DENNIS OGU

Recently, Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele proposed a single six-year term of office for executive office holders in Nigeria.

One of his reasons being that the incumbents spend much of their first term campaigning for re-election instead of dedicating their energy to the work they were elected to do.

He argued that if the tenure of office of the executive office holders is reduced to one term of six years instead of the two terms of four years each, that each occupant would, after winning election, focus on the work that brought him to the office knowing that he wouldn’t have any re-election after the six years in office.

This is a valid argument considering that it will also reduce the unnecessary spending of state funds and resources that would have also gone into development projects. In addition to that, it will create the opportunity for different regions to access the seat of power if enshrined in the constitution.

But he is not the first person to come up with this kind of proposal. Former president, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan had similarly come up with five-year single term when he was in power, but the National Assembly then and a good number of governors frowned at it, and it didn’t see the light of day.

A particular National Conference also came up with similar idea of a single term of office for executive office holders but it still did not go beyond the stage of proposal.

However, whether Sen. Bamidele’s proposal will sail through or not, there is one salient question that needs to be addressed. In his argument, he said that once they are given one term of office to serve the people, that they would face their work and not be bothered by re-election bid.

Now, the question is: since they use much of the first term campaigning for re-election, what do they do during their second term in office? During their second term in office, they don’t campaign for any other re-election and are, therefore, expected to face the real job of governance squarely.

But that’s not what happens. What most of them do after they have been re-elected  are massive looting, negligence of the people’s demands, another bid to anoint a loyal successor and foist him on the people, setting up structures to entrench themselves as godfathers, a list of abandoned and uncompleted projects etc etc.

If all the struggle to get re-elected had been ending with using the second term to serve the people better, then the question of a single term would have also been beneficial to the people. But so long as it had all been geared towards serving themselves, the single six-year term will still end up being a disadvantage to the people because the legislature has severally failed to strengthen their position as the highest decision-making body in the country and oversight functions.

If they are given a single term of office, a good number of them, after being elected, would feel they have arrived, and mindful of the fact that whether they do well or not nothing would bring them back to the office, would use the six years to loot the state treasury and settle their cronies and friends.

Some of those that carry out some projects for the people do so for the mere reason it would give them the leverage to campaign for their re-election – they use the little works they do as part of their campaign points.

It would be recalled that it took Gen. Murtala Mohammed a few weeks in office to register his presence and every part of the polity began to feel the arrival of a committed leader and wind of a positive change. But regrettably, death would not allow him to accomplish his mission.

In Chinua Achebe’s “The Trouble with Nigeria”, where he stated unequivocally that Nigeria’s problem has been leadership failure; he mentioned in one of the chapters what he experienced the night Gen. Murtala Mohammed staged the coup that brought him to power.

According to the renowned author, the Lagos streets that were known for long traffic queues were all free and cleared of all the congestions; and when he enquired to understand what was happening, he got to know that a no-nonsense military commander was coming to power. This was a clear manifestation of an old African adage that “a good day always breaks with a bright morning.”

In the same light, a governor or president that has just been elected into office, his first few days or weeks should define his mission and style of administration. And all his stay in office should be guided by discipline and sense of purpose.

Therefore, it is not one term or two terms that matters but the question his policies and actions should answer is this: what has he come to that office to do? But in spite of all these, what provisions are to be made in this bill to discipline defaulters and prevent failure in this single six-year term?

By and large, since the return to democracy in May 1999, our legislature has repeatedly failed us.

The major problem we have in Nigeria’s democracy presently is this so-called synergy between the legislature and the executive. In true democracy, executive and legislature do not always agree all the time. In fact, they disagree more than they agree in order to deliver to the people the real dividends of democracy.

But since 2015 till date the Nigerian legislative arm has agreed too much with the executive, and it is the citizens that have been suffering for it. This synergy has made the legislature to always dance to the tune of the executive – they don’t say “No” again to whatever the executive comes up with. They have even constituted themselves into the campaign team of the executive to the point that they now spend more energy defending the policies and actions of the executive than they spend in doing their legislative works, and even do this defence more than the ministers and aides would do.

They openly declare it that they stand on the mandate of the president. And instead of questioning the policies of the executive to ascertain their benefits for the people, they rather see greater need to make the people believe that the president is always right.

One philosopher once said that “power without discipline is destructive”, and that is why the legislative arm is created to check the excesses of the executive.

The legislature is described as the highest decision-making body in every democratic setting. And in the truest sense of it they are the people-in-government as they represent the interest of the people (divided into constituencies) in government. The primary duty of the legislature is to ensure that the executive and agencies of government do things the right way or the way the welfare of the people will be improved.

But unfortunately, in Nigeria the reverse is the case – the legislature has, in the guise of having synergy with the executive, allowed decisions that neither benefit the people nor support the development of the country to sail through the chambers during sessions.

So, instead of Senator Bamidele channelling his energy, time and resources to this venture that will still end up benefitting only the executive office holders, he should come up with a bill that will return power to the people, strengthen state institutions and encourage accountability.

He should sponsor a bill that will redirect the attention of his colleagues to their legislative responsibilities and re-enforce checks and balances in our democracy. Once this is achieved, whether one term or two terms, every executive office holder would have no choice but focus on his official duties and wouldn’t wait for re-election to do the needful. And all these celebrations of mediocrity will end.