abdulraheem
A consensus seems to have emerged that these are very interesting times in Nigeria. From the North to the South, East to West, the main topic of discussion is the desperate effort by the Obasanjo cabal to subvert Nigeria’s constitutional order, to elongate Obasanjo’s tenure in office, beyond the May 2007 date sanctioned by the constitution. If it was in the realm of the speculative before, it has been brought out in the open, in all its naked nastiness, thanks to a series of recent events in the country. Nigeria is facing a great danger in the hands of Obasanjo. The man wants to stay in power beyond 2007; the bid is a desperate one, because as I have said repeatedly on this page, Obasanjo is scared stiff about what might happen to him, if he eventually relinquishes office in 2007. The truth is that the man has a lot of reasons to fear for his future. In the chequered history of democracy in this country, no Nigerian ruler has treated our country with the disdain and utmost disrespect for the constitution and laws of our country in the manner that Obasanjo has done since 1999. Nigeria under Obasanjo’s watch, saw the incredible spectacle of a regime that will not implement its own budgets duly passed by the National Assembly; we suffered the will full and illegal appropriation of moneys by the Presidency; Nigerian national assets were disposed of in an illegal and unconstitutional manner by his regime; a crony class of beneficiaries was created through which our national patrimony was privatized and the poverty of the Nigerian people deepened; Obasanjo has presided over the asphyxiation of the nation’s public space to the benefit of a minority of private individuals and has eroded on an incremental basis our democracy to strengthen the authoritarian streak in the nation’s political process. This is the background that Obasanjo operates from. He is not a fool; he knows that he has become the most unpopular leader ever to rule Nigeria, and a leader under whose watch, the Nigerian people have suffered the most hardships in the midst of plenty. The man cannot afford to leave Aso Villa to face the wrath of the people for whom he has become the byword for sorrow, anguish and pain. This is why the third term agenda has become the life line he has to hang his entire political life on. But even before the third term agenda took a trajectory of its own, there is the little piece of the jigsaw that we must carefully put in place. Before the 2003 elections, the Obasanjo group had been in a crisis situation. All manners ofreports had been commissioned, with each one pointing out that given his dismal performance in office, his incredible incompetence as a President and the erosion of the Nigerian people’s confidence in him, Obasanjo was not going to win the 2003 elections. His group was thrown into a panic, leading to the emergence of all kinds of permutations that would have scattered the nation democratic process, if they had been embarked upon. At the end of the panic attack, a resolve was made to massively rig the elections. It got so bad that in an attempt to ensure rigging ‘beyond the call of duty’ Obasanjo was allocated 600,000 more votes than the number of registered voters in Ogun State. Even the Pyrrhic victory in the court has not given Obasanjo the legitimacy of a genuine victor in a democratic process. This crisis of legitimacy is one that must not be underestimated in understanding Obasanjo’s current plight and the desperacy to manipulate the nation’s constitutional order. Fast forward to 2005. The third term agenda revved to a higher gear especially after the strategic set back which the Obasanjo clique suffered during the National Political Reform Conference. The hope had been that the conference would be used as an incubator for the hatching of the third term agenda in an irreversible manner. However the conference unleashed consequences that were not part of the original script which set up the conference in the first place. Contrary to the plans of the Obasanjo clique, the agenda to smuggle the third term constitutional amendment was exposed, became discredited and was decisively defeated at the conference. Much to the chagrin of Obasanjo, Northern Nigeria that he had spent much resources to divide at regional and religious levels, found its voice in unity and was thus able to win major victories that weakened the Obasanjo platform at the conference; in the process, consciousness was heightened across Nigeria, about the desperacy of Obasanjo and his clique to push through the third term agenda. At the heart of a lot of the major decisions taken after the 2003 election, was the crisis of legitimacy we had initially spoken of The ‘rapid-fire’ implementation of the neoliberal economic program, was expected to win the support