Emma Aziken, Habib Yakoob & Umoru Henry
26 February 2006
Abuja — AMID the modest gains that those rooting for a third term for President Olusegun Obasanjo appeared to have recorded at the two-day public hearings on the review of the constitution held in six venues, last week, the opposition are unrelenting in their bid to scuttle the agenda.
Although they dismissed the suggestion that Nigerians endorsed the third term bid for Obasanjo and the second term governors at the public hearings organised by the National Assembly Joint Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution in the nation's six geo-political zones, the opposition said, weekend, that they were set to battle supporters of the agenda at the National Assembly.
The National Assembly is the next forum where deliberations on the reports of the public hearings would hold.
The endorsement of the third term agenda by the federal lawmakers, based on the public hearings reports, is crucial to the success as doing otherwise is sufficient to truncate it before the last stage in the process of constitution making which is approval by 24 out of the 36 states houses of assembly.
Veteran politician and member of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Lawal Kaita; the chairman of the Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy (MRDD,) Alhaji Muhammadu Gambo Jimeta and member of the House of Representatives, Dr. Usman Bugaje, who have been strident in their criticism of the third term agenda, said the stage was already set for a battle with the supporters when the National Assembly sits over the reports of the public hearings, presumably in March..
In essence, the opposition was already mobilising against the agenda at the National Assembly sitting.
"In the first place, I would say that from what we have seen, those plotting the third term have not succeeded because people trooped out to demonstrate against it at the hearings", Kaita told Sunday Vanguard, weekend, while dismissing the suggestion that Nigerians had put their seal of approval on the third term agenda at the public hearings held in Port Harcourt (South-South), Osogbo (South-West), Abakaliki (South-East), Lafia (North Central), Maiduguri (North-East) and Katsina (North-West).
The PDP BOT member continued: "Whichever way you look at the hearings, you are bound to discover that those who were in support (of third term) were much less than those who are against it.
"So, nobody can come out tomorrow to tell us that the public hearings support third term because we heard people speak and they said they wanted no third term.
"But, whatever happens, the whole thing is expected to be presented to the National Assembly and from the mobilisation that we are doing, we expect the lawmakers who now have overwhelming grievance against the third term to use their force to scuttle it".
Bugaje called the public hearings a stage managed event, and said that despite the use of the state power to intimidate the masses, they demonstrated their grievances against it. He told Sunday Vanguard: "I can tell you that the whole thing was stage managed, it was a charade; that is not how public hearings should be conducted. People were intimidated, cowed, and censored in the interest of third term. "You saw what governors like Adamu Abduallahi of Nassarawa and Modu Sherrif of Borno did to railroad their people into this third term thing. As far as I am concerned, what they did were no public hearings, they were the governors hearings".
The lawmaker went on: "Even if they decide to bring their reports to the National Assembly, I can tell you that majority of the members in the National Assembly are going to throw out the document, because it is illegitimate, it did not represent the opinion of the people of Nigeria. I tell you, we will reject the reports overwhelmingly". Also speaking in the same vein to Sunday Vanguard, Jimeta said: "The public hearings were the biggest fraud that we have ever witnessed in a long time now. A lot of people who had different opinions from the ones the organisers wanted to hear were largely shut out; they were censored hearings, which did not represent the real opinion of the people. " But let me inform you that we are not going to keep quiet about that. Though we know that a number of legislators have capitulated to this fraud, otherwise they would have stayed out of the stage managed event; since whatever reports are produced are still coming to them, we are making attempts to mobilise them to stand against the triumph of this infamous review".
Meanwhile, Turaki Vanguard, the pro-Atiku Abubakar presidential support group, has congratulated democrats across the country for standing firm against the proposal for third term during the public hearings on the review of the 1999 Constitution. Reviewing the exercise in an interview, the group vowed to proceed to the National Assembly where it pledged to enlighten the legislators on the demerits of the proposal for a third term for the president and governors. The group's national coordinator, Nasiru Gala, dismissed the public hearings as a charade. According to him, true democrats were systematically stopped from expressing their views at the hearings. "I want to congratulate all democrats for standing firm on this third term. Nationwide, people have shown that they don't want this third term or tenure extension, so we in Turaki Vanguard congratulate them," Gala said on telephone from Lafia, venue of the hearing for the North-Central zone. Noting the opposition to free _ex pression at the hearing, he said:
"There was nothing as free opportunity and what happened was that when you present your paper to the secretariat and if they know that your paper is going to be against them, they would not give you opportunity," Gala said. "In Lafia, even a retired general was driven out. Gen. Idris Garba from Niger State, a retired and respected general, was driven out of the hall, so you can see," he lamented on the hearing presided over by Senator Iyabo Anisulowo.
"Nationwide, from the reports we received, democrats truly expressed their opposition to this third term and that is why we are congratulating them irrespective of the difficulties they had." On the next line of action to be adopted by the group, Gala said:"After this, we will also go to the National Assembly to tell them that whatever comes their way in form of third term, they should reject it".
Public hearings huge success --PDP
Relatedly, the PDP leadership, at the weekend, described the public hearings on the 1999 Constitution review as a huge success.Speaking to Sunday Vanguard on the exercise, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, John Odey, noted that with the peaceful nature of the hearings and the spontaneous participation of Nigerians in all the venues, the entire process could be adjudged as quite encouraging.
He said the hearings, besides its objective of amending the Nigerian constitution, gave Nigerians ample opportunity to express themselves as part of the government, just as he stressed that the issue of third term was not synonymous with the ruling party.
This is coming on the heels of Dr. Ahmadu Ali, the party's National Chairman's position that third term should be given a place in the constitution and that the ruling party ought to be the first beneficiary.
According to the National Publicity Secretary, Nigeria should emulate Americans that never fixed a particular tenure for their president, even as he said Nigerians must endeavour to allow those whose performance in office is credible to be returned to office and that the law or the constitution must not be designed in a way that would deprive some diligent executives from continuing in office.
"The party is satisfied with the entire exercise, the exercise was very peaceful across the six geo-political zones. The American constitution never fixed any tenure for the president, those who do well should be allowed to run, the law should not restrict any one", he said.
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