Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo dropped his clearest hint yet that he hopes to stay on if Parliament approves a contested proposition to change term limits, he said in an interview published on Monday.
”The reforms that we are putting in place have to be anchored, anchored in legislation, anchored in institutions,” Obasanjo told the United States newspaper, Washington Post, signalling that he believes his work is not yet complete.
Obasanjo’s supporters are currently attempting to push a constitutional-reform package through Parliament, which would strengthen the president’s powers and allow him to stand for a third term in April 2007.
But many here, both opposition activists and disgruntled former regime loyalists, argue that such a move would jeopardise democracy and stir up more of the violence that has killed 20 000 Nigerians since Obasanjo’s election in 1999.
In this latest interview, as in previous statements, the born-again Christian and former military ruler did not explicitly endorse the proposed constitutional reforms.
Instead, he said that only God could predict what would happen next.
”I also believe that God is not a God of abandoned projects. If God has a project, He will not abandon it,” the president said, in an interview conducted on Sunday at his privately-owned farm estate in the south-western town of Ota.
Obasanjo was elected in 1999 at the end of Nigeria’s latest bout of kleptocratic military rule, and again in 2003. Both polls were marred by widespread ballot-rigging and political violence.
Since winning re-election, however, Nigeria has won international respect for an ambitious programme of economic reform and a renewed anti-corruption drive. Foreign creditors have rewarded Obasanjo with a major debt-relief package.
Nevertheless, there are concerns among some foreign experts that any attempt by Obasanjo to emulate other rulers around his troubled continent and change the constitution to remain in power could provoke widespread unrest.
In February, US Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte warned that Nigeria’s 2007 election ”could lead to major disruption in a nation suffering frequent ethno-religious violence, criminal activity and rampant corruption.
”Speculation that President Obasanjo will try to change the constitution so he can seek a third term in office is raising political tensions and, if proven true, threatens to unleash major turmoil and conflict,” he said.
In order for the proposed reform package to become law it would need the backing of two thirds of lawmakers in Nigeria’s upper and lower houses and the support of state assemblies in two-thirds of its 36 states.
No date has been set for the first vote, but politicians in Abuja expect to debate the issue this month. — Sapa-AFP