 Pres. Obasanjo Elendureports.com has been informed by sources at the Presidency that the President held a meeting with top officials of the State Security Service (SSS) last week. According to some sources, who were privy to that meeting, the President informed the security officials that he had no intentions of vacating the office of President on May 29, 2007. The President directed that the screening of candidates be carried out in such a way as to 'weed out' those who were not in support of the President and his third term agenda. Therefore, those perceived to be opponents of the President's third term agenda will receive negative security reports which could cause them to be detained and probably disqualified from contesting elections.
At some point during the meeting the President became irate and was banging on the table. He declared to his shocked audience: "This is a fight to finish. I am not going anywhere. I will leave this office over my dead body. This is war!"
Borrowing from the Abacha play book, the promoters of the third term agenda are seriously recruiting youths into their camp. Abuja is now a bazaar of sorts to former student leaders and youths willing to be bought. Elendureports.com spoke with one of the youth leaders at Big Bites, a popular eatery in Zone 2, Wuse, Abuja. He told us, "Baba is going for third term; there's no going back on it. This is a chance for people like me to make money. You know how much Daniel Kanu made from Abacha?"
We asked the youth leader, who would not want his name to appear in this article, whether he believes Pres. Obasanjo deserves a third term. He responded, "My brother, what he deserves doesn't matter. The important thing is that he is setting up an industry called third term and I want a job there. The man will probably destroy Nigeria with this, his third term thing but so what? Without money, Nigeria is not for you, as far as I'm concerned, it’s third term all the way."
Meanwhile, opposition politicians are feeling like a besieged bunch. There is thinking among the political class that beginning from March this year, all tools of oppression will be used against them by the Obasanjo Administration. One of them opined to Elendureports.com, "Starting from March, watch out for increase in cases of assassinations of members of the political class. Also, you will see the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) target more members of the opposition. And this fear for our lives is real. Afterall, Abacha's killing machine, Sgt. Rogers, is free and roaming the streets of Abuja."
It would appear that the intimidation of the President's opponents using the EFCC is already in full swing. According to a very reliable source in Abuja, the EFCC is determined to implicate the former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Audu Ogbeh. According to reports reaching Elendureports.com some former key staffers of the PDP are being pressured to implicate Ogbeh in some fraudulent deal during his tenure as the Chairman of the Party. A former top member of the Party, who was also a member of the Party's National Executive Committee (NEC), was told to implicate the former Chairman if he wanted harassments from the EFCC to cease. The former Party chieftain vehemently refused and told his interrogators that his religion forbids him from bearing false witness.
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