so that they could remain in office. Yes, the one ulterior objective of the current Constitutional Review Committee as it is orchestrated by OBJ’s parasitic convoys like Colonel Ahmad Ali, Ibrahim Mantu, Omar Hambagha, Jibril Aminu, Tony Aneni, Bode George, and their surrogate Governors like Bukar Abba Ibrahim, Modu Sherif, Abdullahi Adamu, Muhammadu Makarfi, Umaru Musa ‘Yar Adua, Saminu Turaki and the rest of this pathetic crew, is to entrench Olusegun Obasanjo for a life presidency. In turn, these corrupt and greedy Governors hope to remain in power and retain their immunity from arrests and persecution over the heinous political and financial crimes they have allegedly committed against their own people. All the antics and outbursts by these sellout Governors are aimed at retaining their immunity with the president, as they also become beneficiaries of the illegal tenure elongation. So as Governors they are assigned to their states to implore, intimidate and cajole members of the National and State Assemblies ‘to cooperate’ in this presidential hooliganism by the name of the Third Term. Let these Governors of shame be told history will catch up with them when their anti people plot fails and they will have no where to hide, not even in Ota. It was not long when the chairman of the PDP was asked if his party was behind OBJ’s tazarce, and he shamelessly retorted the party has not taken a position on the issue. Because so much water has run under the bridge since then and he now sees the growing disenchantment and outright public revulsion against tazarce, suddenly, the chairman now dishes out marching orders to party members to toe the line or else. It is a do or die plot even for the chairman who has skeletons in the cupboard to hide from attack by the Nuhu Ribadu’s EFCC. What a shame! Nuhu Ribadu would do himself and Nigeria proud if he should investigate the 11 trillion naira that the Minister of Finance reported was disbursed to Federal, State and Local governments, from 1999 to 2005. Such investigation has become even more significant because the Federal Government had the lion share of these funds and yet there is nothing to show on the ground as projects to indicate government’s self acclaimed fiscal responsibility, transparency, and accountability. The EFCC czar should also investigate all the corrupt businesses of his boss that today run in billions of naira from his Ota Farms conglomerates to the Bell Schools; and from the seven or eight billion naira ‘private’ library funds to the president’s assets from the ‘privatization’ partnerships; and then not least the colossal thefts and disappearance in billions of naira within the giant NNPC which is one of the other parastatals under the direct watch and control of OBJ who dabbles as the Federal Minister of Petroleum. Admittedly, it is wishful thinking to expect Nuhu Ribadu to go after his boss, as they say: “One who pays the piper calls the tune.”

The Hausa say: “Tura ta kai bango” [the die is cast] and as the clock ticks to the eleventh hour all the culprits of the tazarce will be brought to book. Indeed it is God’s Law that He exposes evil and all it stands for. The man who it was falsely claimed had not said he wanted elongation of tenure is now running helter-skelter, and cap in hand, is begging to let go with the illegality only God knows how long that will last? And to add salt to injury OBJ is playing God, his familiar tariff, again. He said he is waiting to hear from God before he makes decision on the Third Term. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo believes he can pull wool over our eyes by simply calling his infatuation and greed ‘God’s project’ as he asserts: “God does not abandon His project.” But does God really promote projects of squalor, insecurity, hunger, disease, power failure, poor health epidemics, massive poverty, unemployment, and then to cap it, disgraceful decay of agriculture, education, and infrastructures? Surely OBJ’s little gods who control him [the IMF, World Bank, Paris Club, Vested Interests, etcetera], have all helped to bring these unbearable hardships on innocent Nigerians. Yet the PDP chairman warns: “We need the president for continuity.” Oh yes, just somebody, like OBJ: “Who will be there long enough to understand the ropes of governance.” He continues: “The idea of three terms of four years is appealing, so that we can get a policy of irreversibility of policies right.” Even though this statement is one made by a deranged and power driven chairman who rather than help democracy to flourish, he would prefer the primitive tactics dictatorship, intimidation, and coercion to get the PDP ‘children’ collaborate in the OBJ-Ahmadu plot that can scuttle democracy in Nigeria. Worst, he forgot even as a Muslim that it is only God, Almighty, that has the power to make anything ‘irreversible’ let alone the callous, cold-blooded, and corruption infested ‘economic reforms’ that Olusegun Obasanjo has unleashed on innocent Nigerians. Allaah Ya isa [God will judge], ironically was Ahmad Ali’s prayer against Nigerians opposed to the Third Term Plot, as he described them: “The selfish, egocentric and power seeking individuals opposed to us decided to label the entire exercise ‘third term agenda.’ All we can say to the evil people against constitutional amendment is, Allah ya isa [God will judge].” If the PDP chairman were wise, smart, and sincere he would have realized the folly and hypocrisy of shifting blame of greed, selfishness and egocentrism to those of us who are simply exercising our inalienable right to defend democracy in Nigeria and to abhor the illegalities of power seeking and greedy cult. And indeed the Nigerian people are more entitled to say: “Allaah Ya isa,” because OBJ’s so-called ‘economic reforms’ have only made the rich, [who are members of his club] richer, while the poor people of Nigeria have become poorer. It is no secret that in the wake of these ‘reforms’ there have been traumatic side effects of hunger and malnutrition; despair and joblessness, not to mention the state of insecurity that has become the order of the day. In short, the earlier OBJ leaves office the better! That is why the news that the president has invited the governors, members of the National Assembly and other political bigwigs from the South West, is indeed alarming as it amounts to the president’s total desperation, after knowing that his surrogated campaign to manipulate our Constitution for his Third Term Project is about to run into a state of comatose. Yes, it is the same president about whom we were lied to by the Fani Kayodes, Ahmad Allis, Ibrahim Mantus, and Bode Georges that their benefactor, Chief Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo indeed had no interest for elongation of his tenure. Could it be a slip of tongue even though they repeated this tale a thousand times? For all we know the man was caught begging his ethnic lords for support of the illegal project. And then he tells us: “I am not a manipulator.” Yeah, right Mr. President! A report had it that he told his kith and kin he needed more time to continue with his ‘economic reforms,’ hence he begged members of the National Assembly from the South West to doctor the Constitutional amendment for him to stay. Mercifully, the request of the president fell on deft ears. Indeed if the story were true those that attended the meeting with Mr. President felt insulted because the money inducement was craftily used as bait for their support. It must be stated the bulk of the people of the South West, are also like other Nigerians, against the Third Term Dream of this president. Indeed the likes of democracy warriors Ganiyu Fawaheinme; Professor Wole Soyinka; Chief Olu Falae; Governor Ahmad Tinubu of Lagos and others of Afenifere persuasion, who are against the illegality of the PDP are hard to beat when it comes to fighting in the trenches for democracy and the rights of individual human beings. They are leaders as well as rank and file soldiers of democracy. That is why the idea that opponents of the Third Term Agenda are people drawn from any region or zone is deadly bankrupt and bunkum.

