THE Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has described as patently fraudulent, deceptively self-serving and a terrible misadventure, the plan by President Goodluck Jonathan to send a constitutional amendment bill to the National Assembly for a single tenure for the president and the governors of the 36 states.
But the presidency, while reacting to the statement, faulted the ACN, saying the party should allow Nigerians to decide whether or not they want a representative constitution.
The ACN, in a statement issued in Ibadan by its national publicity secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Wednesday, said the plan also confirmed fears being expressed in certain circles that the president enjoyed power for the sake of it, instead of using it for the benefit of Nigerians.
It said the single tenure project was fraudulent, because the president never for once promised Nigerians, during his electioneering, that this would be his priority project once elected into office, adding that the issue was also not known to be in the manifesto of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The ACN said the project was also self-serving because, despite the alleged deceptive proviso that President Jonathan would not benefit from it, there was nothing in the constitution that barred him from seeking another term of office in 2015 and, in any case, he had not told anyone that he would not run again after his current tenure.
“This is nothing but tenure elongation by subterfuge, and it is worse than the third term misadventure of his Godfather. All it takes for the proviso (inserted to hoodwink gullible people) to be knocked off is for anyone to seek a declarative court ruling that he (President Jonathan) is indeed qualified to seek another term. After all, he did not go that far to disown his party’s zoning principle, which he signed on to,” the party said.
The party also expressed concern that the amendment, which it called ill-conceived, could prove to be a divisive issue, further threatening the country’s fragile unity, which it said took some beating by the president’s volte-face on the zoning issue.
The party said further: ”Much as most Nigerians are shocked by President Jonathan’s plan, we are sure it did not come to them as a total surprise, because it is in line with his style since assuming office. After the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua and his (President Jonathan’s) ascension to office, he cannot be remembered for anything beyond stoking the fire of zoning or no zoning, which burned brightly until he was elected president.
“Now, three months after he promised Nigerians heaven and earth in his inauguration speech but delivered nothing, while Nigerians are daily being subjected to hellish living, all he has come up with is a bill to amend the constitution so the president and state governors can serve only one term. How is this issue more important than taking measures to grow our moribund economy; or to ensure that millions of our jobless youths are gainfully employed?
“How does this check the widespread insecurity of life and property in the land, especially in areas under the stranglehold of Boko Haram? How are the so-called merits of the plan, which its promoters said include checking the acrimony that accompanies re-election campaign, more important than making kerosene, diesel and Jet-A1 abundantly available to slash the rising costs? How does this project turn around the appalling state of our infrastructure? And how does it check the spiralling exchange rate of the Naira to the major currencies, with its bandwagon effects?
“By seeking to use this meaningless bill to divert the attention of Nigerians from the issues listed above, while cunningly buying his government enough time to consolidate, President Jonathan has done an incalculable damage to his integrity and disappointed the millions who voted him into office. He should, therefore, jettison this ill-advised pursuit of tenure elongation through the back door, apologise to Nigerians and face squarely the daunting task of serious governance. If he fails to do so, which is very likely, the National Assembly should not waste time in throwing it away,” the ACN said.
“All Nigerians should reject this evil project instead of playing the game of President Jonathan and his cohorts, who simply want to use the ensuing debate to divert attention from the worsening standard of living of Nigerians and the bad governance to which they have been subjected by most elected officials in the over 12 years of democratic rule,” it said.
Meanwhile, the chairman, Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Comrade Moshood Erubami, has kicked against the proposal for a six-year single term for president and governor, saying the proposal harbours third term agenda.
Speaking in Ilorin on Wednesday, Erubami said that other members of civil society movement in the country had already called for a meeting to harmonise their reaction and ensure the failure of the proposal.
He said the only condition for allowing the proposal is if it is subjected to a national referendum such that it becomes a ratification of the general will of the Nigerian people.
Erubami, who said that the president might have been hijacked by ‘political hawks’, asking rhetorically,“what happens if President Goodluck Jonathan has interest in 2015?”
“The issue of one straight term tenure is not an antidote to the load of crises that are usually generated during the four-year tenure. The same thing will come in the build up to the end of the sixth year of the single term, even if they accept six years that will create distraction for the people and the government.
“The thing is that what they are giving as reason for this proposal is not the treatment of the cause. It is the treatment of the effect of the cause; thus leaving the cause and chasing shadow.
“It is a hidden agenda; an embryo in an exposed belly which is for all eyes to see. I see the proposal from the president as unsolicited, unproductive and to that extent, unacceptable to Nigerians, because we never expected this kind of thing from the president by now.
“The people that filed out to vote for the president, because they have seen him as a man of his words, has been disappointed in the sense that the priority before a president that came in through the popular vote of the people has been misplaced.
“For those saying the president will not benefit, I disagree. The benefit will not come in terms of retroactive nature of the law, but once the law is there now, the president might be interested in 2015. Who stops him?”
Reacting to the claim of the ACN, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr Reuben Abati, who spoke with the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja, on Wednesday, said the opposition should be patient enough to see if the president would keep his word not to benefit from the proposal or not.
Justifying the proposal, he said “that the president is proposing a constitutional amendment does not mean other aspects of governance have been abandoned.”
He said “what the president has done is just a proposal and what he is proposing is just one out of a basket of issues that can be addressed in the constitution.”