Former Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has advocated the amendment of the 1999 Constitution to reflect a single term rotational presidency.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and Constitutional Amendment made the call at the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Ikeja Branch Law Week 2021 in Lagos, yesterday, argued that a single presidential term of five or six-years would help circumvent the distractions, manipulations, divisiveness, and excesses that come with quest for a second term of executive offices.
“It will as well ensure that power rotates more frequently among the various sections and groups. If people are sure that it will get to them, the struggle for it by various sections will be less desperate. Besides, it is better if every President or Governor understands that he or she has only a single term to begin and complete all his or her good works.”
Ekweremadu said the model had worked for some Latin American democracies in the 1970s when they faced similar challenge of excessive contestation for power.
He said some Latin American countries adopted the model for a fixed period of time and had since reverted to two presidential terms after their democracies stabilised.
“Some others such as Mexico still operates a single term of six-years.”
Ekweremadu noted that a region’s access or lack of access to political power affected public attitude and sense of belonging in governance and democracy.He said there was nothing to prove that sections of Nigeria that produced presidents or military heads of state were better off than those that had not.
“Save the patronage enjoyed by a privileged few, rotational presidency is nevertheless imperative in our African environment where ethno-religious and sectional sentiments are still high. So in the higher and long-term national interest, it is time to revisit and entrench the idea of rotational presidency. This idea was first muted in Nigeria by the late military Head of State, General Sani Abacha, in his 1995 Independence Anniversary speech,” he said.
A senior lawyer, Mr Joe-Kyari Gadzama, called for the devolution of some centralised powers between the federal, state and local governments.
He said the centralised nature of powers of government under the federal system had stood against equal and progressive development of states and local government areas.
“I believe that the need to devolve some of the powers vested at the centre will also serve the interest of government in providing Nigerians with the opportunity to succeed.”