“Well, you know, I am not sure what to believe. I have had three attempts at conversation with
Obasanjo about this subject and each time he denied it.”
“Yes, he told me. That is why I came to confirm that there is a third term project. We are working
very hard on it and we need you on board.” While initially taken aback at the confirmation, I was not
entirely surprised at this revelation, because by then, we had all concluded that there was such a
project, but we were simply not trusted to be part of it.
“Well, you know me. Before I get involved in anything, I need all the details. I have to know the
whole truth, everything. Tell me why it is being contemplated and what the end-game is. Who is
involved in planning and execution, who are those providing the money, everything. When you do all
of that, I will make an assessment of what is in Nigeria's best interest first, using my conscience as a
guide. When so briefed and given some time to evaluate and reflect, I will decide on a position.”
“Well, what are your initial thoughts, gut reaction?” he asked.
“I think it is misguided. I believe it will fail in the legislature. But I do not have all the facts. If you
give me all the information and rationale for it, I may be in a position to reconsider. New information
may lead to modification in position.”
He nodded, adding “Ok. I am going to Lagos for a couple of days to attend an event and when I return
by God's grace, I will give you a call so we continue our discussion. I promise I will share all I
know.” He then suggested that the patronage - like land allocations and employment opportunities -
available in the FCT Administration would help in securing the support of several constituencies –
members of the legislature, traditional rulers, and leading politicians, particularly from the north. I
suspected he was sent to me by Obasanjo, but never asked for confirmation. Obasanjo never felt he
could talk to me directly about many of these dodgy matters because he was uncertain how I would
react.
My friend continued, “We need you to bring the economic team on board and behind this project.” I
was not the head of the economic team. Ngozi was, but I believe he chose to confide in me perhaps
because we had a friendship dating back to our university days in the late 1970s. I agreed to meet him
again in a couple of days and he left. That was the last time I ever saw him. On the flight back from
Lagos, the Bellview Airlines plane conveying him and 113 other passengers and crew crashed shortly
after take-off from Lagos on October 22nd, 2005. It was a double tragedy for the nation as the First
Lady, Mrs Stella Obasanjo died in Spain the next morning. We confirmed the plane crash and the
deaths the morning of October 23rd. Obasanjo was devastated, and we all mourned the loss of close
friends and compatriots, including the last permanent secretary I worked with at the FCT, Deji
Omotade. [11]
The next thing I did after some weeks of mourning was to go back to Obasanjo. “Mr. President, about
third term – I am now convinced there is a third term project.” “You are convinced, that is fine. I have
told you that if the National Assembly wishes to amend the Constitution, it is not my business,” he
said. “Yes, I know.”
I suspect that he expected me to mention the conversation with my deceased friend, but I declined to
do that. Instead I asked, “Have you discussed this issue with your predecessors in office, the former
presidents? You know, it is perhaps understandable why you would want to remain in office because
you probably believe you have many important programmes and projects to complete. I think the
former presidents will probably relate to that and understand it too. If you discussed it with them,
maybe they will openly support such constitutional amendments you have in mind.” He once again
denied the existence of any effort to extend presidential term limits, claimed he had not considered
this, and brushed it off. [12]
The core leadership of the economic team – that is Ngozi, Oby, Nuhu and I – met several times during
this extended period of intense speculation to discuss the alleged third term effort and were just
getting nowhere. Nuhu, as EFCC chairman, was briefing us that the EFCC's Financial Intelligence
Unit (FIU) noticed a lot of money flowing around from state governments to certain accounts in
Abuja, but he gave us no details as to who it was going to. We all suspected that Andy Uba was likely
to be the treasurer of the Third Term effort, but said nothing. Meanwhile, we all lived and worked in
Abuja, I administering the federal capital territory, watching the suspected Third Term organizers
come and go every day, and nobody said a thing to any one of us. Then one Wednesday, Ngozi
informed me that Obasanjo had finally talked to her about 'third term' and confirmed that the
administration would pursue the rumoured constitutional amendments. His reason, according to her,
was that he had in his mind who should be his successors, but they were not ready yet. He hinted that
we – the technocrats that were members of the economic team – should be his 'natural successors'.
