Third Term: Kill this grotesque idea now- Editorial of NewAge Newspapers
Aderemi Ojikutu
to push for a review of the constitution to enable him go for a third
term in office has been unrelenting. It would seem as if the proponents
of elongation, Third Term, or whatever inelegant phrase is coined think
that the more they persist in their plans, the more it gains
justification. Unfortunately for them, Third Term as a prospect or a
plot has not been able to gather either rhyme or reason; it remains a
reproachful idea being canvassed by otherwise intelligent people. Now
before the National Assembly, the idea should die a national death.
For what it is worth, it is helpful to look at the core arguments and
the people at the core of this unedifying idea. First is the notion
that President Obasanjo has provided unparalleled leadership since 1999
and deserves to remain in office beyond 2007 because there is no
competent person for him to hand over to. Granted that the President
has earned applause for freeing the country from the Paris Club debts,
it is unfair not to on the other hand recollect that those debts began
during his tenure as a military Head of State between 1976 and 1979.
Secondly, though it can be argued that the President's tenure has
been somewhat successful, it has been far from an extraordinary
success. The very fact that he could not groom a competent successor
after nearly eight years in office is itself an indictment both of
himself and the system he presided over. Furthermore, if it is indeed
true that there are no persons worthy of taking up the mantle of
leadership now, what is the guarantee that in another four years, that
rare individual can be conjured? That apart, governance is a continuing
business. All the President's worthy projects and the blueprint of
the future cannot be achieved by a whimsically set date or deadline.
Perhaps that was what informed the obtuse notion of Yobe's Governor
Bukar Abba Ibrahim that the President and, by implication, the
governors, should remain in office till Providence intervened.
Thirdly, granted that politics has to go with a measure of cynicism,
the Third Term idea represents the most unacceptable face of political
sleight of hand. It is immoral. In decent societies, rules of the game
are not changed with the intention that the incumbent becomes the first
beneficiary. For a President who has set so much store on his spiritual
rebirth in prison, it is disappointing that he has chosen not to see
the incongruity in his attempt to stay in office beyond May 2007.
Fourthly, proponents of elongation are oblivious of the point that
democracy is all about accountability. If truly the votes of the people
count, then it unbecoming for an individual, no matter how
well-endowed, to presume to always be the preferred leader, head and
shoulder above everyone else. Imposition is the core of a dictatorship
hence it is at variance with democracy.
The people behind the Third Term project are no more alluring than the
misguided idea they peddle. Were it not Nigeria, it would have seemed
grotesque that some of the persons at the helm of the Third Term plot
had equally cried themselves hoarse that only the late General Sani
Abacha could rule this nation. It is absurd that President Obasanjo who
was imprisoned on trumped-up charges by Abacha because he opposed that
fatuous thinking would now find solace in the company of those who sang
and danced about eternal rule by Abacha until Providence intervened.
This group of experienced turncoats and political jugglers has now been
joined by a noveaux class of otherwise decent professionals and
business executives who are fast losing their reputation for sound
judgment. The Third Term project has exposed the superficiality of the
war on corruption as it is obvious that various types of inducements
are on offer to governors, senators and members of the House of
Representatives. Many have fallen prey to those inducements without a
thought for the oath they swore or for the interests of their
constituents and the nation at large. But the debate in both chambers
of the National Assembly has, mercifully, brought to the frontburner
the fact that there are still men of principle in all the parties and
across the nation. Representative Sola Akinyeye, Senators Dansadau,
Chukwumerije and Obi and many others too numerous to mention must carry
on the struggle with their guts, wits and brains till the people's
will triumphs over the will of an individual and a select few.
In all this, President Obasanjo is yet to speak. For a man whose
predilection for blunt speaking is well known, the least that can be
said is that it is baffling. If our President believes so much in
staying in office beyond 2007, would it not have been proper to say so
without quibbling? He either has been consulting God or has not found
it on his cards. President Obasanjo was a class act in 1979 when, just
like Ghana's General Joseph Ankrah in 1969, he handed over to a
democratically elected leader. What his record deserves is a follow-up
in 2007, that is, a surrender of leadership to a democratically -
elected president. It is hardly conceivable that a leader with such an
untainted credential will allow himself the misfortune of an
unpardonable lapse of judgment by even entertaining the idea of
manipulating the political process to suit himself in a brazen manner.