The Accidental Public Servant
Page 51
tactically withdraw and just end the ‘third term’ madness.
“Mr. President, this thing is going nowhere. These 152 members are not going to support this
no matter what,” I said, showing him the list. A vote still had not been called yet – that stage
was yet to come. “They plan on withdrawing from the chamber so that the term limits
provision will be impossible to pass under any presiding officer. So why not just end this?”
“No, your information is wrong,” he said, shaking his head. “Go and see Tony Anenih. He
will give you a different picture – your information is wrong.”
“No sir, these guys are our friends. They have told us that this is what they plan to do.”
“No. They cannot do it. Your friends are misleading you.”
I went to see Tony Anenih and he brought out his own list of people that committed to vote in favour
of third term: 85 senators and about 260 members of the House of Representatives.
“I do not know where you got your information but I have 152 members here that have signed
statements to the effect that they intend to withdraw from the proceedings.”
“No, your information is wrong,” he said.
“No, it is not wrong.”
“Look, minister. By the time we give them money, all of them, they will change,” he replied.
“Maybe your information is right, right now, because we have not distributed the money yet.”
said Anenih.
He believed so much in the power of money to modify the principles and actions of political actors.
He did not realize that the situation at hand went beyond money politics.
There would be no penalty for the 152 members signing a pledge not to participate and then changing
their minds to the affirmative at the last minute. This was Tony Anenih’s point – they still had not
received any money. I left and went back to Obasanjo and relayed to him my conversation with Tony
Anenih, but gave him my own views.
“I do not believe him, Mr. President. Even when he gives these guys money, they are unlikely
to change their position. I am convinced that the situation in the House of Representatives is
settled firmly against the amendments. I think his assessment of the support in the Senate is
too optimistic as well. Who is your most reliable person in the Senate? I want to assess the
situation in the Senate.”
We were more familiar and much closer to the state of play in the Senate. Senator Saidu Dansadau
led the opposition in the Senate, accompanied by the late Senator Sule Yari Gandi and Senator
Lawali Shuaibu, [120] but they were from the opposition party, the ANPP. From the PDP, we had
Senator Uche Chukwumerije, and the Senate presiding officer, Ken Nnamani was also firmly with us.
Senator Nnamani was against the third term, but as the presiding officer he had to appear neutral, yet
unwilling to do anything unethical for or against the constitutional amendments.
Obasanjo suggested I meet with Senators David Mark and Tunde Ogbeha and even personally set up a
meeting for me with them. I met them in Senator Tunde Ogbeha's residence, in Apo Legislative
Quarters, along with Nuhu Ribadu. We briefed them about the visit to Tony Anenih and Obasanjo’s
reliance on that source of information.
“Tony Anenih showed me this list of legislators who will supposedly vote for third term,” I
said. “I told him we had been provided a different picture with 152 members of the House of
Representatives not interested in supporting the amendments and they plan to withdraw from
the chambers the moment the debate on term limits begins. Tony Anenih assured me that in the
Senate, he has 85 senators who will vote in support. So I have here the entire list of all 109
senators and I’d like to go through with you which ones these 85 senators are.”
David Mark was quite blunt, as usual.
“Minister, I have told President Obasanjo the truth, but he has decided not to believe me,”
Senator Mark said.[121] “There are not more than 37 senators who would vote for this third
term thing. That means 72 senators are against it. We barely have one third of the senate and
we need two thirds. I am in the Senate and have told him but he does not believe me, he
believes Tony Anenih who is not in the Senate, and has never been in any legislature. I know
my colleagues. I know each of these guys; I can walk up to them and ask what their position
is. But Tony Anenih, who is not a senator, tells him that there are 85 senators.”
I asked him to go through the list and tell me which ones he knows, for sure, would support
the removal of term limits. We came up with I think 35 or 37 names.
“Why are we wasting our time?” I asked. “Why can’t you tell him that this is a futile effort?”
Nuhu interjected.
Tunde Ogbeha responded, “because he does not want to believe us. Obasanjo and Tony
Anenih are convinced that if they give legislators money, it will change their position. Maybe
it will sway one or two, maybe even a few more. But to move from 37 to 73 or 74 is very
hard. We can’t double the numbers of those in support no matter how much money is given to
the senators. There are some challenges that money just cannot overcome.”
I went back to the president and said to him,
“Mr. President, I do not know what people are telling you, you have told me twice to see
Senator David Mark. David Mark, you said is your most reliable man in the Senate.”