Let me reiterate, even at the risk of monotony that the battle to free Nigeria from these political marauders, people without conscience and principles, is far from over. As the sun rises tomorrow, and distinguished members of the National Assembly continue the parlor on the Constitution Review, you should all count it as the beginning of the nailing of the Third Term coffin and God being on the side of the truth and proponents of freedom will deal a deadly blow to the scandal the tenure extension has become. I commend the effort, patriotism, and audacity of members of the Movement 2007, who were first to formally expose the Third Term fraud and they had not since call it quits in-spite of horrendous provocation, insinuations, intimidation and money laundering which they have rejected because they love Nigeria more. Indeed the likes of Sule Yari; Idris Kuta; Uche Chukwumerije; Sai’du Dansadau; Ben Obi; Usman Bugaje; Udo Udoma; Aminu Tambuwal; Okoya Thomas; Kanti Bello; Daisy Danjuma; Adamu Aliyu; Olurunnimbe Mamora; Saleh Danboyi; Francis Amadiegwu; Abubakar Makarfi; Ita Enang; Sani Sami; Titus Olupitan; Farouk Aliyu; Fred Orti; Mukhtar Aruwa; Wunmi Bewaji; Farouk Lawan; Abike Dabiri; Bello Gwarzo; Abiola Ajimobi; Abdul Ningi; Iya Abubakar; Bawa Bwari; Ahmed Yarima; Usman Albashir; Terfa Ati; and a host of these valiant defenders of democracy and rule of law are rare gem in today’s Nigerian politics of greed and grab, and Nigerians, including those of us in Diaspora owe you special gratitude and we know you will win the battle for democracy that will keep Nigeria One. The Hausa say: “Ba gudu ba tsoro” [There is neither retreat, nor fear]. Your stand against the treachery called ‘Third Term’ is indeed commendable. Your courageous opposition against the perpetrator of this plot who is well known for his vindictiveness and who has awesome power and security outfits to use against his opponents [tools he had used countless times], defies description. Behind you in this fight for democracy are the likes of General Muhammadu Buhari; Muhammadu Rimi; Ganiyu Fawaheinmi; Balarabe Musa; General Chukwumeka Ojukwu; General Yakubu Gowon; Veteran Sunday Awoniyi; Veteran Magaji Danbatta; Veteran Anthony Enahoro; Governor Ahmed Tinubu; Gambo Jimeta; Governor Orji Kalu; Ghali Na’Abba; Tom Ikimi; General Victor Malu; Lawan Gwadabe; Governor Boni Haruna; Wole Soyinka; General Theophilus Danjuma; Colonel Abubakar Umar; Governor Abdulkadir Kure; Femi Falana; Umaru Dikko; Olu Falae; Umaru Shinkafi; Governor George Akume; Lawan Kaita; Audu Oghbe; Muhammadu Lai; Governor Attahiru Bafarawa; Tunji Braithwaite; Hasan Ibrahim; Ibrahim Tahir; Governor Sani Yarima; Barnabas Gemade; Yusuf Dikko; Chukwumeka Uzaife; and a host of these formidable men of principle and patriotism. Of late, the Vice President, Abubakar Atiku, and General Ibrahim Babangida have gracefully joined this team and I commend them as well. All these are men of different ideas and talents but who share one belief, and that is the Third Term Project must not be allowed to break up Nigeria, Sadly, as the Third Term Governors ‘go back to their constituencies’ to monitor support or opposition to their tazarce; and sadly as our dignified monarchs continue to sit on the fence over this deadly serious matter confronting the survival of Nigeria, it is uplifting to observe that majority of rank and file Nigerians have, in their droves, stated loud and clear, that the Third Term Plot is Evil and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo must leave on May 29, 2007. When this happens, true Democracy wins and Nigeria will take its rightful place under the sun among the Civilized Nations.

Dr. Abubakar A. Muhammad writes from the State of Pennsylvania, United States

of America.