By Dianabasi Effiong Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart in Cross River State, Chief Francis Bullem, has thrown his weight behind the 6 years-one term...
By Dianabasi Effiong
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart in Cross River State, Chief Francis Bullem, has thrown his weight behind the 6 years-one term tenure for the president and governors in the country.
He gave the opinion in a chat in Calabar on the future of Nigeria’s democracy and and current internal security challenges.
Bullem, who is a former banker of 23 years repute, therefore called for a constitutional amendment to accommodate this provision of a 6 year one term for the president and governors in the country.
He said 6 years for any serious minded person is enough to execute your blue print and leave the stage for another person to come and continue saying, “as a person if you say take six years, that will be enough for me because I have not seen power as something that you want to get there and remain forever.
“You are seeing power as a proposition of what value can you add within the period of six years and then step on so that some other person can continue with legacies that you have put in place.
“ So it is often very vague when somebody says that, I cannot leave because I have not completed my programme, then why do we die? Because when you die life continues”.
He argued that there are two aspects to this of six years one term tenure; “if you go into the leadership position prepared you can run your programme in four, five, six years and get to a point when you say okay, you can anchor.
“But at the time you are anchoring what transition have you put in place? So the critical issue is the transition you will be giving. So, if you go in from day one and say Oh I have six years to go, what structures are you going to be putting in place or what institutions that will throw up leadership that if in six years you don’t run through your programmes there will be continuity? That is the challenge.
“If you tell somebody to occupy an office for the rest of his life, he will do it but what structures are you putting in place from day one or before that will see you run your programme in six years and if you are not through with the six years programme you have created a transition that will take it. So, it is the dynamics of the macro-economic”.
On the issue of zoning or rotation of political offices in the Country, he said “my attitude is that of positive optimism because rotation in itself creates opportunities for every facet of society to benefit from the incentives that such opportunities could create. It also creates some kind of even development across various segments of the society and so it is a welcome development”.
He argued that, “ordinarily, without rotation, you will find out that there are certain areas that cannot aspire to some levels of political administration and economy. It is the rotation policy, for instance, that has given us the opportunity in the South-South to produce the President of Nigeria”.
Reacting to some arguments that zoning or rotation gives room for mediocrity, the PDP chieftain said, “no, that will be an overstatement because zoning itself throws up challenges and opportunities. So what it is, is that, what system will you put in place in such a way that when you zone an office to a particular area and then the operators from there will sit down and look at the merit as a basis for choosing who represents the people. With a sound first degree anybody who is well positioned can manage the situation”.
In Cross River State, he said the Governor Senator LIyel Imoke has emphatically declared that going by equity and fairness, the next governor of the state should come from the Northern Senatorial of the state and “by His Excellency’s position, it is a positive development and on the other hand it is also a challenge for the people from the north, because you see the same issue when people talk about mediocrity.
“I want to say that if the north is given an opportunity at this stage to produce a governor in Cross River it will be able to do that very fairly and effectively. But I am not going to leave it there that the north should produce the governor, because a governor from the north is not going to be the governor of northern Cross River. He or she will be the governor of Cross River State”.
On Boko Haram, Ebullem said “it is a very challenging period for the country because when you look at it from the security stand-point you can’t even identify the people called Boko Haram. And so when you say that the president is not doing enough, you know, if somebody has a grievance and is faceless, how do you deal with the situation?
“But if you know that I am the one responsible and you reach out to me and said, what is your problem and we are able to sit down and discus, it is a different thing altogether. This is a democratic government you do not expect the president to send troops, for instance and begin to go to those areas and begin to kill people.
“It is a situation that calls for collective collaboration because, even the leaders from those areas who are not supporting the initiatives from different apparatuses of government and all of that with the amnesty committee that has been set up by government, let’s see how far we go from there.
“Perhaps people will come up and take responsibility for the senseless killings that has been going on in respect of Boko Haram insurgency”.
admin
