Goodluck Won't Go For 2nd Term If ?...Presidency

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 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.

It was reported on Tuesday 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.