REVEALED: What you need to know about Obasanjo’s 3rd term agenda and how it was killed
- Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has continued to maintain that there was nothing like his alleged third-term ambition or that he was not involved in it
- But Governor Bello Masari of Katsina, who was speaker of the House of Representatives at that time, has revealed how it happened
Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina state has revealed how the much-talked about third-term ambition of former President Olusegun Obasanjo was frustrated.
Masari was the speaker of the House of Representatives between 2003 and 2007 when Obs=asanjo allegedly made desperate moves to review the constitution in his favour for a third term.
Masari with President Muhammadu Buhari
The former president has often denied involvement in the agenda.
The Sun reports that Masari said he joined forces with former Senate President Ken Nnamani and they mobilized their colleagues against the ambition.
The report said Masari made the revelation at the Government House, Katsina, recently adding that Obasanjo was actually reluctant to leave office.
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He added that a super-power nation contacted him and Nnamani to reject the 2007 election won by the late Umaru Yar’Adua since it was flawed and with a promise to support their emergence as interim president and vice president.
He said: “We started a journey from 2003 to 2007. Immediately after 2007 election, Ken Nnamani and myself, and some few others started meeting.
“PDP was so pervasive in the polity that it failed to reform. I know the role we played – not only about stopping the third term, but also to sustain the 2007 election, as bad as it was.
“I think Senator Ken Nnamani and myself deserve some recognition, as we not only killed the third term, but also saved the 2007 election. An international election monitoring team led by a senior official from a super power nation invited us to a meeting, with Ken Nnamani, some senators, and myself and told us there was no election in 2007.
Obasanjo has insisted he was not involved in the alleged ambition
“Indeed, the 2007 elections were flawed, and really there was no election. And I said, ‘yes there was no election.’ And they said, ‘why shouldn’t you move against the present government.’ They said we should use our chamber to make a declaration that there was no election. I said we would not do that because the constitution has not given us power to do that.
“I told them that we had stopped third term and if we took that road, the President could simply declare a state of emergency. On the 29th of May 2007 our mandate, as legislature, would expire; the president would be the only one the constitution has given the right to remain in office to conduct a fresh election.
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“I said we had exercised our own power to kill the third term, but if Nigerians could organise themselves, the whole nation can call on the National Assembly and give us extra constitutional powers, which I knew was impossible to do.
“So we really rejected that idea; even a motion was suggested that we should call for another election; but we said we would not do that, because we knew the consequences of condemning the election; it would throw the country into chaos.
“Those in government were not people who were friendly to us. But we made the sacrifice because of the nation. We knew that only God would protect us from them. We took that decision so that we didn’t throw the country into confusion.
“In fact, we even refused to table the matter at the House to debate it, whether there was an election or no election.
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“In 2007, there was no election. People were only brought into office by the former president. This is because elections were conducted on ballot papers that were not numbered. Yes, they were just papers, which I can print here.”
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