Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar has expressed displeasure with the speed with which the six-year single term proposal was rejected by the House of Representatives.
Reacting to the rejection of the bill by the House in a statement in Abuja on Monday, Atiku said he is disappointed by the fact that the lawmakers have thrown away the baby with the bath water at the expense of the larger interest of the country.
According to Atiku, “in view of the challenges facing our current democratic order, especially the culture of rigging that subverts the will of the people, six-year single term would have ended such untoward practices in our electoral process.”
He explained that “the desperation for second term by the incumbents is the main reason why they go for broke and set the rule book on fire, thereby making free and fair elections impossible by legitimizing rigging at the expense of their challengers that have no access to public funds.”
Atiku added that “a situation where the incumbents deploy more public resources to their second term projects than using the funds for people’s welfare encourages massive rigging that undermines electoral integrity.”
He noted that “six-year single term would remove such desperation and enable the incumbents concentrate on the job for which they were elected in the first place.”
The Waziri Adamawa regretted that “eight-year term of office rewards incompetence because even incumbents that have failed would use their access to public funds to return to power by fair or foul means.”
PM News
