NNAMANI VOWS TO EXPOSE THIRD TERM ACTORS, BLASTS APC

Former senate president, Ken Nnamani, has revealed that he will soon expose those behind the third term bid of former president, Olusegun Obasanjo. He decried the situation where major actors in the failed project are now beginning to feign ignorance about the project and denying their participation in the failed bid. The Obasanjo administration had tried to extend its tenure as the administration was preparing to leave office but the extension didn’t see the light of the day as it was quashed by the National Assembly then. The failed project was known as “third term”, and many politicians, including Obasanjo have since denied having a hand in the project. Nnamani was speaking at the public presentation of a book, Nigeria Fourth Republic National Assembly, written by Dr Austin Uganwa. The book chronicled how, for the first time, money exchanged hands in the Fourth Republic National Assembly in 1999 when Obasanjo moved to stop the Senate Presidency bid of Senator Chuba Okadigbo, who was adopted by the leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party at that time. Nnamani also came down hard on the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), saying that party supremacy which the APC seeks to enforce, is not practiced on the floor of the senate. He opined that the crisis in the legislature would have been avoided if only the ruling APC had learnt from the mistakes of the past in the election of the presiding officers. He described the leadership crisis the APC is battling with in the National Assembly as the price the ruling party would have to pay for not putting its house in order. The former President of the Senate spoke at a forum where the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Umar Na’Abba, also blamed former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, for the leadership crisis that rocked the National Assembly between 1999 and 2007, saying that the former president mistook democracy for military rule. According Nnamani the leadership crisis in the National Assembly would have been avoided if only the ruling APC had learnt from the mistakes of the past in the election of the presiding officers, adding that the party’s supremacy which the party seeks to enforce, negates the doctrine of separation of power and independence of the legislature.He said that Obasanjo, as a civilian president, refused to respect the tenets of democracy including independence of the legislature. Nnamani described the leadership crisis rocking the National Assembly as the price the APC would have to pay for not putting its house in order before the election of principal officers. He chided the APC senators that converged at the International Conference Centre on the day of their inauguration, saying they should have been there, instead “they went for a meeting at the International conference centre, a place that is far away from the National Assembly.” According to Daily Independent, he said, “party supremacy is not practised on the floor of the senate, the senate chamber is not a party secretariat.” Meanwhile, fresh opposition has surfaced among PDP stalwarts on the choice of who gets the position of the minority leader in the senate arm of the 8th National Assembly.