Six-year
single tenure & Njiko Ndigbo
By Odimegwu Onwumere
Self-importance is
dangerous in every facets of human endeavour. This has crept into the political
ship of President Goodluck Jonathan. The government is a professional on how to
subsidise everything that were there before its emergence for its narcissism.
It is no longer news
that it wants to subsidise how many years a president and governors have to
spend a term in office. In July 2011, barely two weeks he came to power as an
elected president, the immediate song or rumour everywhere was a 6-year single
term. But Jonathan does not realize the political shift this is going to cause
Ndigbo he promised heaven on earth and made a public confession that he was
going to be a one term president which is supposed to elapse in 2015. Again,
self-importance is the only phenomenon that can gear a leader to propose a
change in the Constitution. This was fad during the fight for the presidential
ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the event of the 2011
electioneering campaign.
The presidency denies
that the 6-year single tenure isn’t its initiative, yet it has not out-rightly
condemned it. What a way of betraying trust and wants to make Ndigbo to
flounder. Ndigbo are not known to be weak people and no one can make them one.
The continuous attempt to deny them of their right politically only succeeds in
bringing out the weakness in the leaders of this country.
Remember that at a National
Executive Committee, NEC, meeting of the PDP, in 2011, Jonathan was
purportedly at soreness to elucidate to the party leaders that he was not after
the proposal for 6-year single-term tenure of office. Njiko Ndigbo has
been raging that it is the turn of Ndigbo to become president come 2015. But
whenever the presidency was caught at crossroads of making such a degrading
attempt to deprive Ndigbo of their aspiration and prospect to become president
in 2015, Jonathan’s aides quickly go to the media in making sure that they
douse the tension that the presidency often causes with the elections of 2015.
It is obvious that
people like Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, the impermanent coordinator of Njiko Igbo is
not consulted whenever the presidency says it is going on consultation about
the hydra-headed 6-year single tenure. This is not sacrosanct. This president’s
agenda of self-importance endangers democracy. It is not even acceptable in
monarchical system of government, not even in fiefdom.
Without mincing words,
this hide and seek agenda of the presidency and the national assembly has only
made Jonathan to be losing the goodwill that he had attained and which was what
compelled people to elect him into office. Not making full disclosures to
Nigerians on a matter like this 6-year single tenure proposal as at when due,
berates Jonathan that his leadership is yet to attain the norms and ethos
expected of in a democracy. Any consultation on this subject by the presidency
without the inclusion of Ndigbo is transient. Even 12-year single tenure will
not be enough to any stranded leader.
It is obvious that Igbo
presidency in 2015 is the only remedy to the debilitating plights besetting the
country, as Kalu had always insisted. So, no hawks in President Jonathan’s administration
that is pushing him for this agenda will sideline Ndigbo, because any
inconceivable agenda had only created a dangerous ground on arrival. Such
agenda as the 6-year single tenure for Jonathan and his surrogates is only
correct in content, just as it is not correct in context.
Ndigbo are not loafers
for anyone to be seeing them as such. Today, some persons, especially those
from the South-South political region, are calling for wars, should their
brother Jonathan not given a second term. But what they forgot or remembered
but were beclouded by the lucre accruing from power to them is that should
Ndigbo drum for wars with such velocity, this country will never remain the
same again. Kalu has always said that 2015 is non-negotiable for Igbo presidency.
Ndigbo cannot be neglected thus far, the same way the presidency will not
neglect an Islamic radicals as Boko Haram members.
The 6-year single term
will be a dilemma to the proposal of Ndigbo to take power by 2015. This is stealing Ndigbo blind. It is
like making Ndigbo a people without any immunity. What was expected of Jonathan
is to amend the cost of running government in Nigeria, and not to elongate his
floating tenure. Since Nigerian elites have preferred to give power back to
tribes, and not back to the people, there is no gainsaying the fact that any
attempt to shortchange Ndigbo in the scheme of things about the presidency is a
swindle. Jonathan was expected to be talking about accountability, transparency
and workability of Nigeria, and not tenure elongation, which in ernest, would
not produce the expected result democrats long for, than what we had already
seen.
Did Jonathan not say as
soon as ex-President Yar’Adua passed out that he will not contest but organise
election? Did he not mention state creation? Would Jonathan not always tell
Nigerians that the issue of constitutional amendments was there before his
tenure? But what is he doing today with 6-year single tenure pitch? Njiko Igbo
may not accept any forms of Unity Government since it is saying that it is the
turn of Ndigbo to produce the president of this country in 2015.
Let Jonathan sacrifice
his presidential ambition in 2015 for Ndigbo to produce president. 4-year
single term enables the zones to benefit from the power shift. If the senate
agrees to conclude on the 6-year single tenure, it has reeled big blow on
people like Orji Uzor Kalu who lost their businesses in making sure that
ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo did not elongate his tenure of office –
1999-2007. Jonathan should really mean well for Nigeria, which Ndigbo have
always supported him. Let him not always be submerging the numerous promises
that he has made to the citizenry. Going against his promise because he holds
the power and calls the shots is nothing but dictatorial. He should be working
on mending his body language and utterances so far which are yet to settle well
on the Nigeria’s soil and not be raising more with the 6-year single tenure.
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