• Middle Belt Forum, others laud six-year single term for presidents, governors
• Northern Coalition rejects rotational presidency

After four failed attempts at the National Assembly, the bill for a six-year single tenure for the president, yesterday, resurfaced at the House of Representatives, with 35 members endorsing its inclusion in the constitution.

The bill also sought rotation of the presidency among the six geo-political zones, coupled with the era of two Vice Presidents to represent the South and North divide.

Addressing newsmen at the National Assembly Complex, member representing Ideato South/Ideato North Federal Constituency, Imo State, Ikenga Ugochinyere, described parliamentarians advocating for the change as reform-minded lawmakers, “committed towards using the instrument of lawmaking to reform Nigeria and our political process”.

He noted that the first vice “shall be a succession Vice President, while the 2nd Vice President shall be a Minister-in-Charge of the Economy, and both shall be Ministers.

It will be recalled that the proposal for a single six-year Presidential term has been around for a while.

Like the recent revert to the old national anthem, the six-year tenure was part of the recommendations of the 2014 national conference and was strongly advocated for by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Also, a similar proposal was quashed at the first reading by the Eighth House of Representatives in 2018.

The Seventh National Assembly also rejected a similar bill and attempts to legislate on a single-term presidency in 2013 and 2016 reached a dead-end.

Ugochinyere, yesterday, noted that the current political arrangement had some identified distortions, defects, and limitations that call for urgent, focused, and realistic attention.

He said the country had reached a critical phase where what is at stake is the very survival of Nigeria as one political and economic unit, stressing the need for lawmakers to rise to the challenge.

Other amendments to the constitution sought by the lawmakers included: “The financial autonomy and accountability of Local Government Councils by prescribing an independent Consolidated Local Government Council Account solely superintended by Local Councils and prescribing long-term imprisonment for any misuse of Local Government funds.

“To amend section 162(5) of the 1999 Constitution to provide that where a State Government fails to remit to the Local Government Councils within its jurisdiction (or within the State), the amounts standing to the credit of that Local Government in the allocation from the Federation account, such State Government shall not be entitled to receive a future allocation from the Federal Government.”

However, the proposal for a single term of six years has elicited divergent reactions from Nigerians. While some saw it as a welcome development, others believed it would promote indolence and deny Nigerians the dividends of democracy.

The President of the Middle Belt Forum (MBF) Dr Pogu Bitrus, threw his weight behind the clamour for a single tenure of six years for President.
He argued that the proposal to rotate the presidency within the six geo-political zones of the country would enhance unity and cohesion among Nigerians.

The elder statesman stressed the need to re-jig the six geo-political zones in such a manner that would place the various ethnic nationalities in their rightful places in the country.

According to him: “When the 2014 confab was considering this issue, it was supported by a significant number of members. A single tenure solves a lot of problems, money, resources, and reduces manipulations towards the second term.
“So, in our setting being a plural society, and the fact that though we have in the constitution the principle of equity, justice and fairness, and proportional representation. However, as we are operating now, the larger groups seem to dominate the smaller groups and don’t allow them to even have a say at all.”

In agreement with Bitrus, the former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, and political science lecturer at the University of Ilorin, Prof. Gbade Ojo, yesterday threw their weight behind a six-year single term for the president and governors, as well as rotational presidency.

Reacting in separate interviews with The Guardian in Ibadan, Shittu and Ojo said the move would reduce the cost of conducting polls and curb corruption associated with the struggle for the second term.

Adebayo Shittu said: “A six-year single term has advantages and disadvantages.  It would reduce corruption. There is no need for the President or governors to enrich themselves to fund a second term, rather to work and concentrate on governance.”

He also supported the proposal for a rotational presidency, hinging his reasons on the peculiarity of the country.

On his part, Ojo said the proposed amendment to the 1999 constitution as regards six-year single tenure is in order.

“It will reduce costs of conducting too frequent elections in a four-year gap. However, the danger to society is that an indolent corrupt leader should not be elected, because electorates will become helpless for a long period.

“On rotational presidency, it’s an idea first mooted by the Abacha Constitution. It is suitable for our country which is plural and deeply divided. All is an attempt to attain national integration in the face of unity in diversity”.

However, the National Coordinator, Coalition of Northern Groups (NCG), Jamilu Aliyu Charanchi, has described the proposals by the lawmakers as “ridiculous and an abuse of the sensibilities of Nigerians,” adding that such legislation would threaten the fragile threads of the nation’s unity.

