By Adeleye Kunle
The House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, has said that his fight against former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term nearly cost him his life.
Gbajabiamila detailed his experiences during the third term agenda in his memoirs, “Mr Speaker,” written by Musa Abdullahi Krishi and Dr Charles Omole.
He revealed that agents of President Obasanjo’s botched attempt to subvert constitutional orders in Nigeria made life difficult for him and his opposition colleagues in the House.
The lawmaker stated that while pro-third-term lawmakers in the House were launching physical attacks, a former colleague, Independence Ogunewe, nearly strangled him to death on the House floor in 2006.
He went on to say that there had been numerous death threats from outside the Legislature.
Gbajabiamila went on to say that another group of people mobilized his constituents to launch a fierce campaign against his reelection bid in 2011, citing his opposition to Obasanjo’s Third Term Agenda as justification.
“Of course, I mean, that was one of my most difficult elections,” Gbajabiamila recalled, adding, “I sounded like a hypocrite to people who didn’t know any better or didn’t understand the constitution.”
“Because there you were, you made a name for yourself, you fought, much to everyone’s admiration, and stopped what became known as the Third Term Agenda, and shortly after that you now had your own Third Term Agenda, this is how they understood it.”
“But, first and foremost, consider the context: nobody in my constituency had ever returned to the House twice, so you broke the jinx and returned twice.” Then, on the heels of the fight that you fought, that everyone fought, that the entire country of Nigeria did not want a third term agenda, you are now asking for one? That’s the height of hypocrisy: they saw it that way.
“So I had to go around a lot, explaining and educating the electorate.” The absence of a two-term limit applies only to the Executive, as stated in the constitution.
“You can go fifty times as a legislator, not just in Nigeria, but worldwide, if your people want you back.” I gave them examples and explained that legislators have no term limits in the constitution, whereas Governors and Presidents do, and I explained why there is a difference, why there is a term limit for the Executive, and they began to understand.
“It could be argued that Obasanjo was aware of what was going on.” Was he important? Was he involved in it? Was it the people around him who turned a deaf ear, as we know in Nigerian politics and even politics around the world? Or was it the people around him who he warned?
“When asked about Third Term, Obasanjo responded, “Well, I’m sick and tired of you people and Third Term because if I wanted Third Term, I would have gotten it by the grace of God.” If I desired it. Nothing I desired as President that I did not obtain, including difficult debt relief. If I had wanted Third Term, I would have gotten it. Now, Ita Giwa, my representative in the National Assembly, said to any of you who were my representatives in the National Assembly, “There was no day I called her and said I wanted Third Term.”
This article first appeared on Track News.
