In Africa, despotism begins with little, innocuous steps like changing term limits midstream. So, a proposed bill by Opeyemi Bamidele for a single six-year term for the President and governors in the 11th National Assembly might seem altruistic at the moment. But in a country which once witnessed a scheme for a third term and where democracy is very weak, this is a dangerous idea.
“One of the first set of bills that I look forward to moving, by God’s grace, when we come back for the 11th Senate, God willing, is for a bill that will only make it possible for anyone who wants to be president of this country, or governor in any part of this country, to spend only one term of six years,” says the Senate Majority Leader.
On the surface, Bamidele’s reasons are logical. He explains that the executives waste “almost one and a half years of your first term thinking and struggling and looking forward to how you’ll be re-elected”. He believes a single non-renewable six-year term will fix the problem.
However, this is not a silver bullet. Nigeria’s failings are structural and are far deeper than legislating a six-year tenure.
In addition, this changes the goalposts in the middle of a game. It is not right.
It is a complex gambit. Who will benefit? What happens to those who have done only one term as of when the proposal will take off? Will they now do 10 years instead of eight years? It stands to reason that those who have completed one term will litigate to enjoy their second term.
The state of the opposition raises the red flag. The APC, the ruling party, enjoys an absolute majority in the parliament and among the state governors. If they pass the bill, Nigeria might be on the way to tenure elongation through a constitutional amendment.
Nigeria was seriously shaken during the 2005 constitution amendment under the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidency. Nigerians roundly rejected an obvious “third term” agenda, then. Today, nothing has changed.
Across Africa, tenure elongation starts this way. In Rwanda, a controversial amendment allowed President Paul Kagame to bypass previous term limits.
In Cameroon, a 2008 constitution amendment voided term limits. This allowed President Paul Biya to extend his rule virtually indefinitely.
They were not the only ones; many African ‘Big Men’ extend their tenure illegally by changing the rules of the game after it has commenced.
Yoweri Museveni continued as Ugandan president after the term and age limits were expunged from the laws in 2005 and 2018, respectively.
Similar dangerous scheming has occurred in the Congo, Togo, Comoros, Burundi, Djibouti and Guinea. Nigeria must not travel this route.
This toxic development is accelerating in Zimbabwe. On Friday, the country’s lower arm of parliament extended the presidential term limit from five to seven years. This means there will be no election in the country from 2008 till 2030.
Nigerians are already turning their backs on democracy. Voters have been steadily shunning the polls since 2007. About 26.72 voted in the 2023 general elections, a very poor turnout.
Instead of voters, the judiciary decides election winners. This is an aberration.
The second term of the South’s four-year term commences in May 2027 if the ruling party wins the election. The pertinent question here is: when will the new proposal commence? Will the President benefit from the arrangement?
Bamidele’s position that two terms of four years distract elected presidents and governors, making them focus on re-election during their first term, belies logic. The truth is that presidents and governors do not perform well either in their first or second term.
In any case, an elected president is distracted because the NASS is lethargic and has become an appendage of the executive.
The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, led other members of the 10th NASS to adopt Tinubu as the sole candidate of the ruling APC for the 2027 elections in Abuja last year, less than midway into his tenure.
Historically, two four-year terms across the Republics have shown that the initiative might not be a distraction. Rather, it is the quality of leaders, their political will and their vision, not re-election politics, that determines the performance of governors and presidents.
The governors of the South West in the 2nd Republic – October 1, 1979-December 31, 1983 – successfully implemented free education in the region. Governor Lateef Jakande, for instance, birthed the low-cost housing scheme codenamed Jakande Estate in Lagos.
Governors Raji Fashola of Lagos, Alex Otti of Abia State and Peter Mba of Enugu are also examples of governors with non-first-tenure-barred achievements. These governors hit the ground running in their first terms. Fashola engineered a new Lagos throughout his two terms.
Otti and Mba, both current governors, are transforming their states. Within three years of assuming office, they are budgeting 32 and 20 per cent, respectively, for education, embarking on massive infrastructure development, and radically improving the health sector, among other robust initiatives.
One of the touted advantages of a double four-year term system is the possibility of voting out a non-performing president or governor and rewarding a performing one after his first term. That opportunity is still there.
But if a bad governor or president is voted for six years, the polity is doomed.
Besides, with his power of incumbency, he has the leeway to plunge the country into untold jeopardy by planting his stooge after his six years. The vicious cycle may continue unabated.
Indeed, given the contentious nature of power rotation, it will take more than the NASS’s intervention to make tenure change acceptable to some groups.
Under the North-South rotational presidency arrangement, there has been disequilibrium in the rotation arrangement. This arose after a region completed the term of another, owing to death, with the former believing its turn was usurped. Therefore, Bamidele’s proposal must be handled with caution.
Besides, it will require a clause that will exclude the sitting governors and governors from benefiting from the initiative to avoid tenure elongation suspicion or scare.
Nigerians cannot trust the 10th Assembly, which has become an appendage of the Executive, to effectively legislate on a matter as sensitive as the president’s or governors’ tenure change.
The problem with the country’s politics and governance is far from tenure issues. It has a lot to do with amending the Constitution to implement true federalism with a weak centre and strong and independent states.
Before the military illegally truncated the First Republic in January 1966, Nigeria was making progress by practising true federalism – fiscal federalism, regional police and decentralised political and educational systems were the order of the day. Nigeria should return to this track.
The political parties should embrace the politics of ideology. Each political party needs to establish an academy to initiate and promote sound governance policies, and entrench internal democracy to bring out the best hands to implement them and grow the party as is done elsewhere.
Currently, members of the executive and legislature enjoy obscene luxury in the face of grinding poverty and the country’s explosive debt profile.
Therefore, Nigeria should design a system that will stop the excessive rewards currently attached to political offices. This will ensure that it is only those who want to serve that will put themselves forward for public office.
