We are also aware that governors and the president are allowed a maximum of two terms of four years each. The only barrier that could stop them from going for second term are Nigerians who may choose not to reelect them for whatever reason. This is why we are surprised by threats by members of the New Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that the President should drop his ambition to seek reelection in 2015, unless he wants the country to disintegrate. A statement signed by the publicity secretary of the Alhaji Kawu Baraje faction of the party said the President would be breaching the constitution if he decides to seek reelection. It condemned what it called the desperation of the President to contest the 2015 election against the admonitions of some respected Nigerians. “What else is he looking for that is making him desperate to participate in the 2015 presidential election, despite warnings that doing so may spark a chain of events capable of culminating in the country’s disintegration, thereby bringing to pass the predictions of Lord Lugard that Nigeria as a nation by 2014 may be history, later confirmed by the US think-tank that Nigeria may disintegrate by 2015”, the statement added. It is true that personalities such as Professor Ben Nwabueze and Archbishop Emeritus of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, His Eminence, Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, have advised that President Jonathan should stay away from the 2015 presidential race. As a matter of fact, we share this opinion, given the fact that we cannot see the benefits that the Jonathan presidency has delivered to Nigerians. And if his government cannot deliver democratic dividend for more than three years that he has been in office, including the remaining period of the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua presidency that he completed, there is nothing to suggest that it will ever improve. But then, our dislike (or that of any other Nigerian for that matter) of his administration, cannot be a substitute for constitutional provisions. The law should be the compass in all we do if we are to advance the cause of democracy. Yes, we expect the Nigerian leader to be a man of his words; in this context we are talking about the pact that the President allegedly signed with governors of his party while seeking election in 2011, to the effect that he would only spend one term of four years. But so far, Nigerians have not seen the document. For now, it is the word of those claiming that the pact exists versus that of the President. If the President has reneged on that pact, and members of the New PDP feel sufficiently aggrieved, they may approach the courts to decide the matter.-The Nation Even the other leg of their argument that Jonathan’s “running in 2015 will mean spending a total of 10 years in office” and that this would be contrary to constitutional provisions, the President having been sworn in for three terms as president, should be similarly decided. We empathise with members of the New PDP but hasten to add that they should seek to stop the President by lawful means instead of resorting to threats of violence. In this wise, they should rally to defeat the President and his ambition. The fact is that the Jonathan presidency has won so many enemies for itself, for various reasons and the only thing the aggrieved can do is to come together with the aim of stopping him, either at the courts or at the polling booths. This can only be possible if the opposition ensures that the principle of ‘one man, one vote’ is strictly adhered to at the polls.
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