See 8 reasons Atiku is in support of ‘6-year single tenure’ rejected by Reps

See 8 reasons Atiku is in support of ‘6-year single tenure’ rejected by Reps

Wednesday, December 18, 2019 7:54 am


Atiku Abubakar

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, is obviously not happy with the proposal for constitutional amendment to ensure a six-year single term tenure for president and governors by the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The proposed constitutional amendment would have in a governor or the president staying in office for a single term of six years, instead of the current practice of 4 years for the first term and the opportunity to re-contest for another four years second tenure.
Abubakar expressed the displeasure with the rejection of the proposal in a statement issued by his Media Adviser, Mr Paul Ibe, on Tuesday in Abuja, describing the move by the lawmakers as throwing “away the baby with the bath water at the expense of the larger interest of the country.”
Though he was of the view that current holders of the offices under the proposed constitutional review should not be entitled to a six-year term at the expiration of their second term.
But the Former Vice President also listed why the change from the current practice of two tenures of four years each to a single term tenure of six years may be better for Nigeria. See eight reasons listed by Atiku for supporting the proposal for a single six year tenure for governors and the president below:
1. In view of the challenges facing Nigeria current democratic order, especially the culture of rigging that subverts the will of the people, six-year single term would have ended such untoward practices in its electoral process.
2. Incumbents deploy more public resources to their second term projects than using the funds for people’s welfare encourages massive rigging that undermines electoral integrity. Six-year single term would remove such desperation and enable the incumbents to concentrate on the job for which they were elected in the first place.”
3. Eight-year term of office rewards incompetence because even incumbents that have failed would use their access to public funds to return to power by fair or foul means.
4. It is not true that eight years would give elected leaders better opportunity to fulfill their campaign promises, because, according to him, an inherently incompetent incumbent will perform below average even if you give him/her 20 years in office or give him or her $20 billion dollars. The former Vice President said it is not how long a man spends in office, but how well he is adequately prepared for the job.
5.Desperation for second term was not necessarily driven by patriotism or the passion for service, but by the obsession with the greed for power for its own sake.
6. Second term obsession rewards incompetence by allowing failed incumbents to be reelected regardless of their performance record.
7. It also denies political parties the opportunity to replace failed incumbents with better candidates within the parties in the name of right of first refusal.”
8. Abubakar said that eight years tenure of four years each sacrificed merit because the incumbents were automatically entitled to re-election regardless of their performance records.

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