A former National Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Ahmadu Ali, has explained his decision to support then President Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term agenda.
He said this in an authorised biography written by Gideon S. Tseja.
The biography was launched to mark Ali’s 82nd birthday in Yar’adua Centre, Abuja, on Thursday.
Ali, who was chairman from 2005 and 2007, disclosed that Obasanjo did not try to use the party’s machinery to influence the bid.
In the book, he said, “A lot has been said and written about Obasanjo’s bid for a third term, and Senator Amadu Ali had often been accused of using his position as Chairman to support it. At worst, the party could only be accused of passivity. The idea of a third term for the President was never debated in the party. It was never discussed at any level in the party – either in the National Executive Committee or in the Convention. There was no such phrase as “third term” in the documents of the party.
“What happened was that in the previous PDP administration, 1999 to 2003, a number of constitutional amendments – 106 of them – was proposed. The new House took up this unfinished business which had been publicised and gazetted and began to debate it. One of the proposed amendments was on the extension of the term of the President. The press focused on this one proposal and spawned new emotive descriptions to characterize the proposal, such as president for life, sit-tight president, tenure elongation campaign, and so on. As could be expected, it was greeted with frenzied public outcry.
“Senator Amadu Ali had his personal views about it and, in fact, supported Obasanjo’s “tenure elongation” whole heartedly because he genuinely believed that Obasanjo was an extraordinarily good leader in spite of his perceived failings. He made statements to this effect:
“We were suffering from bad leadership, This man, we identified … for good leadership. He has come back and we have seen evidence of good leadership. Do you just change a gown when it is not dirty?
“But this was his personal views; he never used the party machine to manipulate the constitution nor was it tabled formally for discussion at any of the party’s meeting. The PDP never took an official position on the issue of tenure elongation.
“The chairman recognised that it was the constitutional right of any citizen, including members of his own party, to propose any constitutional amendment they wanted. But for the proposal to become law, it must be passed by two-thirds of the members of the State Houses of Assembly – i.e. by 24 out of 36 State Assemblies and must also be passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives in the same words before the President can sign it into law.
“If the proposal for the amendment to the term of the President had been allowed to run its course, Senator Amadu felt that it was unlikely that it would have passed, anyway. But as it turned out, not only was the bill scuttled prematurely, the other 105 useful proposals were thrown out along with it. It was a case of throwing out the baby with the bath water. For example, the amendment which would have given the south-east zone an additional state never materialised.
“Senator Amadu Ali spent about three years as Chairman instead of the two years that was required to complete the term of Chief Audu Ogbeh. This was because the convention which would have formally brought his tenure to an end and ushered in a new one was continually being postponed against the wishes of the Chairman.
“Each time he wanted to call for the Convention to be held, some legal problems which needed resolution cropped up; or the Moslems would come out and say that it was inappropriate to hold a Convention during the time of Hajj; in December, the Christians would complain that it was Christmas season and the Convention should be postponed. Eventually the Chairman got fed up with the delays and was tired of the job. So he called the Convention in March 2008 and did not care whether some people attended or not. His term as the national Chairman of PDP, Nigeria’s biggest party, came to an end gracefully.”