Senator Ibrahim Mantu, who came to be seen as spearhead of the plot to give Obasanjo a third presidential term in 2007, yesterday said the Omar Hambagda sub-committee on constitution review was the initiator of the tenure elongation idea.Mantu was chairman of the National Assembly constitution review committee in 2006 when the tenure elongation bill came up, widely believed to be instigated by then president Olusegun Obasanjo so that he would be able to stand for another term.On Friday, Obasanjo spoke on Channels TV, saying the National Assembly, and not he, initiated the tenure elongation proposal.This was interpreted to mean that Mantu, being chairman of the National Assembly committee, was the brains behind third term.But Mantu, who spoke exclusively to Daily Trust in Abuja yesterday in response to Obasanjo's statement and the consequent reactions, passed the buck to Senator Omar Hambagda, who was chairman of the sub-committee on the executive in the joint National Assembly constitution review committee.'It was in the course of zonal public hearings that a subcommittee headed by Senator Hambagda brought in their report the opinions they received from some people, suggesting that instead of having two terms of four years, we should have three terms of four years,' Mantu said.'As you know the duty of the committee was to report any opinion expressed by Nigerian citizens; they had no power to reject any opinion expressed by any Nigerian citizens.'So this suggestion was contained in the report of Senator Hambagda's committee, which was represented to the main committee that I chaired. The main committee also did not have the power to reject any report from the various committees; it was indeed the responsibility of the two chambers of the National Assembly, both Senate and House to either accept or reject any recommendation.'Now, any recommendation that did not enjoy the support of the majority of the legislatures would die a natural death, and anyone that enjoyed the support of the legislatures would naturally survive,' he added.In early 2006, the Mantu-led committee held a retreat in Port Harcourt, where it considered the reports of the zonal public hearings and adopted the third term clause.Media reports said lawmakers received massive bribes from Obasanjo's foot soldiers in order to endorse tenure elongation.But Mantu insisted yesterday that he shared no bribes, and Obasanjo had no hand in the proposal for third term.'Throughout the exercise there was never a time that president Obasanjo lobbied me to use my position as chairman of the constitutional review committee to bend the rules and ensure the passage of the tenure elongation clause,' he said.'They have been attacking me in the media because they saw me as spearheading the constitutional amendment bill; nobody can say I took money or distributed money.'I was in charge and my duty was that of an impartial umpire. Don't forget that we had 102 clauses to be amended and every clause had its own opposers. And people chose to take it (third term) and desecrate it to the point that the baby and bath water were thrown out.'He added that 'the media hype about the third term was totally unnecessary, the hue and cry was not necessary, because in a democracy people have the right to differ just as they have a right to choose what they like and what they don't like.'From this background therefore it can be clearly seen that the hullabaloo about the whole thing was unnecessary, because all that those in support of the tenure elongation needed to do was to lobby legislatures, similarly all those opposed to the elongation clause needed to do was to lobby the majority to defeat its passage.
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