Deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu advocates one-term presidency

The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has advocated a single-term presidency of five or six years for Nigeria and other African countries to deepen democracy and good governance.



Mr. Ekweremadu spoke while delivering a lecture entitled: ‘Constitutionalism and the Challenges of Leadership in Africa: an Evaluation of Tested Models’ on Tuesday.
The event was organised by the Centre for Media and Peace Initiatives, a New York-based international NGO to mark its 10th anniversary.

 

“A more modest proposal seeks not the abandonment of the presidential system per se but the re-designing of term limits for political chief executives.

“This is in order to reduce the acrimonious conflict, divisiveness and instability arising from partisan or factional competition for executive offices in the federation.
“I support the proposals to transform the current tenure of two four-year terms into a single term of five or six years.
“Among other advertised benefits, single terms would avoid the distractions, manipulations and divisiveness of re-election campaigns while facilitating a more rapid circulation or rotation of power among the various groups”.

According to him, a single term of four years is also less costly as it will reduce the cost of conducting general elections every four years.