While the proponents suggested that the Third Term Agenda would only allow another four years for the president, Uche Chukwumerije, a vocal opponent of the proposal representing Abia North in the South East, argued that “it means that Mr President will rule for the next 12 years and the presidency will remain in one zone for 20 years. Fullstop!” Senator Muktar Aruwa called it tenure “perpetuation”.

I read Millers poem on Perseverance when I was compiling the book of quotations in August 1967 according to my notes at the time. It was a difficult time for me and I came close to giving up on life. Providentially, this poem came up in a book and courage returned. It is the perfect opening for this piece on Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, GCON, former Vice President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007. His emergence as the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party actually started in 2006 at a breakfast meeting with leading columnists of the day in his residence at Ikoyi. Lagos. Some have passed on; many more are in voluntary or involuntary retirement. To the best of my knowledge, only few of us remain in active “service” since that meeting.

The import and background to this  debate was not lost on the senators. No elected civilian administration had, at the time, successfully handed over to another. Elections were due to hold in less than nine months, in the first quarter of 2007, to determine who would succeed President Obasanjo. Preceding the debate, the president had reorganised the ruling PDP in what many considered a martial fashion.

Authors reviewed the beginning of National Assembly debate on constitutional amendment aimed at facilitating a third term for Obasanjo; the role of the private media and Senators who either stood for or opposed the unpopular project. They relayed how on Tuesday, 16 May 2006, an unexplained, early morning fire outbreak destroyed Dokpesi’s home in Agenebode, Edo State. The fire incident was believed by some to be connected with Dokpesi’s AIT coverage of the riveting debate on the floor of the Senate on the constitutional amendment bill.

At the beginning of May 2006, the Senate, as the upper legislative chamber in Nigeria’s national parliament, began consideration of an extraordinary bill to amend 116 items in Nigeria’s Constitution. All sides involved in the debate knew they were playing for high stakes. Under the existing Constitution, the president and all thirty-six state governors were limited to not more than two terms of four years each. If the amendment succeeded, Nigeria was fated to return to a history of disorderly and unstable transfer of power.