Northern Leaders Oppose 6 Years Term For President,Govs

The Northern Elders’ Forum, NEF, yesterday, voiced its opposition to the planned one term of six years being proposed by the Senate for the President and Governors, saying that it was unacceptable to the people of the region.

NEF’s Secretary, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, said: “We in the north remain stoutly opposed to the proposal and will never support it because it is a double-edged sword that can make a tyrannical president to continuously oppress the defenceless citizenry without any remedy.

“If you have a bad president, who does not believe in the welfare and progress of the nation, it means that the people would have no way of asking him to step aside until the end of the gruesome six-year tenure.

 “The people of the north are comfortable with the current provision of four-year renewable tenure based on performance and acceptance of the electorate so that a non-performing president can be voted out after the first tenure.”

Abdullahi, who asked the Nigerian lawmakers to throw out the controversial amendment, pointed out that they should work on more beneficial laws to tackle rising monumental corruption and security challenges in the land.

Says NGF, NSGF crises a blessing

Reflecting on the crises that has split the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF, and the Northern States Governors’ Forum, NSGF, Abdullahi described it as a blessing in disguise, saying that it had exposed the friends and foes of the region ahead of the 2015 election.

According to him, the ongoing disagreement among the governors had made it possible for the North to know those who are in support or opposed to its clamour for the return of the presidency to the north in 2015.

The NEF scribe said: “What we are witnessing now is manifestation of the self-serving struggle by some governors to protect their ego and interest and it has nothing to do with the people of the north or Nigeria.

“We in the NEF count the current face-off in the NSGF and the NGF as a blessing in a way because if the election had not been won and lost, we would not have known the black legs in our midst, actively working for their own pecuniary interest.

“To us, what is important is that whether the NSGF is alive or dead, the northern people will remain alert and alive in their bid to get their political right come 2015.”