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Obasanjo, Atiku in fresh war of words over failed 3rd
term plot
Newsdiaryonline Mon Nov 28,2011
Obasanjo(Left);Atiku (Right)
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has advised former
President Obasanjo to defend himself against the allegation of
lobbying the former George Bush administration to support his
unpopular third term ambition in 2006 which was contained in the
recently published memoirs of former Secretary of State,
Condoleezza Rice. Obasanjo
told the National Mirror newspaper that his former deputy
destroyed his own chance of succeeding him in 2007. Also
Obasanjo said in the interview that Atiku is unreliable and that
he lacks the vision, orientation and experience to step into his
shoes.
Describing the allegation as diversionary in a statement issued
by his media office in Abuja, the former Vice President said he
was unbelievably shocked by the distortion of truth by Obasanjo
who is supposed to speak honestly like a statesman.
The former US Secretary of State was quoted on page 638 of her
memoir titled “No Higher Honour” as saying “In 2006 when
President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria sidled up to President
Bush and suggested that he (Obasanjo) might change the
constitution so that he could serve a third term, President Bush
told him not to do it.” In Bush’s words “You have served your
country well. Now turn over power and become a statesman.”
Reacting to these allegations, however, the former Vice
President said his problems with Obasanjo had nothing to do with
these charges. Instead, Atiku recalled that his opposition to
Obasanjo’s third term ambition was the beginning of his
travails. Atiku
maintained that Obasanjo had no succession plan from day one,
and that he wanted to be Nigeria’s Robert Mugabe.
The former Vice President also accused Obasanjo of handing over
power to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua reluctantly as a
face-saving measure following the collapse of his third term
ambition on the floor of the Senate on May 16th 2006.
The Turaki Adamawa
explained that he opposed tenure elongation of Obasanjo on the
grounds that the constitution should not be amended for the sake
of granting one man’s life term ambition rather than public
interest. On the claim by Obasanjo that he didn’t discuss third
term ambition with anybody, Atiku recalled that the former
President sent two senior cabinet ministers to him to deliberate
on a draft constitution. Curiously, Atiku said, the draft was
silent on term limit, which made him to smell a rat and that his
courage to confront Obasanjo over this controversial plan was
the beginning of his troubles with his former boss and the
subsequent plots to frustrate his ambition to become President.
In what appears to be one of his bluntest public statements,
Atiku accused Obasanjo of imposing a crisis – prone last minute
succession by bringing a medically challenged late Umaru
Yar’Adua to succeed him as a means of punishing Nigerians for
rejecting his life Presidency ambition.
Atiku praised Nigeria’s
past leaders including General Yakubu Gowon, Alhaji Shehu
Shagari, General Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, Gen.
Abdulsalami Abubakar, statesmen, legislators, past Chief
Justices and the media for coming together to pull Nigeria from
the brink and ensuring an orderly succession to the Presidency
by the then Vice President Dr. Jonathan Goodluck. “Without this,
Nigeria would have been plunged into yet another major crisis
arising from the actions of one man,” Atiku said.
On the allegations of inexperience, incompetence and
unreliability made against him by Obasanjo, former Vice
President Atiku Abubakar said Obasanjo is the last person to
lecture any Nigerian on reliability.
With the recent revelations by former U.S. Secretary of State,
Condoleezza Rice in her published memoirs in which she disclosed
how Obasanjo lobbied former President Bush to support his third
term bid, Atiku Abubakar advised his former boss to defend
himself on this latest moral challenge to his reputation before
he could question the reliability of others.
Atiku also dismissed as preposterous the allegation against him
by Obasanjo that he is inexperienced. He challenged Obasanjo to
disclose any responsibility or task that he assigned to him
while in office, which he didn’t discharge competently.
Rather than losing his head to underserved flattering newspaper
attention, former Vice President Abubakar said Obasanjo should
apologize to Nigerians for dragging our politics into disrepute
because of his disregard for fair play or the basic rules of
democracy. He accused
Obasanjo of being obsessed with the myth of indispensability and
the false notion of being the cleanest person. According to
Atiku, even President Jonathan and the late Umaru Yar’Adua are
not safe from Obasanjo’s self-righteous attacks on other
leaders.
Th
This is the document referred to in the Witness
Statement on Oath of Clifford O. Kokogho as
“Exhibit
COK.2”
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