Agenda Papers Editorial: Time for six years single tenure for president and governors is now.

Once again the issue of a single term for president and governors came to the forefront when former vice president and 2023 PDP presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubukar resurrected the all important national discourse .

This time around Atiku not only cried out to the world but penned it down in form of sombre note to the national Assembly for a swift and speedy consideration being a matter of urgent national importance.

Prior to this time some of us have been writing, shouting and making a case for single term for president and governors to be considered and enshrined in our constitution, but all seems to be hitting the wall and to no avail.

Recall that around 2013/2014 former president Goodluck Jonathan also brought up this idea but it suffered premature death as opponents shot it down before it’s arrival. Their major argument was that Jonathan floating the idea at that material point in time was enmeshed with a hidden agenda as he was accused of wanting to be a beneficiary that would tantamount to regime elongation for him.

Be that as it may the reason why some of us are strong proponent for single term of five or six years for president and governors is predicated on the sham conduct of elections have become in Nigeria.

The question is why go into the election which the outcome you already know even before the casting of the first vote.

Confirmed and unconfirmed reports have it that in some states and zones election results are pre-recorded months before the actual election.

One of the former governors recently confirmed this as true.

To further substantiate this Dr Sam Amadi, a law associate professor and former chairman of NERC came out with a position that it’s only a mad man that will come and contest 2027 presidential election with the hope of winning if Tinubu will be on the ballot box.

From all intents and purposes this seems to be true going by the conduct and outcome of some of the off circle elections so far conducted where the incumbents are winning or the ruling party capturing the election.

The point is that no sane Nigerian will come out with a clear cut reason to justify the landslide victory of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) with suffering and hunger in the land.

In essence why waste time and resources to conduct an election which outcome you already know and has been predetermined.

But the most painful aspect of it is the homgnous amount of money being budgeted for the conduct of such elections. Data obtained from NBS showed that INEC collected a whooping sum of N313.4 billion to conduct the 2023 general election. With this you can now second guess the amount of money to be expended in 2027 when Tinubu is expected to be on the ballot box for a second term re-election.

But if it’s a single term of six years Nigeria will not suffer the double jeopardy of using billions of naira to conduct an election which Nigerians already know the result.

In this period of economic austerity that kind of money can be deployed to other useful aspects of the economy. You can imagine how many kilometers of road such amount can construct or even building hospitals and equipping them, building schools and renovations of dilapidated schools, deploying such huge amount of money to agriculture for food production. The list is endless.

Also restricting president and governors to a single term will also save Nigeria unnecessary blood sheds during elections for return of the incumbents. For instance if thirty people are killed every four years of an election the numbers will reduce if it’s only one single term. Again the hostilities and bickerings always associated with the second term election will be confined to the dustbin. A lot bad blood are exchanged during primaries for the second term as most party members interested in the position are blanked out once the incumbent declare a desire to re-contest and in majority of the cases we usually don’t see an incumbent president or governor declining the offer of a second term.

From hindsight also it has been observed that in most cases the president and governors don’t actually need first and second term because most of them don’t do anything after capturing power for second term. The reason being that already they know they are not coming to the electorates to solicit for votes as they are serving out their second term.

But the most portent argument for the single term for president and governors is that from statistics over 95% of presidents and governors that have come out to re-contest for second term always ‘win’ the election including Muhammadu Buhari whom world record even from his fellow APC members has been adjudged as the worst president so far in the history of this country contested for second term and won.

In exception of Goodluck Jonathan who was defeated in a questionable manner in 2015 no other president has suffered defeat in their second term bid. The same thing is applicable for governors as the majority of them that contested for the second term came out victorious.

The icing on the cake for this position of a single term for president and governors is that if properly developed and practiced over time it can be exported to other African countries and indeed to other countries of the world as Nigerian grown model.

The argument that Western democracies is built on first and second term elections should not hold us in captivity and bondage. Who says we cannot develop our own genre of democracy and export it to the world.

If we are able to do this the country will save a lot of money, time and resources and in fact put the president and governors on their toes to perform knowing full well that they don’t have the chance and opportunity of a second term election.

There is no time as ripe for this quest for a single term for president and governors than now that Nigeria is undergoing its worst political and economic turmoil. Who knows this may be the elixir that will usher in sanity and prosperity to a brutally traumatized Nigeria.