₦airaland Forum

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has refuted long-standing claims that he attempted to extend his presidency beyond two terms, insisting he never sought such a move.

Obasanjo made the remarks on Wednesday during the democracy dialogue hosted by the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Accra. He stressed that no evidence exists to back the speculation.

“I’m not a fool. If I wanted a third term, I know how to go about it. And there is no Nigerian dead or alive that would say I called him and told him I wanted a third term,” Obasanjo said.

The former president argued that securing debt relief for Nigeria during his administration was a much tougher feat than pursuing a tenure extension.

“I keep telling them that, look, if I wanted to get debt relief, which is more difficult than getting a third term and I got it, if I wanted a third term, I would have got it too,” he added.

Obasanjo also cautioned against leaders clinging to power, stressing that such behaviour reflects a false sense of indispensability.

“I know that the best is done when you are young, ideal and vibrant and dynamic. When you are ‘kuje kuje’ you don’t have the best. But some people believe that unless they are there, nobody else,” he said.

“They will even tell you that they haven’t got anybody else. I believe that that is a sin against God, because if God takes you away, which God can do anytime, then somebody else will come, and that somebody else may do better or may do worse.”

sleek214:
You wanted it but Atiku stopped you. That's why you hate Atiku till today.

iwaeda:
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/09/if-i-wanted-third-term-i-wouldve-gotten-it-obasanjo/

Obasanjo writes father, says: ‘Dear Daddy, you don’t own Nigeria

December 18, 2013

In what is turning out to be a season of open letters, daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Iyabo, has ruled out further communication with her father till death, describing him as a liar, manipulator, two-faced hypocrite determined to foist on President Goodluck Jonathan what no one would contemplate with him as president.

Senator Iyabo Obasanjo in a letter to her father accused him of having an egoistic craving for power and living a life where only men of low esteem and intellect thrive.

In the 11-page letter dated December 16, 2013 exclusively obtained by Vanguard, Iyabo accused her father of orchestrating a third term for himself as president, cruelty to family members, abandonment of children and grandchildren, and also, a legendary reputation of maltreatment of women.

Iyabo who forswore further political engagements in Nigeria denied any political motive for her missive, and described Nigeria as a country where her father and his ilk have helped to create a situation where smart, capable people bend down to imbeciles to survive. She particularly noted her experience as chairman of the Senate Committee on Health when she led the committee on a retreat appropriated for in the budget only for her to be prosecuted for it.

Iyabo, first child of the former president, started the letter titled, Open Letter to my Father with a 4th century Chinese proverb by Mencius which states: “The great man is he who does not lose his child’s heart.”

Her letter:

“It brings me no joy to have to write this but since you started this trend of open letters I thought I would follow suit since you don’t listen to anyone anyway. The only way to reach you may be to make the public aware of some things. As a child well brought up by my long-suffering mother in Yoruba tradition, I have been reluctant to tell the truth about you but as it seems you still continue to delude yourself about the kind of person you are and I think for posterity’s sake it is time to set the records straight.

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/12/iyabo-obasanjo-writes-father-says-dear-daddy-dont-nigeria/amp/

kokoA:
Abeg this is 2025, nobody is interested in whatever he wanted or not back in 2007.

sage:
http://www.leadershipnigeria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28:the-vague-future-of-nigeria&catid=28:friday-column&Itemid=56

Lord Lugard, the former governor-general of Nigeria, in 1926, wrote his unfiltered thought about Nigerians. From his book, The Dual Mandates, come these excerpts: "In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person, lacking in self-control, discipline, and foresight. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewellery. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals' placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the state he has reached.

"Through the ages, the African appears to have evolved no organised religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural. He lacks the power of organisation, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility - he will work hard with a less incentive than most races. He has the courage of the fighting animal, an instinct rather than a moral virtue. In brief, the virtues and defects of his race -type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy. Perhaps, the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are his lack of apprehension and his lack of ability to visualize the future"


Guys lets discuss the thoughts of Lord Lugard. he had  a supremacist view obviously. But is he right in the way he describes Nigerians and Africans in general? How many of the issues that he raises are valid?

Letz get some responses

seunmsg:
Atiku did not stop him, well meaning Nigerians from all parts of the country stopped him. Every single pro- democracy activists worked against the third term ambition. Atiku simply joined the bandwagon because he wanted to become president in 2007.

Bola Tinubu, the only AD governor as at that time mobilized all opposition lawmakers to vote against the bill. The day the bill was to be put to vote, then General Mohammadu Buhari was personally at the gallery of the Senate chamber to ensure that constitutional amendment supporting third term was never passed into law.

Police seal off factional PDP secretariat
Monday, June 12, 2006

Security operatives yesterday in Abuja, swooped on the National Secretariat of a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), sealing it off.

The operation, which began at about 7 A.M, was carried out by a detachment of anti-riot policemen numbering 20 and led by the Federal Capital Territory Commissioner of Police, Mr. Lawrence Alobi.

