Lobby groups urge Obasanjo to forgo re-election

Two main lobby groups in northern and southeastern Nigeria said on Tuesday President Olusegun Obasanjo should give up his bid for re-election in 2003 in the interest of national unity. The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), which represents northern interests, and Ohaneze Ndigbo, which groups the political and business elite of the southeastern Igbo, in a joint statement said Obasanjo’s ambition for re-election was unpopular and raising political tension to dangerous levels. "What Nigeria needs now is a leader who is dedicated to reviving the economy, one who respects the rule of law...one who is caring and sensitive to the yearnings of the downtrodden...a man who is a true democrat, amenable to advice and able to accommodate dissenting voices," the statement said. "We are sad to conclude that President Obasanjo is not such a leader," it added. The groups claimed Obasanjo manipulated votes in the national assembly and electoral processes in the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), saying these were signs that he "cannot and will not organise or conduct a credible presidential election". They therefore asked him "as a solemn duty" to give up his second term bid to avoid pushing "the country into calamity". Tension has been mounting in Africa’s most populous country of 120 million people ahead of general elections the electoral commission said would be held in March and April 2003. There has been widespread political violence with cases of political assasinations on the rise. Both the ACF and Ohaneze Ndigbo were instrumental in the massive victory Obasanjo scored in northern and southeastern Nigeria in 1999 elections that ended more than 15 years of military rule. Obasanjo swept to the presidency despite winning scant votes in his southwest ethnic Yoruba homeland, where he was perceived as a stooge of northern political interests. Late last month a group of prominent Nigerians known as The Patriots - including Abraham Adesanya, leader of the pro-Yoruba lobby, Afenifere - had issued a statement calling on Obasanjo not to run for the presidency again. They recommended a constitutional amendment for a single five-year presidency as a way out of the "second-term syndrome" which they said was heating up the polity. Last week the Nigerian Bar Association, the umbrella lawyers’ body, supported the move by writing to the federal legislature requesting the start of a process of a constitutional amendment for a five-year, single term presidency. Neither Obasanjo nor his aides have responded directly to these demands. But in picking up the PDP presidential nomination forms last week, the president has indicated his intention to forge ahead with his political ambition.