However, he "needed time to prepare" the team and "lobby" the politicians to accept technocrats like
her in top-level political leadership. He explained that his plan was that if elected for a third time, he
would pick one member of our group as running mate in place of his estranged Vice-President Atiku
Abubakar and then groom that person to take over from him. This was the line he pursued and the tacit
impression he gave Ngozi, who appeared persuaded of the logic of this storyline. I did not buy it for a
minute and told her so.
We subsequently learned he had told versions of this story to other people whose support he needed
in the Third Term Project. For instance, he hinted to the then Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Aminu Bello Masari, that if he supported the third term project, Obasanjo would
pick him as his running mate and prepare him to be the next president. Surely the Speaker could not
have been the only one Obasanjo made this pitch to.
Ngozi's pragmatic political mindset came out clearly at this point. Her attitude was that as far as she
was concerned, this third term project was a done deal, it would happen, so we should just accept it
as a fact that "these unprincipled politicians will be bribed and will vote overwhelmingly for the
amendment. It is not necessarily a bad thing because we will continue to do our work and make the
country’s economy better until the time is right."
She furthermore showed me a document authored by a private think tank for Obasanjo which analysed
'the options before the president' at the time. This think tank was a group Obasanjo established to
study the political scenarios for 2007, and they came up with three options. One option was obviously
leaving office and handing over power to a northerner, as expected. The zoning provisions in the PDP
constitution made handing power to a "southerner" nearly out of the question, but the document argued
that "northerners" had ruled Nigeria for a disproportionate period of time since independence, and
had always messed up the country’s economy and governance when in leadership positions. The
document therefore identified this option as the least preferred.
The document was silent on the historical f
act that the perception of most Nigerians old enough to
know are that the Tafawa Balewa, Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed and Muhammadu Buhari
governments were the least corrupt, most inclusive and ranked higher in good governance than all
other military or civilian administrations we have had. All four administrations were headed by
"Northerners". In addition, the fact that every successive federal administration always had an ample
mix of ‘northerners’ and ‘southerners’ in top-level positions is often conveniently forgotten. This kind
of selective amnesia and ethnic irredentism have remained major tools of division deployed by the
Nigerian power elite for personal political gain. The ‘transition strategy’ document went further to
present other options.
The next option was to identify a person from the Niger Delta to hand over power to. A person from
the Niger Delta would be from the south, which would be in technical violation of the zoning
arrangement entrenched in the PDP constitution, but the justification of "fairness and justice" argument
made was that no one from the Niger Delta had ever been president of Nigeria, even though that
region has been the cash cow of the federation since the mid-1970s. The argument was that the zoning
arrangement in the PDP should be set aside as an unconstitutional contraption, and Obasanjo should
identify someone from the Niger Delta to hand power to no matter what it takes. Clearly, the person to
emerge would have been Obasanjo's favourite politician - Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State. This
was the second preferred (reserve) option.
The best option, according to this document, was to amend the nation's Constitution for Obasanjo to
have one more term to put all the foundations of the "modern Nigerian state" in place, before taking
the risk of leaving office. The group was silent on who that person was, or from what part of the
country the post-third term president would be. This was the document Obasanjo gave to Ngozi one
early Wednesday morning to read and return to him, and she shared it with me during the course of
our cabinet meeting. I should have taken a copy of it, but I did not need to. I was certain about what
the real agenda was and was firm in my personal decision about what needed to be done.
Ngozi took the existence of this document as proof that the Third Term effort was a fait accompli
since its protagonists had clearly put a lot of thought into it and had the resources to buy off the
legislature to ensure its enactment. The divisive foundations of the document were not of concern to
Ngozi, perhaps because many "Southerners" believe the convenient lie that there was ever a purely-
Northern administration. The inconvenient truth is that except for the Buhari-Idiagbon junta, every
administration headed by a Northerner had a Southerner as number two, with the positions of
secretary to the government, ministers of finance, defence and petroleum equally shared between the
two regions. With the exception of the Gowon regime which, with Admiral Akinwale-Wey as deputy,
had two Christians at the helm, and the Buhari junta with two Muslims on top, every federal
government had the two major religions equally represented at the two top spots.
