A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has argued that it was President Muhammadu Buhari that stopped ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term agenda and not the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.
Atiku had said, “During my tenure as Vice President, I developed a very intimate relationship with members of the National Assembly and it was that relationship that enabled us to stop the third term or the life presidency attempt by President Obasanjo.”
But reacting in a statement on Wednesday, Okechukwu said, “Yes, Atiku joined at the tail end, but to claim he stopped it is less than honest and farther from the truth.
“Many of us were observers when ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo had almost driven Nigeria into a one-party state, prelude to 3rd term gambit. This bid was stopped by Buhari, who, in a thunderstorm fashion, strengthened the defunct All Peoples Party (APP) by his way 12 million vote bank scored in the 2003 presidential election.
“President Buhari, more than any other Nigerian dead or alive, should be given the credit for simulating the movement which botched first — one-party-system; and secondly, the obnoxious 3rd term plot by PDP behemoth.
“Obasanjo was implementing a one-party system he had advocated in a pamphlet as the best model for Nigeria before he became president. But Okadigbo warned that this is the trajectory of all known African big men.”
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