Third Term Unconstitutional, Says Obasanjo
By Moses Jolayemi with agency report
President Olusegun Oba-sanjo yesterday dismissed speculations that he is harbouring plans to run for a third term in office. The President said "to go for a third term is unconstitutional".
In an interview yesterday on Cable News Network (CNN), Obasanjo said he would not seek an amendment to the constitution to enable him stay in office beyond 2007.
Asked if he would not change his mind later, the president said "I will not change my mind. The constitution does not allow for a third term. To go for a third term is unconstitutional."
Section 137(b) of the constitution states that "A person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if - he has been elected to such office at any two previous elections."
President Obasanjo was elected into office in 1999 and 2003 respectively.
To further buttress his stand, Obasanjo said he was not even interested in contesting elections in 1999 but was persuaded to run. As a result, the President said he has no desire to stay in office beyond 2007 after which he will go back to his farm.
Dismissing a widely touted view that Nigeria is a giant in disarray, Obasanjo said such assertion has become an untrue stereotypical comment.
He said the country has moved away from its initial status as a pariah state, and that it has today produced the chairman of the continent's apex body, the African Union as well as the president-in-office of the Commonwealth which according to him is a testimony that Nigeria is being accorded its rightful position in the international community.
With the right type of leadership, Obasanjo said it is possible for a country at the precipice to rise and climb the mountain top within a short time.
The debate about a possible third term for Obasanjo reportedly gathered momentum when the National Assembly scheduled a public hearing on the review of the 1999 Constitution.
Senator Ibrahim Mantu, Chairman of the Assembly's joint committee on the review of the constitution had said "if the Nigerian people want one term, it will be one term, if they want two terms, it would be two. We would not come out with anything outside what the people of Nigeria want."
It is however believed that given the nation's experience with the self-succession schemes of past military rulers, Nigerians have come to the realisation that what the people want is ultimately the product of government manipulation.
Also, the attempt by the National Assembly committee to limit the presidency to a single five-year term is widely interpreted as the first step to prolonging the Obasanjo presidency beyond the allotted two terms of four years each.
According to critics, a precedent for an Obasanjo's possible third term was set when four governors who had contested and won that office twice wanted to go for another term in 2003. In clarifying the matter, the court ruled that since a constitution does not take a retroactive effect, the previous election of these governors to the same office under the 1989 Constitution was not covered by provisions of the 1999 Constitution.
Based on that precedent, reports said the implication of a constitutional review to substitute a single tenure of five years for two terms of eight years will create a situation in which Obasanjo and the present two-term governors, will by 2007, become new candidates who would be qualified to seek a fresh mandate into their present offices.
On the situation in the crisis-torn Dafur region of Sudan, Obasanjo said even though the African leaders agreed that there is crisis in that country, they have not yet branded it genocide as the United States has done.
The AU, the President maintained, was right in insisting on sending a larger peacekeeping force to that region, more than Khartoum is ready to accept.
Commenting on the need for an African nation to be a permanent member of the United Nations, Obasanjo said Nigeria is qualified to be a member ahead of South Africa in view of its size as the most populous black nation in the world.
The President who was in New York where he attended the 59th session of the UN General Assembly based his position on Nigeria's qualification for a permanent seat on the fact that Japan, Brazil and India who are equally clamouring for the exalted seat are canvassing population as reason for consideration.
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