More than one year ago, I advised you not to seek re-election, not to succeed yourself as president because the second-term cancer did ruin all your predecessors and had caused too much hardship on the people of Nigeria and their friends abroad. I cautioned that Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Gen. Yabuku Gowon, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and Gen. Sani Abacha, who tried to succeed themselves for whatever good or bad reason, failed. I also stated that I have seen nothing so pointedly creative, popular or captivating that can make your case any different from others in similar circumstances.

Some giddy persons now tell you and the rest of us that President Obasanjo, the PDP and their cohorts have made history in that there has been some successful civilian-to-civilian transition 2003, a first in Nigerian history. Do not believe them for this is sheer balderdash. The truth and nothing but the whole truth is that until you successfully and peacefully hand-over to a successor in May 2007, if you can or will, the transition is still in process. Here, I must remind you that President Shehu Shagari and the NPN won the August 1983 general elections in landslide fashion. He succeeded himself on October 1, 1983 but was overthrown on December 31, 1983. Sadly, the relevant civilian-to-civilian transition was unsuccessful.

The upshot of the foregoing is that you are at the starting block of an old misadventure. This calls for sober reflection and change of attitude, not gloating by your men or lamentation by your opponents. You may remember that after the Shagari and NPN landslide of 1983, many local chiefs, tribal unions and cranky persons gave them loud but sycophantic salutations, while most foreign governments and business tycoons recognised that democratic landslide. Lest we forget, even Gowon, whom they called the Lincoln of Nigeria and Babangida, who they labelled as the Maradona of Africa, were lauded when they shifted their transition goal posts but they were roundly vilified when their respective transition experiments collapsed.

General Obasanjo, you should know that Nigerian voters, political parties and a host of international observers say that the National Assembly, gubernatorial and presidential elections were massively and shamefully rigged in favour of the PDP and yourself. In the main, officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) collaborated with Mobile Police, military and security personnel to boost PDP-led governments, candidates and agents, as never before in Nigerian history. Offences featured late and/or non-delivery or hijack of election materials; injury, arrest or murder of PDP opponents (especially candidates and agents); general intimidation and harassment of non-PDP candidates agents and supporters; ballot box theft or destruction; ballot box stuffing; use of non-qualified INEC ad hoc staff; non-display of voters’ register; disenfranchisement of millions of voters; abrupt changes of election results; issuance of fake election result sheets and forgery on the appropriate election result sheets.

For these reasons, 27 of the 30 registered political parties in Nigeria have denounced the elections, loudly and clearly, separately and jointly. They have called for the outright cancellation of the National Assembly and presidential elections, noting that there were no National Assembly elections at all in the South East (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States) and in the South South (Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Edo, Delta and Rivers States). Thus, General Muhammadu Buhari, the ANPP presidential candidate has described the so-called elections as an unacceptable, unprecedented "monumental fraud." In 1983, Gen. T.Y. Danjuma described the NPN victory as a "moonslide" requiring drastic review. Today, we categorise the PDP victory as a "sunslide" requiring abolition, considering the prominence of the sun over the moon.

In its report of April 21, 2003, the International Republican Institute (IRI) referred to "numerous uncorrected administrative and procedural errors combined with many observed instances of obvious premeditated electoral manipulation." In another report of April 23, 2003, the European Mission’s Election Observer Team stated that their observers witnessed that the "presidential and a number of gubernatorial elections were marred by serious irregularities and fraud." They identified "many instances of ballot box stuffing, changing of results and other serious irregularities in Cross River, Delta, Enugu, Kaduna, Imo and Rivers." Furthermore, they referred to "similar irregularities to a lesser extent" in Anambra, Benue, Edo, Katsina and Nasarawa. Local observer groups provided even more telling data and comments.

The time has come, General Obasanjo, to take you through a short but guided tour of history and political philosophy. In a letter to baron Alexander von Humbolt dated June 13, 1817, Thomas Jefferson stated that "the first principle of republicanism is, that the lex majoris parties (majority rule) is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote, as sacred as if unanimous, is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law, once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism." I dare say that this latter option, which your PDP national chairman and some minions advocate is a recipe for catastrophe. Without equivocation or bitterness, I must inform you that electoral fraud combined with despotism precipitates chaos, this being relevant to the following citation.

In the SOCIAL CONTRACT, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) noted that "when a people is constrained to obey, and does obey, it does well; but as soon as it can throw off its yoke, and does throw it off, it does better: for a people may certainly use for the recovery of their liberty, the same right that was used to deprive them of it; it was either justifiably recovered or unjustifiably torn from them." Against such background, the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress Assembled in 1776 declared as follows: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it…" Does this explain "mass action" – the term that confounded a lot of officious Nigerians?

Not long ago, I was asked to explain why I completely repudiate the naked robbery referent the 2003 elections, considering the fact that I was President Shagari’s Special Political Adviser between 1979 and 1983. I responded as follows. One, there are sharp differences between rigging and monumental rigging, between stealing and naked robbery and between moonslide and sunslide electoral ‘victories’ and yet I think that rigging in part or whole is morally, socially, legally and politically wrong. Two, the NPN in 1983 was not as brazen and callous as the PDP in 2003, since the NPN did place the territorial holdings of its opponents into the power calculus. For example, the NPN returned Ondo to the UPN, after post-election violence. Three, the PDP and INEC went bizarre when they issued the profanity that General Obasanjo defeated the APGA presidential candidate, Chief Emeka Ojukwu and the ANPP vice-presidential candidate, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, in their South-East, whereas both gentlemen are manifestly popular at home and beyond! Four, the strenuous attempt to humiliate General Buhari in Katsina, Kano, and Adamawa must be seen as primitive and provocative. Five, greed combined with avarice produce the sort of massive fraud that triggers trauma and chaos. Six, although I know that history often repeats itself, I certainly do NOT wish Nigeria another round of December 31, 1983 and its aftermath.

May I now comment on PDP braggadocio and the current talk on sacrifice. The other day, for instance, PDP stalwarts, including yourself, used the ill-timed and indiscreet occasion of a victory dinner in Abuja to display braggadocio. Like bulls in a China shop, they threatened hell and brimstone. They bullied their opponents to go to tribunals or face federal government wrath. And some called for sacrifice by the so-called "bad losers" for democracy and for peace in Nigeria. Is it not an abomination for a thief to describe his victim as a bad loser? Where there are bad elections, can there be good losers? But what is wrong with sacrifice by the top PDP hierarchy? Why can’t the PDP moguls and the PDP president of Nigeria cancel the disputed elections, in furtherance of national harmony, democracy and peace? Is it free and fair to use the incumbency factor to insult fellow Nigerians and thereby over-heat the polity? Short of the incumbency factor, can you, General Obsanjo and your PDP "win" the Y2003 elections?

What next? There is every need for new elections under new and neutral arrangements. We can try to fulfill legal requirements and avoid the effluxion of the terms of offices of the elected officials of the Fourth Nigerian Republic by urgent installation of a Provisional National Government of three months duration, with the Chief Justice of the Federation as its Head. The main object will be the conduct of free and fair elections, through a new and truly independent electoral commission, Mutatis mutandi, there should be Provisional State Governments under State Chief Judges. By invocation of Section 4 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, the National Assembly can provide the mechanisms for the establishment of such governments and for fresh elections, vertically and horizontally. Since the constitutional change does not at all arise and therefore the National Assembly can intervene by empowering itself to provide for a National Provisional Government and its adjuncts. To these ends, let all hands be on deck.