He said the proposal is to create disunity among Nigerians. “You see, we should portray our national colour in a situation where we will all believe that we are one united entity.

“As much as what you are proposing for the presidency should be rotational, that means we never believed in ourselves. We never believed in common goals that we were pursuing. We are too sentimental and have ethno-religious sentiments in our minds. That is why we cannot believe in each other. You see, democracy is a game of numbers and after that, democracy is all about integrity, capacity, and capabilities to promote the country.

“So, if you restrict it to a zone, and we have a situation where we can’t find someone with capacity and integrity from that zone you restricted it to, what are we going to do? Are we going to give that person the presidency just because he comes from that zone? A zone that if care is not taken will devastate and create disunity in Nigeria? A zone that will scatter all the hard work of our founding fathers. So, I think this is ridiculous and an insult to the sensibilities of Nigerians. Democracy being a game of numbers, they should allow Nigerians to elect whoever they want irrespective of where he belongs to or come from or political party affiliation.”

Also rejecting the proposal, an elder statesman and member of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Tanko Yakassai, said such development would not allow Nigerians to elect the person of their choice to govern them.

While sticking to the two terms of four years, Yakassai said single-term presidency and governorship are not the solution to Nigeria’s challenges.
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Adewole Adebayo, described the proposal as escapist diversions from the ethical and cultural problems of leadership in the country.

Adebayo said it is not the form of the government that was adopted, but the spirit of propriety and fidelity to the rules that ensures that a political system works for the higher purposes around which the polity is organised.

He said: “A lawless elite cannot be changing rules periodically to excuse their general predilection to lawlessness and anarchism. The constitutional mongrels being proposed here and there have less chances of survival than the present constitutional arrangements, which suffer the violence of flagrant violations and self-serving sabotage of those who have used state capture to hijack governance and rendered the people destitute and disoriented.”

But in another disagreement with Adebayo and other protagonists, Goody Uwazurike, a member of Igbo apex socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze, said it was a welcome idea as he encouraged the lawmakers to pursue the idea to a logical conclusion.

He said the issue kept coming up over the years given its relevance.
Uwazurike commended the 35 lawmakers for their due diligence in going through all previous reports on the single-term bill before they came up with the new proposal.

Uwazurike, who was a delegate at the 2014 Conference, said the issue was overwhelmingly supported at the conference but former President Buhari left it in the archives for eight years.

Meanwhile, the spokesman of PANDEF, Ken Robinson, who spoke in his capacity, said that a single-term presidency and more is never the solution Nigeria needs to resolve her challenges. While Robinson neither said yes nor no to the new proposal, he said, “What the country needs is total restructuring.”

A spokesman of the Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, Jare Ajaiyi, said that considering the nostalgia situation political office holders, usually hold Nigerians in their first term by pretending to work and no sooner than they got re-elected would cease performing may have necessitated the need to give a single term recommendation a trial.

But the Chairman of the Transition Monitoring Group, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, said the lawmakers must open the proposal for a single six-year tenure and rotational presidency to a broad and wider consultation.

Rafsanjani maintained that such legislation has to do with national and public discourse and could not be limited only to lawmakers.

He said: “There must be broad and wide consultations and discussions with the Nigerian people on how they want fiscal federalism to be done. Our current system of federalism is very faulty. For example, look at what is happening in Kano. You deploy security agencies in a matter that has to do with the constitutional power of a state governor. You now start interfering because you have federal might.

“This is not federalism. We are not practicing federalism. States are like parasites. Local government has been undermined. So, for us to have this kind of template they are proposing, there must be broad consultations and discussions with all the stakeholders in Nigeria, so that it won’t appear that some people in the National Assembly impose it on Nigerians”.

However, a member, representing Africa on the World Journalism Education Council, Prof. Ralph Akinfeleye, yesterday stated that the proposal negates the tenet of democracy.

Akinfeleye, a former Head of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos, described the proposal as a misadventure and should be dead on arrival.

Speaking with The Guardian, the don said the lawmakers should rather be more concerned with issues that affect the people directly, lamenting that the economy and security of the nation need urgent intervention.

He said: “Rather than sit and deliberate on matters that do not have any relevance or direct impact on the welfare of the people, our lawmakers should sit up and be alive to their responsibilities.”