The paper also published a very strong editorial condemning U.S. threats to take military and economic action against Nigeria if Obasanjo does seek a third term, but at the same time supporting the U.S. position, saying the third term discussion "has been a costly exercise" for Nigeria. Obasanjo has repeatedly said he would not seek a third term amid increasing clamor for him to do so and a series of provocative remarks by past and present U.S. officials that are trying to force his hand.
Cohen is now a senior advisor to the Global Coalition for Africa and the Intergovernmental Policy Forum - organizations that are little-known to the public but now at the center of a gathering storm in U.S.-Nigerian relations.
Cohen compared Obasanjo's spokesman to war crimes suspect Tariq Aziz of Iraq and has repeatedly warned Obasanjo of American sanctions if he runs for a prohibited third term.
Obasanjo has attracted the remarks by resisting the demands of two U.S. multinationals, oil giants ExxonMobil and Anadarko Petroleum, for rights to a choice block in the Gulf of Guinea's Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone.
However, that issue moved closer to resolution Wednesday when Sao Tome Prime Minister Maria do Carmo Silveira refused to comment on a probe report that had been delaying PSCs, and the country's oil commission chairman said should be signed with block winners "soon."
With it, the third term issue may also subside, if indeed the United States has not risked too much of its political capital on the effort already..
The rights to Block 4 were won by Houston-based and Nigerian-owned ERHC Energy (OTC BB symbol: ERHE) in the 2004 Licensing Round of the bilateral Joint Development Authority. Ever since they were shut out of the block, the two companies have used their powerful connections in Washington and West Africa to mount a series of attacks, delays, probes and other aggressive tactics to override the May 31 awards.
One one track of that effort, U.S. officials are apparently trying to provoke President Obasanjo to declare himself a candidate for a third term, which without a change to the 1999 Nigerian Constitution would be prohibited. At least 30 of the country's 36 state governors have backed such a change permittting the two-term president to run a third time, much as a similar 1951 amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowed President Harry S Truman to run if he wished after it was ratified during his second term.
Another faily, Vanguard acknowledges the pressure in today's editions:
No one can stampede Obasanjo on 3rd term —AIDE
By Simon Ebegbulem & Umar Yusuf
Posted to the Web: Thursday, December 29, 2005
BENIN — SPECIAL Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Policy and Programmes, Professor Julius Ihonvbere, says no one or group can stampede the president to make a definite pronouncement on the third term issue until he is ready to do so. The President, according to him, will speak on the matter when it would be of “maximum value” to the nation.
...
Said he: “I think the president cannot be dragged into every political discussion in the country. He has not told anybody he is going for a third term. People have been forcing him to make a statement on it but every disciplined politician would want to discuss something useful about the future. I believe at the appropriate time the president will speak. He is the leader of the our party. He is the president. He is a master and he knows how to respond to national discussion.
Once Obansanjo has declared himself a candidate, the U.S. would presumably foster an international protest useful to Obasanjo's political enemies, who have been deeply wounded by a series of high-profile corruption investigations and have failed to produce a credible opposition candidate. For his part, Obasanjo has repeatedly declared that he would not be a candidate.
For ExxonMobil and Anadarko, it at least appears that a return to the pay-as-you-go bribery they are charged with in neighboring Equatorial Guinea would be preferable to the transparency and anti-corruption initiatives of the Obasanjo administration, which has dramatically improved conditions in Nigeria, once deemed by watchdog group Transparency International as one of the very worst in the world for political corruption.
Both companies but especially ExxonMobil, which pumps 570,000bpd of light, sweet crude oil in Nigeria, have benefited under the old-style Nigerian political system that Obasanjo has spurned. In the U.S., ExxonMobil Chairman Emeritus Lee Raymond directed Esso's PAC to give Republicans $1.37 million in 2000, in part to win the President's enduring opposition to the Kyoto Protocols that targest fossil fuels like oil for the costly pollution that creates global warming. Now the two companies hope to have President Bush support their demands in Nigeria, even at the risk of severe diplomatic rows, to gain the $200 billion reserves believed to await explorers in Block 4.
Here is the Daily Independent story:
Third Term: Presidency reports Cohen to Bush
• His comment an incitement – Presidency
By Donald Ojogo
Correspondent, Lagos
President Olusegun Obasanjo has reportedly directed Foreign Affairs Minister, Olu Adeniji, to send a protest letter to the United States President, George W. Bush, after being upset by the comment by a former official of the U.S. State Department.
A source in Aso Rock confirmed in a telephone interview that the directive arose from the remark by former U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Mike Cohen, that the American Government would oppose the rumoured third term ambition of Obasanjo.
Said the source: “Initially, Mr. President felt that Cohen was expressing his opinion on the matter and had decided not to engage him in a debate, especially when the Presidential Assistant on Public Affairs, Femi Fani-Kayode, replied that Nigeria does not need lessons from the U.S. on democracy.
“But with the way the man is going, it is clear that he has an agenda, and that is why Mr. President may have given that directive”.
Fani-Kayode had described Cohen’s statement as an “irresponsible incitement” and said he did not see why the Presidency should make a formal complaint.
Cohen had in an interview with a national newspaper insisted that the U.S would monitor the democratic system in Nigeria especially when the dust raised by the third term speculation lingers.
“The same drama also played itself out during the Abacha regime with the political parties adopting a serving General (as the sole Presidential candidate) to the surprise of the entire world. So America does not want to take chances”, he stressed.