Indeed in 1993, Nigerians freely voted for the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Abiola and Kingibe,
defeating the ‘balanced’ Tofa-Ugoh ticket, and destroying the untenable assumption that ordinarily,
Nigerians voted along largely ethnic or religious lines! The reality for me has always been as clear as
tropical sunshine - the Nigerian political elite - military and civilian, Northerners and Southerners -
consistently collaborated to short-change our nation and majority of the people all the time without
regard to any ethnicity or religion. The mythical ethnic, regional and religious divisions only come
into play when they seek to outwit one another for the top job or a bigger slice of the political and
economic pie! I have never and will never buy this crappy, worn-out line. I have lived in Nigeria all
my life, have observed its sociology, politics and economics and will never be fooled by these
outwardly-antagonistic regional, religious and ethnic bigots who one day are sworn enemies, only to
become cooperating-looters the next day! Ngozi was relatively new to Nigeria's politics, retained
hang-ups about her civil war experience, and may therefore interpret the situation differently. I felt I
had a duty to ensure that she was not fooled.
Over lunch at Chopsticks Restaurant, after concluding the cabinet meeting, I disagreed with her
position and was quite blunt in the conclusions I drew. “Ngozi, it is not going to happen,” was my
response. “A constitutional amendment requires two-thirds of the members of the legislature voting in
support – that means 67 per cent of the membership and 57 per cent of the legislature consists of
membership from the north. The bulk of the 'northern' legislators will never vote to give Obasanjo a
third term because political power and its perceived benefits will be seen to elude that part of the
country for another four years or longer. Why should they? Even if they are paid huge amounts of
explain that they gave a 'southerner' another four years in office. It is not a question of whether those
legislators will then be re-elected or not – they could be physically attacked and their properties
destroyed. It will not just be cases of political suicide; it will be actual suicide for those that support
this in many parts of the country. Some of them living in politically-charged places like Ondo and
Kano could have their houses burned and their entire families ostracized. That would be the feeling in
the north and many parts of Obasanjo’s south-west home base. In the north, I am more certain because
I speak to ordinary people and they talk to me, I know the feeling. This ‘third term’ thing is just not
going to happen."
I explained further that in the unlikely event that all the legislators from the north accepted the monies
that would be offered to them, supported the move, stayed in Abuja and gave up ever going home, for
the constitutional amendment to take effect, 24 out of 36 states’ assemblies then also must vote to
support it. There are 19 states in the north and 17 in the south. So in addition, assuming that all the
southern state legislatures approved it, which I doubted – it still needed seven more states in the
north. I did not see how seven state assemblies in the north would support this third term thing. It was
just not possible. The state assemblies’ buildings and their members would stand the risk of being
physically attacked by angry mobs on the day they voted to support it .
“We Have Three Choices”
The defiant feelings on the third term project were not peculiar to or just prevalent in the north. In
every part of Nigeria, particularly within the media and civil society organizations, the opposition to
Obasanjo’s tenure extension plans was vehement, even violent. Nigerians of every political, religious
and ethnic persuasion were dead set against it and very angry at even the thought of it.
“It is not going to happen, so do not even think about it,” I repeated. “So what do we do?” asked
Ngozi. “Well, we have three choices. We could decide to support it. I told you it would fail. We’ll
have a burd
en (of public betrayal) to carry for the rest of our lives. Or we could come out publicly
and announce that we are convinced there is a third term project, we were not a part of it and for this
reason, we were resigning together. We could do that. We will acquire a lot of national and global
credibility in the end, because I am sure this third term scheme will fail. But then the work you said
we are doing for our country may suffer and what we are doing is for the country, not for Obasanjo or
anybody else, and we still have some work to do - the Paris Club debt relief deal is yet to be signed
and sealed, and London Club is still a long way from closure.”
This was in late2005. I continued, “Or we could take a third option – ‘siddon look’. Remain in
government, keep out of the radar, pretend neutrality towards the third term project, or even perhaps
indicate benign support privately to Obasanjo, though we must not be actively engaged in anything to
do with it. We could then use as much information as we can obtain as insiders or bystanders as the
case may be, to work with those that are working openly to unravel it. This option enables us to keep
our jobs, preserve the implementation of our economic reform programme and to some extent, we can
also help the president, because there will be life after the collapse of the third term project and it is
important for him to be at least credible enough to select a decent successor. In my considered view,
that last option was the least controversial, enabling us to promote good and help the defeat of evil in
our administration, which was therefore our best choice. We agreed to stop saying even in private
conversation that we were against third term. We chose not to comment on what they were doing, but
never support them even in private conversations. I summarized the next steps for our group:
"We should never do anything to help them – the third term plan is morally wrong, legally