Deputy Senate President Ekweremadu Proposes Single Term Of Five Years For Presidents

The Deputy Senate President, Dr 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.

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.


He said, “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.


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.


Ekweremadu also suggested a rotational presidency among the ethnic groups or geographical zones, saying it might prove reassuring to ethnic groups and promote loyalty to the nation. The rotational presidency will reassure every constituent part that power will come their way at a given interval.


Therefore, it may well be time to re-visit the idea of rotational presidency that was first muted in Nigeria by late military Head of State Sani Abacha.

NAN