THE
Presidency on Wednesday said President Goodluck Jonathan was ready to
forget his ambition to run for second term in 2015 if the Senate passed
its proposal for a single non-renewable six-year tenure into law.
Though Jonathan had made half-hearted
denial of his ambition for another term in office, the body movements of
the President and his loyalists had clearly shown that he was preparing
to run in the 2015 general election.
But the President’s Special Adviser on
Political Matters, Dr. Ahmed Gulak, said the ambition to stage a return
would be shelved if Senators decided in favour of a single term for the
President and state governors.
Gulak who spoke to The PUNCH in
Abuja said, “Nigerians will remember that it was President Jonathan that
suggested an idea of a single term tenure from the beginning. So if the
proposal becomes a law, the credit should go to the President.
“If it becomes a law and is enshrined in
our constitution, the President and everybody will be bound by the
provision of that law. Let us wait and see what happens.
“We are not seeing the move as a way of
stopping President Jonathan from re-contesting in 2015. The law cannot
be made because of one individual.
“When it takes effect, everybody will be bound by it.”
Our correspondent had asked Gulak on the
response of the President to a proposal by a Senate committee to
introduce single-term tenure and whether the Presidency felt the
proposal was targeting at derailing Jonathan’s 2015 ambition.
The PUNCH had on Tuesday reported
exclusively that the Senate Committee on the Review of the Constitution
had recommended non-renewable single six year tenure for the offices of
President, Vice-President, governors and their deputies.
The Senate panel’s recommendation
disqualifies Jonathan and incumbent governors from benefitting from the
new arrangement if the recommendation becomes law.
In justifying the move, the Chairman of
the Senate Committee on Information and Media, Senator Enyinnaya
Abaribe, was quoted on Wednesday as saying that the development was the
outcome of public hearings across the country.
If passed into law, Jonathan will not be eligible to contest the 2015 presidential election.
Gulak noted that the President should even be given credit for being the originator of the single-term proposal.
Jonathan had in 2011 suggested a
single-term of seven years for elective offices to avoid the wrangling
often associated with second-term bids.
In a related development, Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, said on Wednesday that the
ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution would answer questions about the
nature of Nigeria’s unity.
Tambuwal spoke at the opening of a retreat for members of the House AdHoc Committee on Constitution Review in Abuja.
The committee, headed by the Deputy
Speaker, Mr. Emeka Ihedioha, organised the retreat to allow House
members appraise the report of the People’s Public Sessions on the
constitution and prepare them for the next stage of the review process.
The public sessions were held across the
federation on November 10, 2012, where Nigerians voted on a 43-item
template on sections of the constitution they desired amendments.
Tambuwal acknowledged that Nigeria was
facing many challenges, which had forced the citizens to ask questions
on the nature of the country’s union and assured that the fears
expressed by the people would be addressed by the new constitution
envisaged.
He said, “As you well know, our country
today faces many challenges and some of our people have been asking
questions about the very nature of our union.
“We hope eventually to provide Nigerians
with a constitution that will answer some of these questions and
further cement our hard fought unity.”
The Speaker claimed that reactions from
Nigerians since the House publicly tendered the report of the People’s
Public Sessions on April 18 suggested that they had confidence in the
National Assembly to do a thorough representation of their views in the
constitution.
However, he warned the committee members
against cutting corners or attempting to impose their own views on the
people in the course of appraising the report.
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