- Katsina state Governor, Aminu
Bello Masari, has said that he teamed up with former Senate President,
Ken Nnamani, to truncate third term agenda of ex-President Olusegun
Obasanjo in 2007
-
Masari 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
- He said that 2007 general election was marred with fraud and irregularities
Katsina
state Governor, Aminu Bello Masari, has revealed how he teamed up with
former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, to truncate third term agenda of
ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007.
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.
The Sun reports that the former speaker said: “we
started a journey from 2003 to 2007. Immediately after 2007 election,
Ken Nnamani and myself, and some few others started meeting. PDP was so
pervasive in the polity that it failed to reform. I know the role we
played – not only about stopping the third term but also to sustain the
2007 election, as bad as it was.
“I think Senator Ken Nnamani
and myself deserve some recognition, as we not only killed the third
term, but also saved the 2007 election. An international election
monitoring team led by a senior official from a super power nation
invited us to a meeting, with Ken Nnamani, some senators, and myself and
told us there was no election in 2007.
“Indeed,
the 2007 elections were flawed, and really there was no election. And I
said, ‘yes there was no election.’ And they said: ‘why shouldn’t you
move against the present government.’ They said we should use our
chamber to make a declaration that there was no election. I said we
would not do that because the constitution has not given us power to do
that.
“I told them that we had
stopped third term and if we took that road, the president could simply
declare a state of emergency. On the 29th of May 2007, our mandate, as
legislature, would expire; the president would be the only one the
constitution has given the right to remain in office to conduct a fresh
election.
"I said we had
exercised our own power to kill the third term, but if Nigerians could
organise themselves, the whole nation can call on the National Assembly
and give us extra constitutional powers, which I knew was impossible to
do.
“So, we really rejected
that idea; even a motion was suggested that we should call for another
election; but we said we would not do that, because we knew the
consequences of condemning the election; it would throw the country into
chaos.
Those in government were not
people who were friendly to us. But we made the sacrifice because of the
nation. We knew that only God would protect us from them. We took that
decision so that we didn’t throw the country into confusion. In fact, we
even refused to table the matter at the House to debate it, whether
there was an election or no election.”
On the election, he said: “Clearly,
there was no election. In 2007, there was no election. People were only
brought into office by the former president. This is because elections
were conducted on ballot papers that were not numbered. Yes, they were
just papers, which I can print here.”
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