George Bush And I Stopped Obj's 3rd Term Bid Not NASS..Orji Kalu

Former Governor  of Abia State ,Orji Uzor Kalu has come out to say that  that it was his intervention through the former President of the United States f America,George Bush that stopped former President Olusegun Obasanjo from getting a third in office rather than the misconceived notion that the National Assembly was behind the scuttle.

Hear him

“Mind you, I never quarreled with President Obasanjo because I wanted quarrels; rather, I quarreled on issues that affected Ndi Igbo, the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway, and on the Onitsha-Owerri expressway. I quarreled with him on issues that bordered on the dry port he promised and never did. In fact, I quarreled on issues concerning my people. And that was part of the reason I was elected to represent them. When I finished representing them, I stopped. When people asked why I was no longer talking, I asked them why I should talk, when my tenure as their representative had elapsed? I had nothing more to talk. When they elected me, I was talking about security, education, health; I was pushing the Federal Government to do what they are supposed to do. That is the essence of democracy. When I was governor, the president (Obasanjo) did not vote for me, but I voted for him; so, I had to tell him what I wanted or what the people of Abia or Igbo people wanted. I have a lot respect for the person of President Obasanjo and his office then; I still love and respect him as a statesman.

He loves this country but he applied a different way to different people. That was my quarrel. I remember I told (former) President George Bush Jnr. that Obasanjo wanted to run for a third term in office. And President Bush confirmed my discussion with him. That made Obasanjo to hate me with a passion. I can tell you it was, indeed, President Bush Jnr. that helped save our democracy; people don’t know that. When Obasanjo, as the then AU (African Union) chairman, after the meeting in Sudan, went to brief President Bush, he wanted to test the waters with the AU chairmanship and then become third-term president. The union, led by President Thabo Mbeki, said no. So, when I told President Bush that this man was looking for third term against the provision of the constitution, he told Obasanjo that ‘if you try it, I will come after you like my father came after Noriega,’ That was also part of the cause of my major rift with Obasanjo. Why should I allow him to do a third term when people like us have not been president? We fought for democracy; staked our lifes”