Mahmud Jega, writes brilliantly for Daily Trust:
I was just wondering: how can a man who has 20 special advisers expensively paid for from the public till yet be so poorly advised that he will choose to kick start his administration with a potential tenure killer such as the “single term” bill that President Goodluck Jonathan is threatening to table before the National Assembly sometime soon? Read more...
Jibrin Ibrahim, in his column at NEXT, does NOT believe Jonathan either: "Goodluck Jonathan is not believable when he says that he wants a constitutional amendment ..."
Over at Nigeria Village Square, a countdown calendar has been installed. The Goodluck Jonathan Countdown Calendar: 1398 Days To Go, it says. YEP.
It seems we can move on from all the "fainting" over Islamic banking now?
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Monday, August 1, 2011
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Here's one view in the Vanguard newspaper today:
ReplyDeleteLeave Tenure Matters Alone:
"By Ochereome Nnanna
Reason One
If our politicians were sensitive to the basic political impulse of Nigerians, they would have known by now that as far as the question of tenure of office is concerned, our people have long developed a locked mindset towards any attempt to tamper with it. We say no, whether you are talking of tenure elongation or tenure truncation.
In other words, the issue of tenure for elected public office holders as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, which provides for a maximum of two four-year terms, is a settled matter.
The last thing a Nigerian wants to hear is “tenure elongation”, whether it comes in form of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “third term” or President Goodluck Jonathan’s six-year single term added to his ongoing four years.
... [the Obasanjo example]
Reason Two
Ekweremadu’s committee had...asked the president and first term governors to graciously and voluntarily forgo their second term “as a national sacrifice” and allow the six-year to start in 2015! ...And the Presidency, by rejecting it, exposed the ulterior motive behind GEJ’s original proposition of the idea: he obviously intended to benefit from it since he did not specify that it should start from 2019.
Reason Three
One term will encourage dictatorship or vengeance. Once a leader with an axe to grind is elected he simply uses his six years to do his worst knowing he will not go back to the people for renewal of mandate.
People often bemoan the “second term syndrome”, whereby two years into the first term politicians are already investing valuable time and resources to grab a second term. The only thing wrong with it is that in our renascent democracy some politicians do take this to extremes.
The cheering news, however, is that as the polity matures the negative attributes of ‘second term syndrome” will gradually give way.
Two-term tenure is the rule, not the exception in most matured democracies. Apart from enabling the electorate to renew or reject candidates at the polls, it promotes constant engagement with the people. Democracy is a game of the people. Leaders must regularly return to the people to renew their legitimacies."
Good arguments. What is YOUR own view?