Six Year Single Tenure

Six Year Single Tenure: Time For A Dialogue Of The Brave

Dr. Manzo Abubakar and Nosa James-Igbinadolor

It is not so surprising or overly shocking that President’ Goodluck Jonathan’ decision to forward a constitutional amendment bill to the National Assembly calling for a six year single term for the President and certain other office holders has drawn passionate responses, dire threats and obelisk aftershocks from both the informed and the downright uneducated that are pathologically in need of proving themselves at the expense of the glaring facts.

There is nothing neither novel nor original about the Nigerian political class reacting with hoary drums of war and acidic vituperations to progressive ideas, aspirations, thoughts and views that tends to negate their comfort zone and confers political credit on a genuinely motivated President who has gone out of his way to take the bull by the horn in order to resolve decisively the inherent contradictions that afflicts political governance in the country and the concomitant imbalance in socio-political representation.

There is also nothing fresh or innovative about the six year single tenure. The necessity for a single tenure of whatever years has been with Nigerians for a long time and has been succinctly debated at varied inclusive fora whether constitutional conferences or legislative houses. As a matter of public knowledge, the 1994 and 1998 constitutional conferences robustly debated this defining issue and the dynamics of the Nigerian society makes it imperative for a rational debate once again. Only a dialogue of the brave will lead to a sensible outcome that will resolve the many incongruities that manifests in the Nigerian condition. Therefore, no Nigerian should be denied the platform of engagement with President Jonathan on this crucial issue as the dictatorship of the chattering classes, and the totalitarianism of the grossly unrepresentative Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) wishes to do at the expense of the silent majority.

During the presidential campaigns and immediately after April general elections, the President gave Nigerians his word of honour that there would be far reaching if not revolutionary reforms in every sector and in all aspects of the Nigerian socio-political and economic milieu. Thus far, reforms in the economy including power sector reforms, the return of reformists including the highly respected and widely acclaimed Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the technocratic Segun Aganga, the cerebral Akinwunmi Adesina, highly praised Mohammed Pate, the replete and forth-coming Emeka Nwogwu as well as the widely respected academic Ruqqayatu Rufai, the capital market reforms already gaining traction under Arume Oteh and the Diezani Allison-Madueke led petroleum sector reforms have proven that a profound and across the board re-engineering of the polity under President Goodluck Jonathan is continuing without let up.

Never since our procurement of flag independence from the British were hopes so roused and expectations so raised in respect of doing right by positioning Nigeria as a catalyst for black leadership renaissance in Africa and without. In objectifying leadership and followership, it is more than obvious that the polyglot multi-lingual Nigeria which was summoned into existence by the 1914 act of amalgamation by the British colonialists is still being made and thus the need to situate the Federation of Nigeria as a veritable laboratory of co-existence. This can only be consummated by a constant yet virile tinkering with the diverse components of the institutions and processes of governance.

No doubt, the politically inspired ruckus that greeted the announcement of the decision of the president to forward a tenure amendment bill to the National Assembly only proved that nothing is sacrosanct from the pettiness of politics not even legislative empowered rights and nobility of intentions. The impression created by the provincial democrats and the long-winded certificated yet intellectual Lilliputians from contending segments of opinion is that the constitution is sacrosanct, written in stone and thus cannot be open to legislative and constitutional enquiry. In older democratic climes, the process of constitutional amendment is not only alive but also remains the supreme right of the legislature to undertake in tandem with the dominant national mood from time to time given local and global exigencies occasioned by the dynamism of society, politics and economics.

The six year single tenure sought by President Jonathan is not only desirable but indeed would go a long way in addressing the contradictions prevalent since the pre-independence period in respect of balance in leadership. The reality is that since the pre-colonial era, the Nigerian state has been bedeviled by avoidable crisis of governance and the imperative for equilibrium in government relations with the simultaneous yet trenchant demands for power shift by leading political lights from the six geo-political zones. Essentially, it has become abundantly clear that the postulations and adumbrations of the pre-independence Willinks commission of enquiry constituted by the colonial masters in order to decisively resolve the problems of agitation by the minorities of Nigeria for the affirmation of rights and recognition within the context and frame work of governmental representation yet await fulfillment.

Studies have proven that feelings of political marginalization and remoteness from the highest level of political governance have in no small measure contributed to the recurring acts of insurgencies against the state. The Tiv riots of the first republic, the associated Middle-Belt struggle for identity consciousness and definition, the OPC nationalistic agitations, the Isaac Adaka Boro inspired noble demands for environmental remediation and resource control by the polities of the Niger-Delta, the Boko Haram phenomenon, the Nigerian civil war of 1967-1970 and the variegated ethno-religious crisis in the Northern part of the country have their roots one way or the other in perceived feelings of political suppression and marginalization. Most critically, there are widespread fears and apprehension that the secular pact of co-existence which brought Nigeria together is being re-negotiated undemocratically. It makes sense to posit that a single tenure of six years will go along way in assuaging these perceived feelings of marginalization and detachment from the embrace of the state and hence prevent our country from going the way of old Sudan which alas no longer exists and the comprehensively failed state of Somalia! The foregoing bespeaks volume of the need to safeguard the integrity of the nation through measures such as that proposed by the President. After all, he was given an overwhelming mandate and he deserves visionary treatment for every patriotic move.

In all the vilifications and garrulous postulations that have attended the President’ proposal, no single effective counter-view is being advanced other than the tired and conservative and unadventurous “let’s leave it the way it is. Change is not needed here!” Whether in politics, society, family, religion and other facets of life, change is but constant and those who do not change are doomed to whither out.

We interrogate with trepidation the prospect of our ever attaining to inclusivity in governance at the highest level, mainstreaming as it were the totality of the ethnic and religious nationalities of Nigeria if the outcome of critical make or mar issues are subjected to personal whims and idiosyncrasies of some segments of society to the exclusion of others. Like the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Tse Tung postulated at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, “Let a thousand flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend”.

Dr Manzo Abubakar and Nosa James-Igbinadolor wrote from The Nigerian Political Summit Group and can be reached at the-npsg@hotmail.com