Kenneth Okonkwo, a member of the opposition coalition, has said that former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi’s pledge to serve only one term if elected president was merely a political tactic aimed at winning northern support.
According to Okonkwo, Obi understood that without making such a promise, he risked losing votes from the North.
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“So I brought the theory as a way for any opposition party to inspire Nigerians to know that each side will not lose when they make any choice, whether north or south.
“So, it was even Atiku Abubakar that first of all said he was going to do one term, then Peter Obi now keyed into it because he knows that if he, as a younger person, does not make that promise, he loses the entire North,” he said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday.
“So it’s purely a political strategy to say, ‘Look, I am not going to cut the eight years. I’m not going to shortchange you. So if I am elected, I will just do only four years to complete the eight years of the South.’ So that’s just the whole idea about it,” he added.
According to him, any party serious about defeating an incumbent must agree that its presidential candidate would serve for one term so that no side will feel cheated.
The lawyer stated, “I was the one who propounded it (one-term presidency) as a theory, saying that any party that is serious about fighting an incumbent must have to say that whoever is going to contest should have to do one term so that no side will feel cheated.
“So if you are a southerner, if you don’t agree to do one term, the northerners will say you want to do another eight years, which will offend the system. If you are a northerner, if you don’t agree to do one term, the southerners will say that means you want to cut us short early.”
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