The Single Term Makossa Dance

The Single Term Makossa Dance
By Sam Onimisi
Going by the catch-phrase campaign slogan of President Goodluck Jonathan, the expectation of majority of Nigerians was that their newly elected leader will hit the ground running like mad. What he told us was to ‘give us fresh air’ and to ‘never, never disappoint us.’ What the average citizen understood by these campaign slogans is that no business of government will be run like before and that the new administration will be committed to programmes that will uplift the standard of living and security of the people. When therefore they learnt that a bill was on its way to the National Assembly to amend Section 135 and Sub-section 2 of the Constitution to make way for a single Six-year term instead of the four-year renewable term, it came as a rude shock. This was so because the proposal was not part of the campaign issues and more so because there are more urgent life-threatening challenges such as failing infrastructures, the debilitating economy, the centrifugal political forces, and the frightening security problems confronting the nation.
If any organ of government should be more concerned with these challenges, it should be the executive arm of government. Now, there appeared to be a correlation between President Jonathan’s pre-election solemn promise to do a single term of four years if elected and the proposal for a six-year single term. Although the Presidency was quick to debunk the notion that he was seeking to extend his tenure by reiterating 2015 as the terminus of his government, it was a political blunder to have enmeshed his government in what looks remotely connected with tenure elongation.
If the new six-year term is to take effect from 2015 as they claimed, bringing it to the fore so early in his regime raps the proposal in a dubiously suspicious garb. If this was not to serve as a distraction, what else could do it better?
When the zoning war was fiercely raging and there was the need to win many people to his side, it was expedient to vow or promise not to serve beyond a term of four years. His co-contestants such as Abubakar Atiku and Ibrahim Babangida made similar vows. Is the President already thinking that he ought not to have made that promise? If so, the answer lies not in tenure distortion, does it? A promise is a moral burden of the individual for which no jail-term or penalty is attached in the event of failure, except personal honour and integrity. However, a constitutional provision is a hallowed and guaranteed legal right from which nothing can be taken away in whatever guise or disguise. The one is an individual’s cross but the other a collective curse.
In a political context and environment laden with deception and chicanery on all sides, a moral somersault is a lesser evil because it ruins only an individual who somersaulted. However, a constitutional breach has a wider repercussion and destructive effect on the unity of the people and could become a curse from which it is hard to recover. Already, the opposition parties in the National Assembly have vowed to shoot down the proposal if ever presented as a bill. The President is already defending himself over what should not have been proposed. Even when the reasons adduced for the tenure change is examined, the temptation to pick quarrel with the President and his party will soar higher.
We are told that, among other reasons, the unduly high cost of party primaries and the acrimonies of second-term election politicking, informed the proposal. However, when the party in government dominated National Assembly amended the Electoral Act to make it compulsory for political parties to conduct congresses and convention from the ward level up to the top, opposition parties cried wolf and complained that only the party (ies) in government could afford such an expensive system, and at that, from the public coffers. They were shouted down and ignored with the claim that the motive or intention was to infuse intra-party democracy and diffuse the strangle-hold of godfathers. This was only a year ago – some eight months to the general election. Now, four months after the election, internal party democracy and the menace of godfathers are no longer such a bad idea – compared to the exorbitant cost of primaries and second-term election palaver! Again, here is either a policy summersault or an expedient chess-game in which the public good is sacrificed to the gods of selfish interests. One example may suffice to amplify this point.
The Electoral Act 2010 Sections 140 and 141 ousted the powers of the Election Tribunals from declaring a winner if the election was marred by irregulaties but to order a re-election. This is a negation of Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution and a self-serving, narrow-minded amendment which, mercifully, was nullified by a Federal High Court in a recent decision. The party in government preferred a re-election regardless of the huge cost to the tax-payers, if only they will be opportune to rig the election again –instead of declaring the candidate with the second highest votes as the winner. Does this government need to be reminded of the history of tenure elongation or distortion in Nigeria and its devastating effects and consequences?
General Yakubu Gowon failed his promise to hand over power in 1974 and was overthrown, tried and sentenced to death six months after, but reprieved by God’s intervention. General Ibrahim Babangida mesmerized the country for eight years during which his maradonic prowess was displayed to the full. He ended scoring an own goal and was disgraced out of power in 1993 for reasons of tenure elongation or failure to keep promises. General Sani Abacha expired mysteriously after jailing the presumed winner of the 1993 Presidential election Chief M. K. O. Abiola, and proceeded to transmute from Khaki to Agbada in 1998. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo cleverly sought for a third term in 2005, an event which diminished his status as an elder statesman today. Does it mean that there is no lesson taught or learnt from this number of attempts at tenure elongation of the past?
If you ask me, I will say that no reason has been adduced – or let me say no convincing reason has yet been given for the proposal. Having shot down the question of cost of primaries, which of second-term acrimony by incumbent governors and president remains the only issue which should be tackled. There is no doubt that incumbents of the office of the President and Governors seeking re-election spend public funds for the nomination and re-election. While it is illegal to do so, no audit and investigation has been carried out to verify how much was spent, from which head or subhead and by whom? What would have been helpful is a probe of Shagari and Obasanjo’s re-election in 1983 and 2003, in addition to Jonathan’s election of 2011. The result of such a probe would have answered the above question and inform the need or otherwise of substituting the four-year renewable term with the proposed six-year single term.
One of the greatest services President Jonathan could render to this Country is the second-term re-election probe of past executive presidents and governors. The purpose would be to determine the sources of their campaign funds, the total costs and whether illegal funds and public funds were involved and if fixed election ceilings have been exceeded. The facts produced by such a probe may very well be so convincing that almost everyone will support single term tenure for president and governors. If this probe is deemed impracticable or unnecessary, then we have no reason to seek to change the four-year renewable term as presently obtained. If the PDP or President Jonathan is inclined to change his mind and recontest in 2015, he is free to do so without distorting the Constitution. If a six-year single tenure is envisaged to help the PDP rule in perpetuity, I don’t see who could stop them, except God - not when all parties in government at whatever tier has proved to be as undemocratic and ruthless as the PDP. Other reasons given for the about – 50 proposed Constitutional amendments shall be examined in due course. Meanwhile, I don’t know who is entertained by his single six-year Makossa dance.