House’ rejection of six-year single tenure for President, governors, missed opportunity
Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar has expressed displeasure at the speed with which the six-year single term proposal for President and governors was rejected by the House of Representatives. Reacting to the rejection of the bill by the House in a statement in Abuja on Monday night, Atiku said he is disappointed by the fact that the lawmakers have thrown away the baby with the bathwater at the expense of the larger interest of the country. Signed by his media adviser, Paul Ibe, Atiku said the”in view of the challenges facing our current democratic order, especially the culture of rigging that subverts the will of the people, six-year single term would have ended such untoward practices in our electoral process.” He explained that “the desperation for second term by the incumbents is the main reason why they go for broke and set the rule book on fire, thereby making free and fair elections impossible by legitimizing rigging at the expense of their challengers that have no access to public funds.” The Wazirin Adamawa further noted that “a situation where the incumbents deploy more public resources to their second term projects than using the funds for people’s welfare encourages massive rigging that undermines electoral integrity.” He noted that “six-year single term would remove such desperation and enable the incumbents concentrate on the job for which they were elected in the first place.”