The Presidency yesterday stated that President Goodluck Jonathan was ready to bury his plan of running for a second term in 2015, if the Senate can pass its proposal for a single non-renewable six-year tenure into law.
The Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Dr. Ahmed Gulak, said the ambition to stage a return would be shelved if the Senators decide in favour of a single term for the President and the state Governors.
Gulak, while speaking with newsmen in Abuja yesterday said, “Nigerians will remember that it was President Jonathan that suggested an idea of a single term tenure from the beginning. So if the proposal becomes a law, the credit should go to the President.
“If it becomes a law and is enshrined in our constitution, the President and everybody will be bound by the provision of that law. Let us wait and see what happens.
“We are not seeing the move as a way of stopping President Jonathan from re-contesting in 2015. The law cannot be made because of one individual.
“When it takes effect, everybody will be bound by it.”
Gulak noted that the President should even be given credit for being the originator of the single-term proposal.
It would be recalled that Jonathan had in 2011 suggested a single-term of seven years for elective offices to avoid the wrangling often associated with second-term bids.
The Senate panel’s recommendation disqualifies Jonathan and current governors from benefitting from the new arrangement if the recommendation is being passed into law.
In justifying the move, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Media, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, was quoted on Wednesday as saying that the development was the outcome of public hearings across the country.
If passed into law, Jonathan will not be eligible to contest the 2015 presidential election.
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