Do you think civil society groups are capable of fighting the third term agenda as they did against the military?
The time has moved on. Activists who had graduated from Nigerian universities peopled the civil society in our period. Remember that at that time, NANS was vibrant. So, most of us who peopled the civil society groups were NANS activists who had a strong background in advocacy and campaigns. A lot of them had been arrested, detained, suspended and expelled in their university days. They carried that vibrancy into the civil society groups. One thing you will notice now is that as that crowd left NANS, it got polluted. As that same group left the human rights groups, everybody started to set up human rights groups. And the campaign disappeared; it was only left with advocacy. The same happened in the pro-democracy groups. Most of the people today don稚 talk in the direction of campaigners.

You were at the CLO today, and your group told the CLO to join the campaign against third term. Do you believe the CLO has what it takes to engage in this battle?
If the culture is there, yes. But I must tell you that it goes back to the first question. In the university, a lot of us were Marxist students, left-wing students, who had consumed a lot of left-wing literature with a lot of organisational capacity. When we left, we carried a lot of the language to the human rights groups. But of those who are there now are looking at the human rights struggles as a career, a profession, a kind of stop-gap place.

Do you believe with the way things are going, the third term thing can be stopped at the level of the National Assembly?
What gives me the confidence is the fact that God is on our side. The Nigerian people are on our side. All those people now mounting third term will not give their vote unless they are paid. Without money, not a chance for third term. When you look at all these factors, you cannot but marvel as to how much God loves this country; how much God wants to save this country.

Does that mean if the protagonists can buy their support, the anti-third term campaigners have lost out?
I have not said so. But I recognise that money plays a lot of roles. Rather than blame anything on money, I would go back to the 2003 elections. If there were proper elections in 2003, where people got elected on the basis of the votes cast for them, we would not even bat an eyelid over third term. I would have told you for sure that a minimum of three-quarters of the people would have voted against third term. But the big worry for me has been that many people in the National Assembly did not win a proper election. These were people who grabbed results sheets; who stole result sheets and filled in figures and wrote their names. Most of them have still not repented from that act.

There have been reports of desperate attempts to buy over those of you opposed to it. What is your personal experience?
A friend from Bayelsa State got across to me. That was on Good Friday and he said he knew that I would not accept to vote for third term, but that an arrangement had been made that I could get as much money as all the supporters of third term would get. He asked if I could reach out to 10 strong anti-third term legislators like myself and arrange how they would accept to travel to any country of their choice to spend a three to four-week holiday. All expenses would be paid, and they would still be paid the same money that the pro-third termers would get. But they would be absent from voting.

But that is not all. The State Security Services is writing bogus security reports against many of our people. I am one of such people. The SSS wrote a report against me last two weeks and that they sent the memo to the President in which they said that I was an APGA member of the House of Representatives; and that I have been busy supporting MASSOB activities. I see that as a prelude to perhaps arresting me, abducting me and if possible, charging me for treason as a way of cowing me or putting me away during the voting on third term. Why is it that all of a sudden, it is now that I am fanatically opposed to third term that they are waking up to the reality of my support for MASSOB?

THE PUNCH, Friday April 28, 2006