Barely 24 hours after former Vice President Atiku Abubakar called for the rotational presidency of six-year single terms each, a non-governmental organisation, Global Initiatives for Good Governance (GIGG), has thrown its weight behind the call.
The group led by its Director-General, GIGG, Dr Emeka Kalu, said that a rotational presidency would reshape the country and quicken development across the country, just as he declared that this would ensure that all six geopolitical zones of the country had access to the presidency.
He urged the National Assembly to consider this proposal from the former Vice President by ensuring that this suggestion was legitimately enshrined in the proposed amendment.
According to Kalu, Atiku had shown his unbiased sense of commitment to justice and equity, where the nation’s multi-ethnic diversities would be given equal opportunity to participate in national governance if passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the president.
His words: “If actualised, this Atiku’s proposal for a constitutional amendment to capture rotational presidency between the Southern and Northern regions would enable each of the six geopolitical zones the power to produce the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria remains the only ripen fruit our democracy would be believed to have harvested in the history of Nigeria.
“The 2023 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate has shown his unbiased sense of commitment to justice and equity where the nation’s multi-ethnic diversities would be given equal opportunity to participate in national governance.”
The group, through Kalu, regretted that marginalisation, poorly implemented federal character principles, and the agitations for equity had continued to spark civil unrest in the country, thereby leading to various violent cases of civil disorder, terrorism, and other pockets of criminality.
Kalu explained that if the proposal was successfully implemented, it could help to nip the crises in the bud while also birthing a newly redefined Nigeria where peaceful coexistence, unity, and mutual relationships across tribal lines could be achieved.
For Atiku to have proposed a rotational presidency, Kalu said, he spoke volumes of his character as a mentally articulate, democratically unselfish, politically mature, and philosophically balanced person who gave the country his best when a chance to preside over the nation’s affairs was accorded him.
He added: “In my book titled ‘Atiku Abubakar, the Man for Nigeria,’ I made Nigerians realise the fact that the Waziri Adamawa is such a detribalised political thinker whose ambitions of working to become the President were anchored on liberating the nation from the shackles of burning economic entrapment, political inequality, insecurity, the food crisis, and poor industrialisation.
“His antecedents speak for him while his track records of integrity and experience in public space stand his names tall on the sand of time and history,” he added.
The group equally argued that its position was neither a subtle campaign to popularise Atiku’s interest nor making a case for his 2027 presidential ambition, but was to ensure a better Nigeria for all.
Atiku had, as part of his recommendation to constitutional amendments on Wednesday, written to the National Assembly, requesting an alteration to the constitution to allow for a six-year single term for the president and governors.
In a memorandum to the Senate Committee on Constitutional Review, Atiku also proposed that the presidency be rotated between the North and South.
The former number two citizen also urged the National Assembly to “amend Section 135(2) to read: ‘Subject to the provisions of subsection (1), the President shall vacate his office at the expiration of a period of six years, while additionally proposing the “substitution of an aspirant” in Section 285(14)(a) with “a voter.”
The former vice-president further suggested that the minimum educational qualification for a person to run for election should be the Ordinary National Diploma instead of the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination.
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