By Willy Eya
Former National Chairman of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), Mr. Larry Esin has faulted the recent account by Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State on how the third term agenda of former President Olusegun Obasanjo was scuttled.
He said if anybody must take glory for the death of Obasanjo’s third term agenda it should be Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu, former deputy Senate president. In a recent interview with The Sun editors, Governor Masari revealed how he teamed up with former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, to truncate Obasanjo’s third term agenda.
Masari, who was Speaker of the House of Representatives between 2003 and 2007, said when it became evident that Obasanjo was not ready to leave office, he had to join others to defend the overall interest of the country, rather than promoting a selfish agenda.
Reacting to this, Esin said his recollection of the efforts and players, as revealed during his meetings at the United States State Department in early 2007, before the presidential election, were substantially different from Masari’s account. He noted that the intelligence reports at the time confirmed a posture of neutrality by the leadership of the National Assembly, adding that neither Masari nor Nnamani was against the third term agenda as they were both behind the inordinate ambition of Obasanjo.
The former PPA chairman observed that the real hero of the anti-third term agenda was Ibrahim Mantu, regretting that although it was an ugly past, “people cannot and must not distort that history.”
He said: “While I may not have been part of the “Masari/Nnamani” camp in 2007, giving that there were several camps working independently to stop the perceived abuse on our Constitution, most of the camps assembled their arguments before the governments of the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
“It is, therefore, at this juncture that one can assess the accuracy of the accounts given by Governor Masari because the US State Department and, more specifically, the Under Secretary of State for African Affairs at the time were well briefed on the grounds of opposition as well as the personalities behind those movements.” Esin said the US intelligence also knew those who were pushing from the other side of the isle in support, but noted that most important and dangerous of all, were those who were playing on both sides.
He added: “I had been sent to Washington DC by the proponents of third term to find out under what circumstance or conditions the US government will be willing to support a third term agenda or, at the very least, a tenure elongation. The group arrived at this decision after an intensive debate over the need to garner support of our key allies ….; and quite frankly, such sensibility ought to have been applauded giving the high value of impunity at the time.
“During my meetings in Washington, I had an in-depth briefing on the various players and their positions in that macabre dance of the toils of nationhood. Never, not once was it mentioned that the National Assembly or its leaders had taken a stand against the third term agenda. This was the finding of US intelligence.
“Were there National Assembly members against the third term agenda? Sure, there were; but what I am saying is that American intelligence did not document or reveal any concerted effort by the leadership of the NASS to stop the third term move. Does this imply connivance? Maybe not, but certainly, a middle of the road approach …… a “siddon look” approach, as we say in Nigeria.”