The Nation Newspaper

Tag: tenure elongation

  • Senator: Nigerians’ll resist tenure elongation

    The lawmaker representing Ekiti Central in the Senate, Babafemi Ojudu, has said Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu’s call for two additional years in office for President Goodluck Jonathan and governors has justified his prediction that the proposed national conference is designed to elongate the president’s term of office.

    In a statement in Ado-Ekiti, Ojudu said: “My attention has been drawn to a statement made by my colleague, Ekweremadu, for two additional years for Mr. President and governors. But just as it failed during the regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and the tenure of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, this exercise or adventure will also fail.”

    Ojudu said Nigerians voted Jonathan for a four-year term, which can only be reviewed by another presidential election.

    He said: “Any attempt to elongate the president’s term will be resisted by Nigerians. It is undemocratic! Nigerians are wiser and determined to make our democratic experiment succeed more than ever before. The planned tenure elongation can only be in the interest of a few Nigerians and it is capable of bringing the country to its knee.

    Ojudu said there were two pointers to the fact that the proposed national conference was a hatchet job to achieve a predetermined objective of tenure elongation.

    He said: “One of them is the president’s position that the outcome of the conference will be brought to the National Assembly and one of the leaders of that legislature is Ekweremadu, who is already canvassing for tenure elongation. Nigerians must by now be seeing the link between the call by Ekweremadu and the proposed national conference.”

    Ojudu urged Nigerians to be on the alert to ensure that “this stillborn proposal is not stealthily smuggled in overnight.”

  • Conference is ploy for tenure elongation, says Ojudu

    The senator representing Ekiti Central, Babafemi Ojudu, has warned Nigerians against President Goodluck Jonathan’s proposed National Conference.

    Ojudu described the conference as a “ploy to elongate his (President’s) stay in office beyond 2015″.

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain spoke at the weekend in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, at the presentation of awards and prizes to 19 undergraduates and postgraduates students of Ekiti origin, who won this year’s edition of his essay competition.

    Ojudu noted that APC was passionate about a Sovereign National Conference and not a National Conference, the outcome of which he said would be subjected to the President’s whims.

    He said: “APC is and must be opposed to such a ‘conference of deceit’. It will not serve your interest or anyone’s interest for that matter. It will be a charade.”

    At the event, which was the second edition of iBOLD, three of the competitors received cash prizes of N500,000, N350,000 and N200,000 each and a laptop.

    The fourth and the fifth successful competitors received a laptop; the sixth to 19th positions went home with N20,000 each.

    Ojudu said: “What the APC is against is the conference of deceit, because this, for all that we all need to know, is diversionary. They don’t want an election in 2015. So, they are only under the conference to seek tenure extension…”