Renowned lawyer, Afe Babalola (SAN), has sent a letter to president-elect General Muhammadu Buhari, asking him to seriously consider amending the 1999 Constitution to stipulate a single 6-year term for the President, as earlier suggested by incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan.
According to Babalola, the current 4-year term does not give the President enough time to work for the country, as the first year is used to settle down, the next two are the only real time for the president to work, as the final year is usually used to campaign for a second term.
Making his thoughts known via a letter, Babalola wrote: “I suggest that there is urgent need to restructure the country’s constitution and reform it to ensure that Nigeria emerges as a nation united, where a leader will emerge through votes cast during election not based on religious or ethnic affiliations. These problems, in my humble view, are what you should quickly address when you assume power come May 29, 2015.
“And this brings me to the age-long advocacy of a single six-year term for the country’s President, which would have allowed him to work harder and achieve more instead of the present four-year term, which allows him only two years of serious work as he will spend the first year to settle down and use the last of the four years to campaign for his second term.”
The letter further read, “As a statesman, you should be ready to build on the foundation laid by Dr. Jonathan’s administration to the advantage of Nigerians. This is the more so in a country like Nigeria where people find it difficult to distinguish between politics and governance, a development which often makes people taking over the reins of government from their predecessor to always abandon the projects of the predecessors and start their own, particularly when such predecessors are not from the same party with the helmsman.”
In another letter, this time addressed to President Jonathan, Babalola lauded the incumbent, stating he was the only president in the history of the country to concede defeat and congratulate the winner after an election, calling him the “the hero of this presidential election.”
He also advised President Jonathan to reflect on what made him lose the election, as it would aid him in future endeavours.
While thanking President Jonathan for ruling the country to the best of his abilities, Babalola hailed him for preventing the country from turning into “another theatre of war with attendant gory carnage, burning, maiming and killing as well as wanton destruction of both ambulatory and non-ambulatory properties similar to the events of 1983 after the gubernatorial election in the then bigger Ondo State.”
“By this singular and unique act, you have not only demonstrated that truly you are a “man of honour” and that you are indeed not desperate to remain in office as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
