‘If I Wanted 3rd Term, I Would Have Gotten It’, Obasanjo Breaks Silence On Tenure Elongation Allegations

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has denied long-standing allegations that he sought a third term in office when he was President, insisting that no Nigerian can produce evidence to support such claims.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Democracy Dialogue organised by the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Accra, Ghana, Obasanjo said, “I think I’m not a fool. If I wanted it, some thought I wanted it, I know how to go about it. And there is no Nigerian, dead or alive, that will say I called him and told him I wanted the third term. None.”

The former leader argued that securing debt relief for Nigeria during his administration was a far greater challenge than obtaining a third term in office, stressing that if he had pursued it, he would have succeeded.

“I keep telling them that, ‘look, if I wanted to get debt relief, which is more difficult than getting a third term and I got it’, if I wanted a third term, I would have got it too,” he declared.

Obasanjo also cautioned against leaders who overstay their welcome and consider themselves indispensable, describing such an attitude as a “sin against God.”

“I know that the best is done when you are young, ideal and vibrant and dynamic. When you are ‘kuje kuje’ you don’t have the best. But some people believe that unless they are there, nobody else. They will even tell you that they haven’t got anybody else. I believe that that is a sin against God, because if God takes you away, which God can do anytime, then somebody else will come, and that somebody else may do better or may do worse,” the former President stated.

LEADERSHIP reports that the former president, who served from 1999 to 2007, maintained that leadership must make room for new and vibrant voices instead of clinging to power.