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President Obasanjo's Constitutional Conference is a Fraud by
The recent announcement by the Federal Government to convene a Constitutional Conference in various zones is a fraud on the Nigerian people and the plan should be rejected. What the President wants is simple; he failed to confess that he is unable to go to the Nigerian people for a fresh mandate. He knew that would mean that he would thereby be varying the pact he signed with his sponsors. He now wants to push for an extension of the four year term to a five/six year term. Of course he will still be within the one term of the original pact. This is a fraud and Nigerians from all walks of life should reject the plan. Now that Obasanjo has failed to lead Nigeria to cope with the lingering political problems since 1993 or since 1960 as the case maybe, he should stay for his term and leave for Otta and allow Nigerians after his term to assemble and resolve these problems. You know my position in politics since I first voted in 1959. It is simple. I believe in the ballot box. I do. Whoever wants to run for office must go to the Nigerian people with his vision in competition with those who are in office including President Obasanjo and other Governors. This is what democratic politics is all about. We should allow our people to judge. Sometime we do not believe our people can judge for themselves. This should be our goal; empower our people to take their decision and defend such decision. Our people voted in June 12 but they could not defend their rights. We saw what happened in Abidjan and in Yugoslavia etc. It is political empowerment of our people that is absent so far. This is what I worked for in the name of democracy in Nigerian in the past and this is what I am still working for today. I believe that our government must be based on the 'will of the people'. But Obasanjo was never elected by the Nigerian people in a free, fair and credible election hence he is trying to run away from competitive politics in 2003 where he would have to face other candidates including me with his vision, which is absent so far. If I am not a candidate I should be in a position to work for a candidate whose vision approximates my progressive vision. Of course you know what Obasanjo's foreign advisers are asking him to do? He now wants to kill democracy and work for a northern successor in 2004/5 just as he did in 1976. Of course this is what he promised his sponsors in 1998 as he did in 1976. I am waiting to read of the reaction of the Ndi Igbo and the southern minority groups who are talking of their turn come 2003. President Obasanjo's handlers want to resolve the question 'After Obasanjo, who/what? in a one day conference. President Obasanjo wants to resolve it in the name of a one day National Conference scheduled for May 29 another fraudulent day, which is to work from the answer just as Abacha did in the name of the same Constitutional Conference in 1994/5. President Obasanjo knows that there is no way he could get round the pact for only one term; he now wants to settle on the extension of his term of office and still stick to the one term pact. Smart chap! Is he not? Nigerians are fools so he thinks. He is simply postponing the evil day! This is a fraud; of course, most of the office holders who too are afraid to go back to the voters to test their popularity based on their records in office and actually compete with others would readily agree to the extension of the term of office to six or five years. The implication of this extension for corruption bothers me. When one knows that this is the end of ones political career, politics between now and 2004/5 will be cash and carry. Obasanjo with the anti-corruption campaign is openly allowing this brazen armed robbery in the name of wanting to stay above the partisan politics. The implication of the extension for the development of democratic institution also bothers me. That would be the end of the political parties and the civil societies and even of the press. All instrument of control would evaporate at all levels, National, state and local government levels between now and 2004/5 as the case maybe. I seem to have been saying too much these days. Don't blame me; our countrymen do not seem to be listening, unfortunately. This was what happened when the Senator-elect from Kano, Alhaji Kura Mohammed leaked out the pact in the POST EXPRESS of March 2, 1999 few days after the supposed election/selection of General Obasanjo. I was surprised that our people refused to ask what the Senator meant then by the expression that General Obasanjo promised us that he would only stay for only one term. He did not end there. He added that they (the north) trusted him that he would go back on his word as he did not let them down in 1976. Is this what President Shehu Shagari alluded to when he said that "Obasanjo abused the trust of the north"? I wonder what President Shagari would say to the fraudulent intention to extend the term to six/five years? I hope Senator Kura would call on President Obasanjo to implement the pact, which he SIGNED WITH THE NORTH in 1998 when he was invited by the political generals from the north to become the Nigerian President in their name and not in Nigerian name. President Obasanjo should appreciate that the pact he signed was a four-year term and leave office at the end of the four year in accordance with the Constitution he inherited from the military junta. When Nigerians said that that the Constitution was a fraud, he challenged other elected office holders to resign if they would not serve in accordance with the 1999 Constitution. Prof. Omo Omoruyi _______________________________
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