By Rotimi Fasan
On being told that the generally condemnatory disposition with which many Nigerians received President Goodluck Jonathan’s plan to sponsor an executive member bill limiting governors and the president to a single term of six years effectively killed the presidential initiative, presidential spokesperson, Reuben Abati, responded that the President’s plan was still on course and nothing has killed it.

Perhaps Abati said this in order not to paint a picture of a Jonathan that is weak and afraid to stand for what he believes in. After all as Vice President, President Jonathan was a principal part of the Umaru Yar’Adua administration that was notorious for several policy somersaults, reversals that were prompted by public criticism but which the administration, making a virtue of necessity, claimed were indication of its respect for rule of law. It sure doesn’t look good to be seen to be talking before thinking or, even worse, to appear to be afraid to push an unpopular position.

So Abati was prompt in assuring his interlocutors that his boss was going ahead with his plans, making necessary consultations to see to the smooth passage of his bill. There were media reports in the last fortnight that the President had invited members of some fringe political parties for a meeting in Aso Villa.

The aim, the reports went, was to win the parties concerned to the side of the President. Indeed, the President is within his right to sponsor a bill but it appears Nigerians are simply not sold on this particular bill: its purposes are neither clear nor acceptable to them.

There is definitely an element of cynicism in the attitude of Nigerians who have rejected Jonathan’s plan and such cynicism cannot be divorced from past experiences that started as some altruistic venture for the benefit of the people but which later turned out to be shamelessly self-serving.

On the surface, I imagine, there is nothing wrong in the President sponsoring a bill of this nature. Part of the merit of such a bill, his argument goes, is that it would reduce the rancour that goes with the ambition of politicians bent on securing a second term. In addition, a bill of this nature, once passed, will reduce the cost of running for public office. There are more gains contingent upon the passage of the bill than should detain us here. Suffice to say that the bill is meant to clean up Nigerian politics and give it a good odour if not a good face. Good thinking? Well, perhaps. But for Nigerians, the product is bad. Yet one must admit, even if only from Jonathan’s angle, that there is no harm in pushing a position that is for the greater good of all Nigerians- supposedly.

Except that the move is coming many years late (although Abati doesn’t think so). In other words Nigerians are wiser, or so they think, to know when somebody is trying to pull wool over their eyes. Many of the critics of the single-term bill are politicians; indeed most of the criticisms have emanated from politicians of rival parties. Which may explain why Abati in his statement on the matter said that most Nigerians are in favour of the bill but only don’t think the time is right for it. Which exactly is the point of the entire criticism: This is not the time for the bill because there’d never be time for it except by some sleight-of-hand or political stratagem Jonathan succeeds in selling his idea to the majority of Nigerians.

Occupants of Aso Villa (or Dodan Barracks) before Jonathan had walked similar path which only brought them and, we must say, Nigerians to grief. From independence there is hardly one Nigerian leader to point to that had not attempted to stay in office longer than necessary. Matters came to a head during the Babangida and Abacha regimes when these two military leaders made brazen attempts to elongate their unauthorised stay in power.

Babangida was more subtle in his approach, employing tricks which may pass for carrot, and stick as occasion demanded. But Abacha had no time for such niceties. It was brute force all the way. But these attempts, as was the one by Obasanjo after his second term, all failed. Which is why I said earlier that

Jonathan’s bill may be coming several years late. But Abati doesn’t think so.

I’m inclined to cut Jonathan some slack. As I said above, I don’t see the problem in the President sponsoring a bill of this kind. For all I know it may be for the ultimate good of Nigerians. Matters are, however, not in my hand. So I cannot presume to know better than those Nigerians who have seen Jonathan’s sponsorship of the bill as a disguise for tenure elongation. To satisfy them, Jonathan says he won’t be a beneficiary of the bill. For good measure, Abati in an earlier statement told Nigerians his principal won’t do anything contrary to the law, or something to that effect. But their critics are simply not accepting this. Many of the critics are politicians and it may not surprise Nigerians how they gained the insight that made them link the President’s sponsorship of the bill in question to an attempt on his part to extend the life of his presidency.

Truth is, as politicians, many of them are not only aware of but were, probably, responsible for selling such tenure extension plans that started like Jonathan’s new bill to previous usurpers who never wanted to leave office until situation forced them out- or they simply died in office. In other words, these politicians know the game so well, have been part of it in the past and could see what a bill like Jonathan’s is destined to achieve. Those selling the idea of tenure elongation in the guise of a single-term bill to Jonathan (assuming that’s the game here) probably got the idea in the first place from some of the critics of the bill. If that’s the case, then, Jonathan should feel no loss of face to beat a retreat since the sell-by date of his product appears long past. What he ought to do now is to simply see his failure, so far, to win Nigerians to his side on the matter at hand as a consequence of the misdeeds of some of his predecessors to the house of power.

He should pick himself up and move on, not behaving like those sit-tight African leaders I recently compared to the local West African goat that is so stubborn it never learns from its mistake. Such mistake, given the manner of Jonathan’s rise to power, would amount to an unwarranted act of overreaching.