By some curious coincidence, the subject of tenure elongation and extension of presidential term limits caught the headlines in the last few days in Nigeria. In Accra, Ghana, at an event organised by the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, President Olusegun Obasanjo, chair of the occasion, was reported as having said that he did not, ahead of the 2007 general elections, seek to have a third term in office, but that if he truly wanted it, he could have enacted such a constitutional coup against the Nigerian people, but he as president was more interested in getting debt relief for Nigeria. He had inherited a Nigerian economy that was neck-deep in debt, a terribly run down economy and a badly managed country. Obasanjo, a former military head of state, had other things to say about how democracy in Africa is in urgent need of reform, and how “the government of the people, by the people, for the people” as defined by Abraham Lincoln in The Gettysburg Address (1863) should be truly so. He thinks the practice of democracy is the problem in Africa, specifically the wrong thinking that democracy should be the government of the majority, a recipe for minority rule and the politics of exclusion.
What has grabbed the headlines however, is Obasanjo’s statement about third term rule in Nigeria and the speculations, rumours, allegations about same in 2006. He threw a challenge: any Nigerian dead or alive “who will say I called him or told him I wanted the third term” should come forward and say so. Here in Nigeria, Nasir El-Rufai, former Governor of Kaduna State, an ex-PDP, ex-CPC, ex-APC, now ADC politician, and sworn opponent of Tinubu and the APC, while meeting with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in Abuja during a solidarity visit dismissed President Tinubu as a fake politician who wants to remain President for life, like President Paul Biya of Cameroon. His evidence is that “this government is trying to centralise everything instead of devolving power to the lower levels.” He adds: “He will stay, he will be President for life. All the signs are there. This is how Paul Biya started. All the signs are there. So, we don’t have a choice.” He advised Waziri Adamawa Atiku Abubakar to do everything possible to stop Tinubu.
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The biggest problem in Africa is the sit-tightism of its Presidents, the recourse to a monarchical syndrome by those who rule the countries, giving strong teeth to elite capture, creating dynasties and punishing the electorate in the process. The democratization wave of the 70s and early 80s in Africa was meant to empower the people, promote accountability and integrity, and give the people a voice within the context of participatory democracy, but the pith of the Jonathan Foundation conference in Accra, and the observations of scholars, and analysts alike in general is that, at the moment, democracy is in retreat in Africa, and that old, initial expectations have been defeated, denied, abbreviated in context, content and practice. The government of the people has been replaced by elite capture and lack of accountability – as President John Mahama observed, – desperation and manipulation by politicians as President Jonathan said, “the thing that killed the vegetable that is the insect in the vegetable”, as President Obasanjo opined, – and the tendency of African politicians to convert themselves into champions of ethnic and religious champions in a do-or-die battle according to Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah.
But the big headache is the promotion of a monarchical, authoritarian, anti-people framework to replace and subvert the will of the people in Africa, either through the vehicle of military coups or the elongation of tenure via constitutional amendments and violations. There are at least about 10 examples which confirm how African democracy is in retreat, and the very bad, evil, selfish behaviour of African leaders.
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The most recent example is that of Chad where President Mahamat Idris Deby (a.k.a. Kaka) has opted to rule indefinitely in violation of the country’s constitution. The National Assembly in that country has voted to extend presidential terms limits from five to seven years, voting 171 to zero in favour of the extension. Idris Deby is like his father. He wants to consolidate his hold on power. His father Idris Deby Itno who was killed in 2021 while visiting troops in the North of the country, did exactly the same thing in 2016. The father wanted a fifth term in power. He spent 30 years as President (1990-2021). The son took over in 2021 as a military leader, assumed office as a civilian ruler after a disputed election in 2024, and now he wants to rule forever. The man who challenged him in the 2024 election former Prime Minister Succes Masra, is in jail. Maharat Deby, the first of the military rulers to emerge in civilian clothes Africa in recent times, did not only follow in his father’s footsteps, there are others like him who have been subverting the people’s will, the constitution, and democracy with impunity.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame (President since 2000) has revised the constitution four times. He is serving as President for a record fourth time. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni has been ruling Uganda since 1986. He is serving a sixth term. Dennis Sassou Ngueso of the Republic of Congo, 81 years old, has been President since 1997. He intends to die in office. Paul Biya of Cameroon whom Nasir El-Rufai referred to as Tinubu’s role model is the oldest serving ruler in the world. He has been President of Cameroon since 1982. He is the main candidate in the country’s October 12 Presidential election. He is 92. There is also Teodoro Obiang Nguema who has ruled Equatorial Guinea since 1979, first as a soldier and subsequently as a civilian ruler since 1982. There is also Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea (President since 1983), Alassane Quattara of Cote D’Ivoire (since 2010), Ismail Guelleh of Djibouti (since 1999), Togo’s Faure Gnassingbe (Fourth President of Togo, President of Togo’s Council of Ministers, and the de facto constituted authority of Togo), Guinea Bissau’s Umaro Embalo (an up and coming sit tight ruler) and Gambia’s Adama Barrow who tried but failed. The common thread in all these instances is that the African rulers who seek to extend their tenures have no legitimate claims as they seek to amend and violate the people’s constitutions. No claims either in terms of their performance in office. African leaders in a democratic dispensation exhibit a village mentality, the thinking that they can rule until their walking sticks fail them as is the case in the villages and their homesteads. Democracy is the very antithesis of royalty. It is the people who choose and judge their leaders, not heredity or any metaphysical, divine right. Africa is yet to imbibe this lesson and process it appropriately.