and approval of the western countries, and in order to quicken that approval, an economic team of the most rabidly pro-imperialist technocrats were knocked together to drive the entirely anti-people economic agenda of the Obasanjo regime. The regime in the years since 1999 perfected the nurturing of a crony circle of bandit capitalists whose incredible wealth was tied to the unconstitutional privatization policy of the past few years. They have generally been unpopular with the Nigerian people, whose deepening poverty was literally the obverse of their own wealth. They share Obasanjo’s fear of the Nigerian people and the possibilities of a revisit of the illegalities they have profited from. This is the reason for the confession by Obasanjo’s special assistant, Femi Fani-Kayode, that it is the private sector, represented by the likes of Festus Odimegwu, the President of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Charles Ugwuh, etc. who actually have been very gung-ho about the third term agenda. It is the hope of the bandit capitalists that a few more years of Obasanjo would have entrenched their strangle hold on our nation’s economic life, that it would become impossible for successive regimes, especially a patriotic, pro-people regime, to upturn the apple cart of their theft of our national patrimony, which Obasanjo’s incompetent and unpatriotic rule has fostered. The bandit capitalists are the willing financiers of the third term agenda; however, they need the master political jobbers, those who cut their teeth in the art of manipulation and the politics of no principle, from the days of the military dictators. It is therefore no co-incidence, that the same characters who traded away the June 12 mandate, worked to perpetuate Sani Abacha in power are the same tacticians of the third term agenda for Obasanjo. The list is long, but the most recurrent names include Chief Tony Anenih, Prof Jerry Gana, Ojo Maduekwe, Ibrahim Mantu to name but a few. Lets not make a mistake about it, these characters are determined to push through their agenda. They have absolute contempt for the Nigerian people and do reckon that what is vital is to continue to be subservient to the Western powers. The calculation is that if the West can get as much rich pickings as possible in the Nigerian economy, then the West is likely to look the other way, as the Obasanjo clique subverts the will of the Nigerian people. It is also part of the elaborate process of the third term agenda, to continue to dangle the carrot of continuity in power at all the governors, who are naturally expected to line up behind Obasanjo, since they will enjoy it together. But many of them are naïve, because built into the agenda, is for them to move on the Obasanjo track until the point is reached where they would have been used by him and then eventually dumped, as is Obasanjo’s wont! There is even the plan to mobilise other African leaders to begin to appeal to the Nigerian people to allow the third term agenda, because of the “good work” Obasanjo is doing not only for Nigeria, but also for Africa. Afterall, isn’t he the chairman of AU, Commonwealth etc, etc? The task that faces the Nigerian people is mainly to build a coalition that will derail the third term train. We must NEVER allow this country to be turned into a ‘Banana Republic’ that will be manipulated by Obasanjo and his clique. Obasanjo’s tenure ends in May 2007. The day after 29 of May, 2007, we must begin preparing an elaborate probe of the many breaches of our nation’s constitution under Obasanjo from May 1999 to the end of his tenure in May 2007. The patriotic coalition that should be built to derail the third term train must also be determined to revisit the unconstitutional economic policies of the regime; the unpatriotic oil deals; the import waivers; the illegal sale of national properties and so many other policies implemented, that taken together, have eroded our national sovereignty, pauperized the Nigerian people and have made the Obasanjo years some of the most agonizing in the recent history of Nigeria. Let me say that encouraging signs are emerging on the horizons. The formation of the MDD and MRD both point to an increasing appreciation of the danger that Nigeria faces, with the determined effort to institute an Obasanjo dictatorship in our country. The formation of the Northern Member’s Forum this week was also a major statement of intent to line up on the side of the Nigerian people. It is very important to build a national anti-dictatorship, anti-third term movement, solid like a rock that the Nigerian people can hurl at the anti[1]democratic elements working the hidden agenda of the third term project. Every patriot must answer the call of Nigeria at this critical moment in our national life.
