How Obasanjo’s third term agenda collapsed in Port Harcourt – Eyo Ekpo

Eyo Ekpo, a former attorney-general and commissioner for justice in Cross River State, has narrated how some of the submissions at the conferences held in 2006 on the constitutional amendment in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, ruined the third term agenda of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Ekpo, in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay on the state of the nation, also disclosed what his late father, who was a major-general, told him about Nigeria.

He said: “Remember that in 2006, I think February, there were various conferences held around the country. And the conference in the South-East on the constitutional amendment, including the one that said, you can have it a term. In South-South, we had our meeting in Port Harcourt. I was the Attorney General of Cross River then. I told my governor that ‘look, this constitutional amendment for third term will not pass the way Obasanjo wants it’.

“He asked why? I said it was because it cannot have a retrospective effect. Okay, even Obasanjo, the governors who are in office today must still leave after their second term. Because the amendment can only benefit those who are coming after it has been passed into the Constitution.

“He said that’s a problem. I said that’s a problem because Obasanjo was not thinking; he was talking to politicians. If his third term was a good idea, he didn’t think it through very carefully; he didn’t talk to lawyers on how to make that happen.”

Eyo said the constitutions that have been amended in Rwanda and China specifically mentioned incumbents. “In fact, I think the constitution of Rwanda mentioned Kagame by name, if I remember correctly,” he said.

He recalled that when he went to Port Harcourt, he spoke for Cross River State and said: “Yes, we don’t have a problem with the amendments. But let us be well advised and understand that this amendment will not have retrospective effect. So, they will not benefit any of those, from president to governors, who are currently in office. It can only take effect after and benefit those who have been elected after.”

Ekpo said the Civic Centre in Port Harcourt broke into total pandemonium after his speech.

He said: “Because what I said in plain English was: Obasanjo, you can do third term, but you will not be a beneficiary of that. You must still go next year.

“Obasanjo now called Donald (Duke) afterwards, who was my governor. Donald didn’t come to PH that day; I went back to Calabar that night, went straight to see Donald. He said I should come and see him and I did.

“Donald asked me what happened. I told him what happened. He called Obasanjo on the phone and I was listening, on speakerphone. Obasanjo asked him, ‘Don, this your Attorney-General, has he come back?’ Don said yes. Has he confirmed what he said? Don said yes. Did he say what they say he said? He said yes. Obasanjo then said, ‘You must sack him.’ I’m not telling what I was told, I heard him. Obasanjo said, ‘You must sack that man, you must sack him.’”

He also recalled: “Donald paused and said, ‘Baba, but I cannot sack him.’ Obasanjo asked why and Donald replied, saying, ‘Number one, you are the one that has been saying there is no third term agenda. So, if I sack him after what he has said, is it not proving that there is, in fact, a third term agenda?’ Obasanjo paused. Donald said, ‘The second reason is that he’s your boss’ son.’

“’Why would I sack your boss’ son?’ Obasanjo said, ‘I have no boss, which boss; who’s my boss?’ Donald said, ‘This is General Ekpo’s son.’ Obasanjo got upset and said, ‘Haa; tell him that he’s a madman like his father,’ and hung off.

“That was the end of Obasanjo wanting to have me sacked from the Donald Duke’s government. Anyway, on the back of that, I’m just giving that as an example of how I think that my dad was probably right in telling me that he didn’t think we’re going to go very far with Obasanjo as president.”

Eyo also expressed sadness that Obasanjo is now criticising the very thing that he himself did.

He said: “He was president at a time when we had a great opportunity, and blew it. Again, I had personal experience from the power sector. I was in BPE (Bureau of Public Enterprises) when we had this law passed. We took it to him to sign in 2003 and he refused to give assent to it in 2003, because he felt that he will be empowering Atiku. You know, under the power sector reform Act, the vice-president is really in charge of that reform process. And at the time, he didn’t want Atiku.

“Apparently, he already knew what he was going to try to do to Atiku in 2003, emasculate him and all that; so he didn’t want to take you to ‘have power’. And so, because of the personal issue he had with one person, the vice-president, he chose to hold Nigeria back.”

Ekpo added: “That’s not a leader as far as I’m concerned. There’s a history that we don’t know much of; we only know that this Act was passed in 2005 but by then, he had effectively emasculated and put Atiku out of commission.

“So everything that the vice-president of Nigeria had to do under the various laws of Nigeria, he took over himself, then he could allow that Act to be passed. But don’t forget, when the Act was passed in 2005, he then immediately side-tracked himself away from power sector reform into the third term agenda, and went and set up NIPP (National Integrated Power Project), which was effectively re-establishing government as the major player in the power business.

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“So, how could you have passed a law that says government will go out of the power sector and focus only on regulation and, at the same time, we are taking billions of dollars to go and build more assets?

“Today, where are we with NIPP 16 years later? Nowhere! NIPP is a huge white elephant project, still uncompleted, money missing, and what have we done with our power sector reform those crucial years, between 2005 and 2007?”

Strongly believing that the former president lost focus along the line, Ekpo said: “And I’ll give this to him, he does have very forceful and aggressive character. If he puts his mind to do something, he will do it. So, if he had applied that to power sector reforms instead of digressing and focusing on these misguided third term agenda, maybe we would have seen a different power sector today.”

On his first encounter with Obasanjo, the scholar said: “Now, I had met Obasanjo before during the GSM licensing thing in 2000. Mo Ibrahim’s company was my client at the auction, so we went to see Obasanjo together, and I introduced myself and Obasanjo said how’s your dad?

“That was my own experience of Obasanjo. But my dad felt that Obasanjo was not going to do the right thing for the country. Whether that turns out to be correct or not, I guess history will judge.”