By Pini Jasn
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan is proposing a host of constitutional amendments. But one that is going to pre-occupy the nation in the months ahead is the proposal to make the tenure of the President and governors a single term of six years, instead of the current four-year term renewable for another term of four years.

Already the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC and the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, some individuals, as well as some civil society groups have taken off on the traditional outright rejection of the proposal based on the presumed tenure elongation motive of the President. We may never debate the substance of the proposed amendment, rather the hidden tenure elongation agenda of the President will colour the debate.

Indeed, when the President said that four years was not enough for an incumbent to do much, the opposition, as it were, had its ears on the ground, waiting and watching for signs of “tenure elongation”. The proposed amendment seems to have justified their fears. There is also the natural tendency to flash back to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s truncated third term amendment scam. Indeed some sleuths will swear that they saw Obasanjo’s finger prints on Jonathan’s proposed amendment! That the President has excluded himself and the present governors as likely beneficiaries of the tenure amendment which is expected to take effect from 2015 has not assuaged the opposition. Thus, those incapable of sustaining an intelligent debate will simply call him names and rain abuses. At best, we may have a debate that is obsessively centred on the motive of the President and not the merits or demerits of the proposed amendments.

It is ironic that we will find that those who often call for a return to the parliamentary system will lead the opposition to the proposed amendment purely on what they call tenure elongation. Perhaps, had the President proposed a return to the parliamentary system many voices in the opposition would have jumped at it. I often remind the advocates of parliamentary system that it is inconsistent to advocate such a system now in a country averse to sit-tight leaders or tenure elongation, and in which a political party has, to our chagrin, become dominant. In a parliamentary system, a President or Prime Minister remains in office for as long as he remains the leader of his party and for as long as his party wins election.

Knee-jack reaction of critics

Tenure elongation induces a knee-jack reaction among the choir of social critics. Such a response is very likely to obfuscate the debate. When governors who won re-run elections started new terms, they all yelled “tenure elongation” as if the affected Governors took themselves to the tribunals to ask for their elections to be annulled so that they could get “tenure elongation”. In any case, how can you “elongate” a tenure that a tribunal declared a nullity? If President Jonathan wanted to stay longer in office, would it not make sense to gun for a second term of four years instead of an extra two years?

Before the ACN, CPC and ANPP begin to wax lyrical with their opposition to the proposed amendments, they should be sure of their strength in the National Assembly. Often, it happens that the voices of party chieftains are at variance with the actions (and personal interests) of their elected members. The elections of the leadership of the National Assembly, especially the election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, ought to instruct them about the limits of the powers of the national executive committees of the opposition parties over their elected members. The opposition currently controls fewer states houses of assembly (don’t count on APGA in Anambra and their tenuous hold in Imo State). The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has enough clout to garner 24 states assemblies required for concurrent passing of the bill.

Having said that, the question to ask is, what problems are the single term supposed to solve? The President adduced two main problems. One is the acrimony and national anxiety that attain second term elections. The other is the huge cost of elections. The immediate questions that arise are these: Are the acrimonies that attain our elections a function of the tenure of President and governors? I will say no. The wars that attain elections are behavioural not structural; unless, of course, one is implying that merely changing the tenure will make Nigerian politicians to behave.

If that is the assumption, then I will say that we do not know what drives our politics and our politicians! In fact, a six-year single tenure may precipitate more acrimony than what obtains now.

The single act we need to reduce election acrimony is to make political office unattractive through tighter budgeting. We need to reform our political arrangement such that power is devolved to the people through restructuring the polity. For as long as politics offers easy money and for as long as the people are weak to hold their representatives accountable, so long would there be deathly battles to get into a venture so lucrative without accountability.

Cost of election vs cost of governance

There must be the will to look reprobate politicians in the face and send them to jail! For now, politics remains an arena for those tired of earning a living the hard and honest way and those who have failed in their chosen fields, thus fuelling electoral acrimony. In fact such characters may find six years too long to sit and watch the incumbent “chop”.

Another question one would ask is if our problem is the cost of elections or the cost of governance? Are there no other ways we can deal with the cost of elections? What have we done with limiting the electoral expenses of individual and political parties? Okay, if we lack the will to enforce that, how about banning the use of posters and billboards in elections? Apart from the huge cost of posters and billboards, they provoke violence when political thugs remove the posters and bill boards of rivals. Moreover, they deface our cities! The character and behaviour of the opposition, to a great extent, increase the cost of elections, and indeed, the cost of governance.

Bloated political offices

When an opposition embarks on pure blackmail and sabotage, it induces in the incumbent a tendency to either placate the opposition at the expense of the state or call their bluff, as Ikedi Ohakim did, and pay for it!

Moreover, there is nothing in the provision of two terms that says you must have 40 ministers, 1000 special advisers and 500 senior special assistants and personal assistants. Nothing in the present system says that ministers and governors must drive expensive bullet proof sports utility vans. If there is anything in the constitution that provides for bloated political offices, why don’t we amend that? As I said earlier, some of these things are a response to the character and behaviour of the opposition some of whom are still sniveling because they have not been invited by Jonathan to “chop”.

There is also the need to balance the President’s concerns against the spirit behind the two terms tenure of four years each. Such tenure arrangement was not just created to make an incumbent govern for eight years. The essence of this arrangement is that there is a mid-term referendum on the first four-year; that is what the second term election is really all about! In the second term election is embedded the essence of accountability. We may lose that right of referendum on an incumbent if we give him unbroken six-year tenure! In reality, we may have a President or Governor sitting on his palms for six years, with no incentive to perform. Yet we would not have eliminated political acrimony or high cost of election.

On the other hand, there is something worth considering in the six year single term. Do we really get eight years work and value from the present arrangement? Often, an incumbent begins to strategise for second term bid less than two years in office. Then election takes the last two years of the second term. That is where he is not faced with a crooked and virulent opposition. So in reality we often get no more than five years out of the eight years. And really, wasting precious time and resources in order to survive is what is regarded as political sagacity, not performance!

Genuine National Conference

My worry is that we are very fickle minded about what we really want as a nation. We try to bend laws to suit our bad behaviours instead of enforcing the laws. Once we are inconvenienced by a law, we cry for a change. We should stop treating democratic process as an event. We must allow our institutions and structures to evolve and endure. Amending a nation’s constitution is not what can be done peremptorily or perfunctorily! I would have preferred that we take advantage of the proposed amendments to thoroughly debate the future of our country, but what has transpired so far shows that we may miss the opportunity.

Many Nigerians have been calling for a genuine National Conference to enable us produce a constitution that captures our experience and diversity and we can rightly call the biography of our nation. Rather, the National Assembly, many of whose members got there through questionable mandates, insists on self-serving piecemeal amendments. With the challenges Nigeria faces now, President Jonathan should have demonstrated the will of a reformer and convoked a genuine National Conference so that we can trash out all issues inhibiting our national growth.