“Yes.”
“He has just told me that between 35 and 37 senators would support what you want. Senator
Tunde Ogbeha agreed with him.”
“That was what David Mark said?”
“Yes! Just call him and talk to him!”
From that point on Obasanjo stopped talking to me about the constitutional amendment project. I think
he concluded that either I was simply a naïve bearer of bad news or a closet saboteur of the Third
Term project. A week or so later, we – Ngozi, Oby, Nuhu, Aliyu Modibbo and I – went to the chief of
staff, General Abdullahi Mohammed, with the following set of facts: We had spoken to Senator David
Mark, Tony Anenih and Dr. Usman Bugaje; we had the list of senators David Mark was convinced
would support President Obasanjo’s third term and it struggles to reach one-third of the Senate, to say
nothing of two-thirds; we have the list of House members that are definitely going to walk out once
debate on term limits starts; in short, this thing is going nowhere.
“Please, please, please let us go to the president and convince him to stop this.”
“Well, Obasanjo has never admitted to me that there was a third term project,” he said.
I told the chief of staff that Obasanjo had admitted it to me and Nuhu confirmed that he had had a
similar conversation in which the president even used the words, “No third term, no Nigeria.” Since
the two of us could confirm that Obasanjo had told each of us separately, there was no need to beat
around the bush and we could face him. But the chief of staff had been in the military with Obasanjo
and had known the man for 40 years. “Ok look,” he replied, “I do not think we should all go and see
Obasanjo with this. You guys leave me with these pieces of information and I will talk to him. If it
becomes necessary, then we can all go and see him together.”
I do not know what the chief of staff actually said to Obasanjo and till today never asked, but the
as they were accustomed to doing almost daily, Obasanjo called them aside, berated them for being
weak-hearted and not being loyal. He told them that ‘the constitutional amendments will pass’ and
they should not be thinking of failure. He then called me up and denounced me as the ‘head of the
coup plotters.’
“You have to solve this”
The legislative agenda consisted of starting the debates in the Senate and then, contingent upon early
passage in the Senate, moving on to conclusion in the House. While this was happening, President
Obasanjo was scheduled to be travelling on state business to South Korea and France. Days before he
left on his trip, the first of two meetings convened between the party hierarchy, the leadership of the
legislature and the president. At issue was the fact that the debate in the Senate was going to be
televised, a decision obviously made without the input of the executive branch. The clear implication
was that some of the senators secretly agreed to vote in support of the term limits amendment, but as
soon as it was known that all of this was to be shown on national television, that support went out of
the window. Nobody wanted to be seen voting for this "third term" project. The house had not passed
a resolution to televise their debates.
“Why are we televising this debate?” the president demanded.
“Well, this is the first time we are amending our Constitution and we think it is of general
public interest and everyone should know about it,” said Senator Nnamani. “So it was
proposed to the Senate and the Senate approved it as a motion.”
“Well, as presiding officer, can’t you go and stop it?” said Obasanjo.
“I can’t stop it, sir. It has to be tabled as a motion to the Senate – a proposal to end the
debates and even that in itself will be debated and voted for and against, live on national
television.”
“No, you must just stop it!” Amadu Ali insisted.
“I can’t, sir. It was the Senate that decided, I am just the first among equals, I can’t decide.
Some senator has to go back to our colleagues and say something like ‘this thing is heating up
the political temperature of the country, do we really want to televise this?’ And then we’ll
take a vote.” Nnamani continued, “We therefore need somebody to table a motion that says
that televising the debate is good, or not good, and that will start a debate about the merits of
televising the debate. You can then get those in support to push for a vote to end the live
coverage. I hope you have the numbers to pass a motion against the live transmission of the
debate. The first step is to get a senator to table the motion as soon as possible.”
Tony Anenih then stepped in. “No problem, I will ask Professor Osunbor to table the motion.”
Professor Oserhiemen Osunbor was a senator from Tony Anenih’s home state of Edo. He had
ambitions to be next governor of the state, and Anenih is the political godfather of Edo PDP. It was
therefore expected that Senator Osunbor would do anything Anenih asked him to do in the Senate.
“Fine,” said Nnamani. “Once Senator Osunbor gets it onto the order paper, it will be my duty
to present it. Then we will debate it, we’ll see. But you know this is the most popular reality
programme awaited on Nigerian TV. I do not think a motion to stop the telecast will pass, but
you know, if Osunbor will table the motion, I will put it up for debate.”
