Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has dismissed long-standing allegations that he once sought a controversial third term in office, declaring that no one alive or dead can provide evidence to support the claim.
Speaking on Wednesday at the Democracy Dialogue of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Accra, Ghana, Obasanjo said the speculation has been unfairly used against him for years.
“I think I’m not a fool. If I wanted it, some thought I wanted it, I know how to go about it. And there is no Nigerian, dead or alive, that will say I called him and told him I wanted the third term. None,” he said.
‘Debt relief harder than third term’
Obasanjo, who led Nigeria from 1999 to 2007, argued that the landmark debt relief secured under his administration was a far more difficult political feat than extending his presidency.
“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 declared.
Warning against ‘irreplaceable’ leaders
The former president cautioned African leaders against clinging to power, describing the belief that no one else can govern as a “sin against God.”
“I know that the best is done when you are young, ideal, vibrant and dynamic. When you are ‘kuje kuje’ (weak and frail), you don’t have the best,” he said.
He stressed that leadership should embrace renewal, adding: “Some people believe that unless they are there, nobody else [can lead]. They will even tell you that they haven’t got anybody else. I believe that is a sin against God, because if God takes you away, somebody else will come, and that person may do better or may do worse, but somebody else will come.”
Obasanjo’s comments revive one of Nigeria’s most enduring political debates, with many analysts long divided over whether he discreetly backed an aborted third-term agenda in 2006.
