Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has dismissed persistent claims that he once attempted to extend his presidency beyond the constitutionally allowed two terms, insisting he never sought a “third term.”
Obasanjo, who led Nigeria between 1999 and 2007, made the clarification on Wednesday while speaking at the Democracy Dialogue organized by the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation in Accra, Ghana.
According to him, no individual—alive or deceased—can truthfully claim he ever confided in them about harboring a third-term agenda.
“I’m not a fool. If I wanted a third term, I know how to go about it. And there is no Nigerian dead or alive that would say I called him and told him I wanted a third term,” Obasanjo stated.
The former president explained that negotiating debt relief for Nigeria, which his administration secured in 2005, was a much greater challenge than pushing for an extension of his tenure would have been.
“I keep telling them that if I wanted to get debt relief, which is more difficult than getting a third term, and I got it, if I wanted a third term, I would have got it too,” he added.
Obasanjo used the occasion to caution African leaders against clinging to power, warning that such attitudes project a false sense of indispensability. He stressed that leadership should not be built on the belief that only one individual can deliver progress.
“I know that the best is done when you are young, ideal, vibrant, and dynamic. When you are kuje kuje [weak and weary], you don’t have the best. But some people believe that unless they are there, nobody else can do it. They even say they haven’t got anybody else. I believe that is a sin against God, because if God takes you away, which He can do anytime, somebody else will come—and that person may do better or worse,” he said.
Obasanjo’s remarks come amid renewed debates in parts of Africa over term limits and democratic transitions, with some leaders accused of attempting constitutional amendments to prolong their stay in office.
