FORMER vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has dropped a bombshell revealing that his one-time boss Chief Olusegun Obasanjo planned to extend his tenure in office by a third term as part of a ploy to make himself president-for-life.
Towards the end of the Obasanjo regime in 2007, the National Assembly was asked to review the constitution and among the alterations that were forwarded to it was provision that the tenure of the president be extended. At the moment, the Nigerian constitution only allows the president and governors to spend two four-year terms in office but Chief Obasanjo has asked for this to be extended.
After a lot of acrimony and bitter wrangling, the senate eventually voted against constitutional change and Chief Obasanjo subsequently left office at the end of his second term. Alhaji Abubakar, who fell out with Chief Obasanjo over the matter, has now revealed that his boss wanted to pave the way for a lifetime presidency and not just a third term in office.
Revealing this in an interview in the quarterly magazine published by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Zero Tolerance, the former vice president said, initially, it was assumed that the plan was to modify the constitution so that Chief Obasanjo could serve a third, four-year term as president. He, however, said the aspect of tenure limitation was carefully removed so that Obasanjo could be president for life.
Alhaji Abubakar added: “My offence was that I disagreed with him on the amendment of the constitution to remove tenure/term limits or what was popularly called the third term agenda. In fact, he sent the then attorney-general and Professor Jerry Gana to my office to bring the draft amendments to the constitution and after going through, I found out that tenure limits had been removed, so in other words, he could be president for life.
“I then asked them that if I send you to the president, can you deliver this message?’ They said yes, so I said go and tell him I will not support it and will fight it."
He added that due to his disagreement with Chief Obasanjo, the ex-president decided to tag him as a corrupt person. According to the former vice-president, the then EFCC chairman Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, accused him of corruption but later came to him to apologise.
“When he came to ask me for forgiveness, I said if you want me to forgive you, Nuhu, go to the same television stations where you said I was corrupt and say you have now realised that I am not corrupt. Then he said sir, you have forgiven so many people who have offended you publicly without them going to TV stations to apologise to you and I said your case is different because first of all, I helped to found the EFCC.
“I was instrumental to your appointment, so, I believe I have contributed to your development and this is how you are paying me back. In any case, he kept on apologising and I said, okay, no problem, that closed the chapter,” Alhaji Abubakar added.
He also denied media reports that a US Senate report accused him of laundering $40m between 2000 and 2008. However, the former vice president confirmed that he did transfer money to the US but it was not illegal.
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