By Ehichioya Ezomon
From true to fiscal federalism; from devolution of power(s) to creation of state police and prisons; from local council autonomy to self-accounting State Assembly; from Nigeria’s “feeding bottle economy” to N50,000 workers’ take-home pay; and from decentralized anti-corruption agencies to abolition of security vote, Dr. Ike Ekweremadu is like a lone voice in the wilderness, propounding issues that have profound effects on today’s mutually-distrustful Nigerian society.
Whether debating at the plenary, hosting delegations in his legislative office, delivering lecture at an institution, or meeting with constituents at community town hall, the Deputy President of the Senate is perpetually on the political circuit, returning now and again, but from different perspectives, to the issues germane to the polity he’s been tracking and tackling for many years.
His latest advocacy, which he has visited twice in weeks, is a six-year single term for the President and Governors, and this time, including members of the Legislature, both National and State Houses of Assembly that have no term limit, as per the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
A fresh angle, though, to the propagation is the rotation of the presidency among the six geopolitical zones in the country, which he rationalized in a discourse on “Restructuring and the Nigerian Youth” in Nsukka, Enugu State, last Friday.
At the 3rd Adada Lecture organized by the Association of Nsukka Professors, Ekweremadu said that besides stopping the problem caused by the quest for a second term in office, the “single presidency tenure of six years that rotates among the six geopolitical regions will promote unity and loyalty to the nation.”
He said single-tenure has stabilized democratic practice in countries in South America, particularly referencing Mexico, whose Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Garcia Moreno Elizondo, he hosted in Abuja in October.
On that occasion, Ekweremadu said: “I’m aware that Mexico runs a six-year single term presidency, known as the Sexino. This is something Nigeria will be looking at because what we are doing now has a lot of difficulties.
“So, we are looking at the possibility of a constitutional reform that can guarantee a single term so that the money we spend in running elections and the problem of chief executives struggling and concentrating to come back, using resources and instruments of state, can be overcome.”
The single-term advocacy is part of a broader concept of the debate for the restructuring of Nigeria, which has hundreds of components as there are tribes and tongues in the society. Without specifically mentioning “restructuring” then, although he was later (in 2014) to convoke a National Conference in that realm, former President Goodluck Jonathan was to give some fillip to the solicitation in 2011.
Hitherto, the hypothesis of single term of office only received staccato promotion over the years, but Dr. Jonathan made a big show of the proposal to send an amendment bill to the National Assembly, for its enactment into law, in order to “reduce the costs of elections, make politicians less focused on being re-elected and be more concerned with governance.”
A statement on his behalf said that, “President 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.”
Although it said the change would not affect Jonathan’s tenure, and would come into effect from 2015, the motion, nonetheless, went up in smoke, as critics alleged it was a ploy to get his tenure elongated beyond 2015 when his election in 2011 would expire.
Awaking the ghost of the “Third Term Agenda” reportedly pursued by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to prolong his tenure to 12 years (some said for life), politicians bandied un-evidenced reports of a secret “pact” Jonathan entered into with the hierarchy of the prior ruling Peoples Democratic Party, “for him to rule for one term of four years, ending in 2015.” He denied the said pact.
Yet, as that presentation for action fell through, sceptics were almost proved right when Jonathan, “in spite of pressures and protestations from the North, stood for re-election in 2015,” and thus “bringing into play another possibility: the North ruling for more than eight years in a row.”
All these assumptions, calculations, permutations, presumptions and probabilities are the militating problems in Nigeria’s political system that advocates say could be amicably resolved by restructuring, including a single-term tenure that Senator Ekweremadu has placed in the public domain once more.
It holds water to accuse the Deputy President of the Senate of aiming to elongate his tenure, as the Legislature has no term limit. But by including lawmakers in the list of single-tenured elected officials, he’s saying it was time to give every segment of the Nigerian community equal hearing and participation, which a holistic restructuring of the polity could resolve by devolving more powers to the federating units.
But will the Ekweremadu kite fly, especially among first term elected officials already eyeing second or more term(s) in power? Well, a better starting point would be to enlist the support and cooperation of members of the National Assembly for his profound proposition.
* Mr. Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.