The Campaign for Democracy, CD, Nigeria’s foremost pro-democracy and human rights movement, rises with grave concern and unmistakable alarm to condemn in the strongest terms the proposed bill seeking to abolish the two-term, four-year tenure and impose a single, non-renewable six-year term on the President and Governors.
CD declares this bill the most irrelevant, unreasonable, and unwarranted constitutional amendment ever proposed since the restoration of democracy in 1999. It is an exercise in political vanity. It solves no problem of insecurity, poverty, unemployment, or infrastructural decay. It is a selfish innovation that serves the ambition of a few, while endangering the future of about 230 million Nigerians.
1. The Wisdom of the Founders Must Not Be Desecrated
The drafters and framers of the 1979 Constitution were statesmen, not novices. They lived through the turbulence of Nigeria’s First Republic and the military years. With full knowledge of our history, they deliberately rejected a single-term presidency. They understood, with painful clarity, the dangerous consequences of removing electoral accountability.
That same wisdom was consciously retained and strengthened in the 1999 Constitution as amended. The two-term limit was not an accident of drafting. It was a shield. It was a check. It was the framers’ answer to the question: “How do we force leaders to serve the people?” Their answer: make them face the voters again.
To now tamper with that provision is to spit on the foresight of our founding fathers. It is constitutional sacrilege.
2. Accountability Dies Without the Ballot
Let no one deceive Nigerians with academic theories. The only reason many governors and presidents have delivered even the few roads, hospitals, and schools we see today is because they were desperate for a second term. The fear of returning to meet the electorate is the only chain that binds power to responsibility.
Remove that chain, and you hand leaders six years of impunity. The moment an elected officer knows he will not face the voters again, governance becomes a retirement plan. Performance will collapse. Neglect will become policy. Corruption will become official doctrine because there is no political price to pay.
Nigeria will witness a new era of abandoned projects, empty promises, and arrogant leadership. Backwardness and underdevelopment will cease to be threats. They will become our national identity.
3. The Disadvantages Outweigh Any Imagined Gain
Proponents claim a single term will allow leaders to “focus on governance.” This is a dangerous lie. History across Africa proves the opposite. Single-term systems breed lame-duck governments from day one. They weaken political parties, kill internal democracy, and create a class of untouchable rulers.
The disadvantages are catastrophic and far outweigh any imagined advantage:
– Death of accountability: No re-election means no consequence.
– Explosion of corruption: Six years without fear of voters is six years of plunder.
– Policy discontinuity: Successors will abandon every project that cannot be completed in 6 years.
– Voter disenfranchisement: Nigerians will lose their most potent weapon – the power to reward or punish at the ballot.
Our Demand
Campaign for Democracy therefore demands, without compromise, that the National Assembly immediately withdraw and jettison this anti-people bill. Nigeria’s democracy is fragile. Our economy is bleeding. Our security is collapsing. This is not the time for constitutional experiments that have failed everywhere they have been tried.
We call on all civil society groups, labour unions, student bodies, traditional rulers, religious leaders, and ordinary citizens to rise and resist this manipulation. The soul of our democracy is at stake.
To the National Assembly: Nigerians are watching. History is recording. Do not mortgage the future of this nation for the comfort of a few. Reject this bill now, and protect the sanctity of the 1999 Constitution.
Revered Ifeanyi Odili,
National President.