It used to be the fashion in these parts for Nigerians to argue and affirm that such a thing would never happen in Nigeria. When bad things happen in other parts of Africa, Nigerians are quick to say that Nigeria is far more enlightened and sophisticated than other parts of Africa. But coups have happened in this same country. And in 2005, we got dangerously close to the idea of Constitutional amendment to keep President Olusegun Obasanjo for another term in office. The 2005 National Political Reform Conference (NPRC) had on its plate a number of critical issues including derivation, the rights of minorities, federal character, tenure, state police, and resource allocation. The members may have been handpicked without a legislative framework, but the discussion was robust, animated and useful. When the Conference failed, it was not necessarily because of those key issues but because of a so-called Third term Agenda which was subsequently taken up by the National Assembly where the proposal failed again. President Obasanjo in Ghana has now insisted again that he had no hand in it, and that if he wanted, he could have succeeded. Obasanjo now has the benefit of hindsight. Accordingly, he denounces tenure elongation. The problem then must have been with proxies, for there were persons who actively canvassed the idea of a third term, and there was Vice President Atiku Abubakar, as he then was, who stoutly mobilized opposition to his own President. It was the beginning of the crisis in the Obasanjo Presidency fully captured in a series of essays by this writer titled “The Bolekaja Presidency”. As to the challenge thrown by President Obasanjo in Ghana that whoever dead or alive that can disclaim his own version of truth, his affirmation of innocence, such a persons should speak up, only yesterday on Arise News, The Morning Show, Dr. Usman Bugaje, who was a participant in the drama of that season barely stopped short of calling the global statesman a liar. He said President Obasanjo wanted a Third Term, but it didn’t work because most of the lawmakers refused to collect the bribe of N50 million. I told Dr. Bugaje to expect Obasanjo’s push back. He said he was ready, and he would provide evidence! We would see.
In another testimony on this subject, Senator Femi Okurounmu, a Fourth Republic Senator (Ogun Central), 1999–2003 has pointedly accused President Obasanjo of being the architect of corruption in the country. He said: “After 2003, things changed. I think one of the factors that was responsible for this change was Obasanjo’s attempt to seek a third term when he began to lobby legislators, and gratifying them with a lot of money. So, he thought they could dance to his wish of having a third term. Unfortunately, since then, things have continued to go down and down.” (AfrikanWatch, 17 September, “Unfortunately, We have very Few Heroes, Many Villains”). Whatever be the true and correct version of the story of that period, the truth is that a third term did not happen in Nigeria. The people resisted the efforts through proxies, and President Obasanjo may be right when he says nobody can quote him that he ever asked for a third term in office. Part of the problem with democracy in Africa are the proxies, the hidden persuaders who claim to be super loyalists on behalf of the president, looking out for his interest. Whereas no one could quote Obasanjo directly in 2005/2006, there was also no evidence that he took concrete steps to sanction those who acted as if they were his agents. One of them was famously quoted as having said that, “What money could not do, more money would do it.” Obviously, the third term agents of the time had their own agenda!
If such a gambit did not work then, is there any guarantee that it would work in today’s Nigeria? Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has proclaimed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wants to be president for life and he too has the evidence. He claims that Tinubu is centralising power, instead of devolving it to the lower levels. For a man who says Tinubu does not deserve to be president and that the APC has failed, this sounds like sour grapes. Blackmail. For context, he was having a meeting with Waziri Atiku Abubakar. No one should expect that two such anti-Tinubu persons would meet and praise Tinubu. They want him out. Tinubu defeated Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 presidential election. He promised Nasir El-Rufai a ministerial appointment before God and man, and yet he disappointed him in the market place. This may be too much of an attack on El-Rufai’s oversized ego, and so he may have a reason to be angry. But for him to say Tinubu wants to be president for life may be an attempt to instigate a narrative. It is common knowledge that El-Rufai and his associates desperately want Tinubu out of power. They would rather de-market him by telling the North, in particular, that a man from the South-West wants to remain in power for life. No Northerner will accept that. Southerners will also disagree. The struggle for power at the centre in Nigeria’s plural and diverse society is so intense that it would be difficult for a Paul Biya, Paul Kagame or Obiang Nguema to survive here. Mr Bayo Onanuga says El-Rufai’s claims are “unfounded and speculative, baseless and absurd.” He further accuses El-Rufai of “hallucinations and fabrications.”
The Nigerian Constitution is very clear. An elected president of Nigeria can only serve for four years, or a maximum of eight years if re-elected for a second term. It will not be easy to amend this constitutional provision. This is not Cameroon. This is not Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda, or Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. What nullified the idea of a Third Term in 2005/2006 was the collective resolve of the Nigerian people. While Tinubu is still struggling, campaigning and strategising to win a second term in office, it would be suicidal for his strategists to talk about tenure elongation. Nasir El-Rufai is playing an amateur’s game. He certainly can’t be serious about his own claims.
Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesperson, writes from Lagos.