In a dramatic twist Friday, the PDP faction believed to be loyal to Vice President Atiku Abubakar, opened the secretariat and announced the dissolution of the National Working Committee (NWC) led by Dr. Amadu Ali.
Confirming the raid on the secretariat, Alobi told Sunday Sun that "the policemen will continue to be there until we are sure there will be no crisis."

On what prompted the action, the FCT Police Commissioner said the police acted to prevent a breakdown of law and order, adding, "when there is a crack, there is bound to be crisis. We anticipated crisis and it is better to prevent it than manage it."
The factional PDP, which identified itself as "leaders and co-founders of the PDP" has such members as Senator Ibrahim Safana, Alhaji Shuaibu Oyedokun and Ifeatu Obi-Okoye.
The group asked members of the NWC to vacate their offices immediately and hand over to the directors in their various departments.

It said it took the action in order to give a sense of direction to the party and ensure that it does not continue "to nose-dive into oblivion".
Led at the world press conference by Oyedokun, the group named the founding National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Solomon Lar, as the head of a 26-member Interim National Management Committee (IMC) to direct the affairs of the party pending the conduct of an elective national convention later in the year.

Others named in the committee are Safana (deputy national chairman, north); Oyedokun (deputy national chairman, south) and Chief Orji Nwafor-Orizu (national secretary), among others.
It purportedly nullified the expulsion of ex-Governor Chris Ngige and the indefinite suspension of Governor Joshua Dariye from the PDP, adding that all activities of the party carried out by the Ali executive, including the membership revalidation exercise and congresses at the ward, council, state and zonal levels stand voided.

No fewer than 17 serving governors of the PDP as well as Chief Solomon Lar, one of the founding fathers of the PDP attended the "emergency" meeting.
But in a swift reaction, the embattled PDP leadership has dismissed the development as illegal and that the party will go through a legal process to pursue the matter.

National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, John Odey told a news conference that there are no factions in the PDP.
"What is really happening at this stage is that an alliance of a few politicians who are stranded by virtue of a deserving loss of influence and reputation, together with politicians of some opposition parties rather than prepare for the forthcoming elections are indulging in a delusion that can scatter the ruling party," Odey said.
The National Secretary, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, in his comments said the party's resolve for reconciliation should not be viewed as a sign of weakness.
"Our olive branch should not be taken to be a white flag of surrender. No one should be under any illusion that we are scared," Maduekwe declared solemnly.
Meanwhile, the Osun State chapter of the party has reacted to the development by disowning Oyedokun.

The party, in a statement signed by its Secretary, Mr Yinka Adeojo, said Oyedokun's name is not in the party's register, having voluntarily withdrawn to join the Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD) with his co-travellers.
The party said it was laughable that Oyedokun who addressed a press conference a few days ago in Osogbo City Hall as the ACD leader in the state could suddenly emerge in Abuja to say he and his friends were taking over the PDP.

"As a Yoruba man, we expect Alhaji Oyedokun to know that the people have a name for anyone who attempts to sneak back into a house where he had earlier said goodnight. Nigerians should ignore this man and his friends," the statement said.
In Asaba, Delta State, a prominent politician and retired civil servant, Chief John Enemoh said the present fate of the party was long overdue, describing the PDP family as bereft of principles and ideology.

Enemoh said that the PDP, contrary to its earlier" manifesto had been emasculated and rendered impotent as well as turned into a military organisation where members were only to express or show loyalty.

Also, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the state said it was not surprised at what is happening in the PDP, describing it as a good omen for other parties to strategise ahead of 2007 elections .

The Vice Chairman of AD in the state , Chief Tony Ezeagwu noted that the PDP has long been deceiving Nigerians that all was well when in actual fact, it was locked in deep crises of confidence and zero performance.

http://nm.onlinenigeria.com/templates/?a=7507&z=17

Tjra:
Obj wanted third term while Atiku desperately wanted to take over. Na wetin cause their fight be that.

See the kind of human Obidients are now calling the hero of democracy.

sleek214:
You wanted it but Atiku stopped you. That's why you hate Atiku till today.

VOsimhen144:
That has always been his plan but he wouldn’t have gotten it.

Former President, late Umaru Musa Yar'Adua was the greatest president Nigeria ever had… But I will tell you for free that PDP had an agenda.

Late Musa Yar’Adua was loved by Nigerians, I mean he was the only president that reduced the prices of goods and commodities for Nigerians to have a better living but there was an agenda behind all these.

Obasanjo wanted to use Late Musa Yar’Adua to pass the bill the return back to office to finish the 3rd term tenure just like how Donald Trump did for his 2nd term.. But Yar’adua sudden death couldn't allow Obasanjo accomplished his mission.

By the time Yar’Adua pass the 3rd term bill to the senate, nobody would have been able to stop him because we all could see he was doing a great job.

chibuikejohn:
In a Country like Nigeria, he is very correct. if he wanted 3rd Term he would have succeeded.