Former Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Dr. Usman Bugaje, has pooh-poohed the claim by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that he never desired tenure elongation nor attempted to have an unconstitutional third term in office.
The former President made the rebuttal while speaking at a democracy dialogue hosted by the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Accra, Ghana, last week.
Dismissing the long-held notion that he fought desperately to extend his tenure illegally, offering humongous bribes to legislators and political heavyweights at the time, Obasanjo declared that if he could get debt relief for Nigeria, he could have got a third term in office if he wanted. But he denied flatly that he desperately desired to perpetrate his rule.
“I’m not a fool,” Obasanjo declared angrily at the forum. “If I wanted a third term, I know how to go about it. And there is no Nigerian dead or alive that would say I called him and told him I wanted a third term.”
However, one of the political actors at the time, Dr. Usman Bugaje, took up the gauntlet and punctured the challenge by Obasanjo. He insisted vigorously that the ex-president “did everything within his power” to extend his tenure in office.
Bugaje, a member of the House of Representatives during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, said he had a first-hand knowledge of the tenure elongation plot by the former President, as did many other federal lawmakers.
Bugaje, an ally of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, made the assertion, Monday morning, while fielding questions during the flagship news and current affairs programme of Arise Television, The Morning Show.
Maintaining that lawmakers at the time had direct knowledge of the third-term plot, Bugaje declared:
“I can confirm to you that Obasanjo looked for a third term. He did everything that he could within his power to get a third term, but he failed to do so.”
Bugaje, a former scribe of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), rubbished Obasanjo’s defence as very weak and unconvincing, adding that Obasanjo’s agents actually threatened many lawmakers who were not supportive of the plot at the time.
“Now,” Bugaje continued, “the fact that he did not take a telephone to make a particular call to anybody is not sufficient evidence that he did not look for a third term. It’s just a matter of style, but all of us in the National Assembly at that time knew beyond any doubt that he worked day and night, and many of us were threatened by his own agents.”
The former lawmaker recalled incidents of intimidation against lawmakers, citing the experience of Hon. Victor Lar, then leader of the Northern caucus of the House of Representatives, who was reportedly forced into hiding at different times before a decisive meeting to resist the third-term bid.
“Those people who actually distributed the money and threatened us are alive,” Bugaje continued. “Those who received the money are alive. Those who refused to receive the money are alive. There is sufficient evidence… this is a matter that is incontrovertible, there is no way he can deny it.”
The failed Third Term bid by then President Olusegun Obasanjo ruled the airwaves and dominated Nigeria’s political space in 2006 when an amendment to the 1999 Constitution, which would have allowed presidents to seek three consecutive terms, was brought before the National Assembly.
The third term proposal was widely believed to have been sponsored by allies of the former President at the twilight of his Presidency.
The amendment, which included several other constitutional changes, was ultimately comprehensively rejected after heated debates in both chambers of the National Assembly.
Civil society groups, opposition politicians, and even members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, at the time mobilised against the plan, arguing that it would derail Nigeria’s democracy. That effectively buried all speculations about tenure elongation by the former President.
