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| Chief Chekwas Okorie |
By Christopher Isiguzo
The Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), Monday rejected the
proposed constitutional amendment by the Senate Constitution Review
Committee that would provide for a
single term of six years for the president and state governors.
In the same vein, the
National Chairman of the United Peoples Party (UPP), Chief Chekwas Okorie,
Monday also dismissed the proposal for
six-year single term for president and governors as a legislative fraud which
must be rejected by Nigerians.
According to the Secretary of the NEF, Prof. Ango Abdullahi,
“We in the north remain stoutly opposed to the proposal and will never support
it because it is a double-edged sword that can make a tyrannical President to
continuously oppress the defenceless citizenry without any remedy.
“Abdullahi stated: "If you have a bad president, who
does not believe in the welfare and progress of the nation it means that the
people would have no way of asking him to step aside until the end of gruesome
six-year tenure.
“The people of the north are comfortable with the current
provision of four-year renewable tenure based on performance and acceptance of
the electorate so that a non-performing president can be voted out after the
first tenure."
Abdullahi therefore, urged the lawmakers to discontinue the proposal, asking them to work
on more beneficial laws to tackle rising
corruption and security challenges in the country.
In his argument, Okorie said if the recommendation was
allowed to see the light of the day, it would throw the nation into
unimaginable confusion and chaos that could truncate the nation’s democracy.
Okorie, who spoke with journalists in Enugu, expressed
dismay that members of the committee could come up with such recommendations,
which he said, were completely at variance with the presidential system as
practised in the United States of America from where Nigeria borrowed her
system of government. He added that for those who have greatly benefited from
democracy to come up with such report showed their desire to terminate the
current civilian regime.
He said the recommendation was a fraud because it did not
represent a majority opinion of Nigerians and the political parties that
submitted memoranda to the committee.
According to him, the recommendation of the committee was a
threat to other serious amendments like the electoral reforms and cause the
entire exercise to be another monumental waste of public funds, time and
energy, just like the Senator Ibrahim Mantu-led constitutional review committee,
which he said, smuggled in the third term clause at the last minute to cause
the baby and bath water to be thrown away.
“Secondly, if it is to be effective from 2015, it simply
means there will be anarchy because there is nothing you will tell the entire
South-south people that the scheme is not targeted at them. And they are still
the custodians of the lifeline of Nigeria ’s economy. So, taking that kind of
risk and hoping to declare state of emergency and get out of it in one year or
so, is risk that is not worth it.
He said tenure debate was a major constitutional change that
would require a referendum, because according to him, it would mean tampering
with the presidential system of government opted for by Nigerians.
“… when previous constitutional review was almost concluded,
was when Senator Ibrahim Mantu, did the
same job that Ekweremadu is doing now, the third term thing was smuggled into
the entire document and the brouhaha that the thing generated ended up throwing
the baby with the bath water, and so there was nothing. All the money
spent, the efforts, memoranda, public
hearing in all the states of the federation came to nothing.
"Now there are major amend; electoral reform, all sorts
of things expected from this exercise, this people have now introduced this
very controversial aspect that will definitely throw the entire exercise out
because Nigerians will not accept this fraud. So, let them just drop that thing
now so that the rest of the things they have done can see the light of day,” he
counselled.
“So the only answer is to have a credible election that will
bring in people that will be accountable to the electorate, it does not matter
whether it is two terms or one term,” he submitted.
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