He compared Fani Kayode to Tahir Aziz (Saddam Hussein’s Information Minister), saying the government’s spokesman is lying to the people on the issue.
Cohen’s statement, the second in less than two weeks, comes on the heels of a warning by lawyer and human rights activist, Gani Fawehinmi, that Obasanjo should ignore the third term temptation.
Adeniji could not be reached for comment on Wednesday having travelled out of the country.
But Fani-Kayode denied that the President directed him to write a protest letter to the U.S.
His words: “I don’t think there is any reason for that kind of thing. One, you have to draw a line between a serving government official and one that has left office. Cohen is only expressing his personnel views and not those of the U.S Government, so why write to protest the irresponsible inciting comment made by a barrack room bully.
“His comparison of Nigeria with Iraq is the manifestation of crass ignorance, sheer arrogance and insincerity of purpose, but I will not trade insults into him. The Federal Government has better things to think about and do than to waste time in writing the U.S Government over a statement made by a former official, a statement that is ill-mannered and ill-motivated, especially coming from someone like Cohen who knows nothing about Nigeria.
“There is no way the government of Nigeria could be drawn into an unnecessary controversy with the U.S with which we have a very cordial and an enviable relationship. We have a relationship that is predicated on mutual respect as two sovereign nations, hence Cohen should be seen as a security risk to both nations”.
Here is the Independent's official editorial on the topic, from Dec. 29 editions:
Thursday 29th December, 2005
Third term and US sanctions
We are deeply disturbed by the reported threat by the United States that it would visit stiff sanctions on the Nigerian Government if the Olusegun Obasanjo administration reneges on an earlier promise it gave Washington to handover to a democratically elected Government on May 29, 2007. Evidently, the Nigerian Government had, among other benefits, clinched an $18 debt forgiveness which the US made possible, based on the terms of this promise, by prevailing on the Paris Club of creditors to write–off part of Nigeria’s debt.
Sources close to US’ State Department were quoted as saying the US facilitated the debt deal to give the expected new leadership in Nigeria, after the civilian-civilian Government handover, an opportunity to chart a new course for the country but stated that “all bets will be off if (president) Obasanjo amends the Constitution to prolong his term.”
The US is proposing a series of punitive measures (both military and economic) against Abuja if President Olusegun Obasanjo seeks a third term. Relations between the two countries have since gone sour. This is made worse by recent comments credited to Presidential spokesman Femi Fani-Kayode and believed to have rebuked State Department officials who frowned at the third term agenda. But while it could be safely said that the United States will be treading slippery diplomatic grounds to be seen openly meddling in the affairs of Nigeria, we do not think it is out of place for the US to make its position known since it will have far -reaching effects on that country’s economic and political interests in the sub-region. This aside, Nigeria remains US’ biggest trade partner in sub-Saharan Africa, with oil accounting for over 70 per cent of exports.
Yet, there are reasons for genuine concerns and no one who truly wishes Nigeria and indeed, Africa well, will look the other way when indications are rife that the edifice all lovers of the democratic spirit founded, after the June-12 crises ,is about crashing once again.
We dare say that all attempt to make the Obasanjo Government give a firm reassurance that it was not interested in any third term bid, has met with perfunctory response. It has been treated with levity. The false voice insisted it is not. But the body language betrays the culpability. We, just like the United States, are not convinced that Obasanjo has been sincere with the promise to vacate office in 2007. We are not any more convinced than the Americans are that the reported recent massive endorsement of 30 State Governors and their Senators and Representatives in the National Assembly, were part of Obasanjo’s arm-twisting tatics to subdue the opposition to this unpopular self-succession bid by forcing these public office holders—many of whom have pending cases with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) - to throw in the towel.
While Government has continued to indulge self in carefully packaged schemes and scare-mongering that beg the issue, we dare say that it should not expect the international community to treat kindly, what the Presidency does to thwart the democratic struggle in Nigeria at this critical stage of its nationhood. Indeed, if Obasanjo found younger Eyadema’s ambition to succeed himself, after his father’s death—via extra-constitutional means, reprehensible, there is no reason not to expect the cold shoulder, from western powers.
The third term bid is indeed, a costly exercise the Nigerian people, the tax-payers of this country, could ill-afford. And with the benefit of the post June12 hindsight, we do not wish to be taken through this familiar experiment in political torture, which destination, we can already predict! It is worth repeating for the umpteenth time, that we must as a people, resist any attempt by an individual, to take us for a ride; we must not for whatever claims to some special vision, the lack of it, or a divine calling, to be in possession of some special intellect—without which the nation stood to bring itself to ruin. This arrogance of power, the personalisation of leadership, which is the undoing of many African dictatorships, is what is being contemplated in a 21st century Nigeria already cleavaged by the effects of a 30-month civil war, unequal access to power and disproportionate sharing of the national wealth to the disadvantage of the oil producing areas.
The consequences of the third term bid—political, economic and social, for the rest of Africa, are just too grave to imagine.
These fears are what the Americans are expressing and rightly too. They go beyond the fulfilment of the doomsday prediction floated by State Department’s intelligence report not too long ago. The doomsday may indeed be here earlier than initially presumed, if Obasanjo will not heed wise counsel! And we believe, beyond the tumult and rabble rousing, the Presidency will lend a listening ear and allow reason, legality and constitutionality prevail in its conduct of Nigeria’s affairs.
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