Former Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has
advocated the amendment of the 1999 Constitution to reflect a single term
rotational presidency.
Ekweremadu made the call on Monday in Lagos while speaking
at Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Ikeja Branch Law Week 2021 with the theme
“The Nigeria of Our Dreams.”
Ekweremadu, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Electoral
Reforms and Constitutional Amendment, said that he had long advocated for a
single presidential term of five or six years.
“This will help us circumvent the distractions, manipulations, divisiveness, and excesses that come with the 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,” he said.
Ekweremadu said that this model had worked for some Latin
American democracies in the 1970s when they faced similar challenges of
excessive contestation for power.
He said that 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 operate a single term of
six years,” he said.
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 that 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,” he said.
“So, in the higher and long-term national interest, it is
time to revisit and entrench the idea of rotational presidency.”
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