The following day, we learnt that Professor Osunbor went to the clerk of the Senate and asked that a
motion be raised of urgent national importance, with no topic. This is allowed – any senator can
move to table a motion of ‘urgent national importance’ with no further detail. The clerk put the motion
in the order paper to be raised onthe floor the day after. On the appointed day, Professor Osunbor fell
miraculously ill and had to be admitted to hospital, so there was nobody to raise the motion. The
televised transmission of the debates continued.
The second meeting convened before Obasanjo’s trip clearly indicated that the president was then
coming to his senses. At this point, a day or two after we went to the chief of staff with evidence that
a third term amendment was a futile effort, we were declared enemies in Obasanjo’s mind. The
president and his team wanted to discuss tactical options since at this point, they had distributed the
money. Each House member we learnt was to receive 50 million naira, and each senator 75 million
naira. It was from Andy Uba’s house that the payments[122] emanated. Many of the senators declined
the money, saying that they did not want it because they were not going to support the agenda anyway.
Some decided to take the money and still vote against it, because there is no legal recourse – this was
bribe money, after all, and no one will ever admit it was paid or get sued for it in the event of non-
performance! Of course, some took the money and in return were prepared to vote in support of it.
Even with the distribution of the money, the amendment’s success was not looking as certain as it
should have, and so a final meeting convened. One thing even his enemies will admit about Obasanjo
– the man is not stupid. He may have preferred to hear what he wanted to hear, but every so often he
stops the show, reflects honestly and asks for a straight assessment.
“All the information I am getting is that this thing is not going the right way,” said President
Obasanjo in his opening remarks. He even shared the information that we had passed to him
via the chief of staff.
“I do not like the way this thing is going, so what can we do to salvage the situation?”
Listening uncomfortably were party chairman, Amadu Ali, Tony Anenih, Ojo Maduekwe, Senator
Ken Nnamani, Speaker Aminu Masari and Obasanjo.
Amadu Ali, the chairman of the ruling party, turned to Senator Nnamani and asked,
“How do you intend to call for the votes?”
“We’ll either do electronic voting, because each senator has a button that he can press green
for yes, red for no,” said Senator Nnamani, “or we call for a division. If it is too
controversial and people do not trust even the electronic vote, we call for a division.”
“Do not worry about the electronic voting, we will disable it. We will get it disabled,” said
Ali. “So do not worry about that. Is there not anything you can do to just rule that it has
passed?”
“No sir, I can’t do it. Because if they say no, and I say they said yes, I will not get out of the
place as Senate President, maybe not even alive. It is a very combustible issue. I can’t do it.”
They looked at the Speaker Masari.
“Excellencies, I cannot do it as well,” said Masari. “We can’t do any of these things that you
are asking us to do. We are not like the presidency where the president is number one and
everyone else is below him. We are in parliament, we are there as presiding officers because
we are elected by them. It does not work the way you operate in the executive arm.”
President Obasanjo then turned to the Speaker Masari.
“Tell me the truth. Forget about all these people and what they are saying,” he said. “Tell me
the truth – do we have enough people supporting this amendment in the
House of
Representatives?”
“Mr. President, this is the first time you have asked for the truth. So I will tell you – you do
not even have one-third. They are my colleagues, they confide in me. Surely, not all of them
have spoken to me on the issue, but my reading is that you do not even have one-third. That is
the truth.”
Obasanjo then turned to Senator Nnamani.
“Mr. Senate President, what about the Senate?”
“Mr. President, it is about the same in the Senate. We do not have enough votes supporting
this to obtain a two-thirds majority.”
“Ok what can we do about it? I am going on my trip. Party chairman, chairman of the board of
trustees – you go and figure out what needs to be done about it. When I come back, I need to
see a plan on how to solve this. You have to solve this.”
Judgment Day
We had wanted this to end as soon as possible, preferably before the bill went to the legislature. On
this front, we failed. When it got to the legislature, General Buhari and other antagonists of the third
term project tried to block it from ever being debated, and failed. Bills have to go through three
readings: there is the first reading, a vote is then taken before agreeing to send it on for a second
reading in committee, then come the public hearings, followed by a third reading, and then it is voted
upon. We wanted it to end with the first reading. The longer the process took, the more damaging it