President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday hinted that he would send a Constitution Amendment Bill to the National Assembly to make provision for a single tenure for the president and governors of the 36 states of the federation.
But the bill, if passed into law, will take effect from 2015.
Members of the national and state assemblies are also beneficiaries of the said bill, as the president stated that their tenure would be raised a little more than four years.
But he noted that for the lawmakers, their constituencies may still be in a position to determine whether they are still eligible for re-election.
In a statement signed by his special adviser on media and publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, Jonathan said his clarification on the issue of tenure elongation became necessary in the light of certain reports in a section of the media that the proposed bill is meant to elongate his tenure.
The statement made available to LEADERSHIP last night reads in part: “President Jonathan’s commitment to a single term for the president and governors is borne out of a patriotic zeal, after a painstaking study and belief that the constitutionally guaranteed two terms for presidents and governors is not helping the focus of governance and institutionalisation of democracy at this stage of our development. A longer term for lawmakers would also help to stabilise the polity.
“Jonathan is concerned about the acrimony which the issue of re-election, every four years, generates both at the federal and state levels.
“The nation is still smarting from the unrest, the desperation for power and the overheating of the polity that has attended each general election, the fall-out of all this is the unending inter and intra-party squabbles which have affected the growth of party democracy in the country, and have further undermined the country’s developmental aspirations.”
He added that the cost of conducting party primaries and the general elections had become too exhorbitant for the country’s economy to accommodate in every four years.
Besides, he said the proposed amendment bill was meant to consolidate the country’s democracy “and allow elected executives to concentrate on governance and service delivery for their full term, instead of running governments with re-election as their primary focus.
Jonathan said nothing could be further from the truth that the proposed tenure extension was made basically to favour him, adding that “the energy that has been devoted to speculations on the content of the likely bill is akin to an attempt to force the abortion of a non-existent pregnancy.”
The greater good of the country, the president said, is greater than the ambition of any one individual, even as he assured that details of the bill will be made clear “in terms of its provisions when it is forwarded to the National Assembly for consideration.”
Clarifying further on the issue, Abati said: “The president makes it clear that his push for a single tenure for the office of the president and that of the governors is not borne out of any personal interest. The proposed amendment will not have anything to do with him as a person; what he owes Nigerians is good governance, and he is singularly committed to this.
“Besides, it is trite law that the envisaged amendment cannot have a retroactive effect. This means that whatever single-term tenure that is enacted into law by the National Assembly will take effect from 2015.
“The envisaged Bill is part of the Jonathan administration’s transformation agenda aimed at sanitising the nation’s politics.
“The president believes that this single move, when actualised, will change the face of our politics and accelerate the overall development of our nation. If the proposed amendment is accepted by the National Assembly, the president assures that he will not in any way be a beneficiary”.
Jonathan had three days to his swearing-in in May hinted of his plans for tenure extension for political office holders, saying the current four-year tenure for elected executives as stipulated by the 1999 Constitution was too short for the president and governors to implement any meaningful and sustainable agenda, as it takes about one year and a half for the executive to settle into office with the right caliber of ministers and commissioners respectively.
He had said, “The constitution has said four years, though some believe that four years is too short to make any change, which I also believe….
“I believe because, if you are a new person and you are elected as a governor today, it will take one to one and half years for you to really stabilise, and you also know that some members of your cabinet are not good and that is why in most cases, after one year or two Mr. President reshuffles the cabinet and by the time you want to go for another two and half years, it is another election and you are all busy about winning election.
“It is a constitutional problem,” the president stated.