CPC SENATORIAL CANDIDATE LAMBASTS OPPOSITION OVER SINGLE TERM PROPOSAL

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) Senatorial candidate for Akwa Ibom North West (Ikot Ekpene) District, Dr Anny Asikpo has lambasted opposition leaders for opposing a single six-year term for president and governors as proposed by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Asikpo, who is still in court contesting the result of the last April elections which the PDP candidate, Dr Aloysius Etok was declared a winner, is surprisingly pitching his tent with President Jonathan on the issue of single tenure, describing the action of the opposition as 'the height of disservice to majority of Nigerians.'

He adds: 'The president should go ahead with the executive bill and should even include a clause that the presidency and the governorship should rotate to all geo-political zones in the country, and all senatorial districts in the states so that there would be peace and harmony, and that would reduce conflicts during primaries.

'I think with this, the president will have saved this country from the bitterness that normally engulfs it during elections. It is a divinely induced decision because if it is left to the party leaders, they wouldn't have allowed it. Now all political parties would know that they either all collapse into one  party or decide to toe the zoning line so that if the presidency is going to come from North Central, then all of the parties would look for their materials from such a zone.'

Asikpo, however, advised the president that the single tenure should not be only the president and governors affair; rather, it should also affect the Senators, House of Representatives members, House of Assembly members, Local Government chairmen and councilors.

'Everybody should have a single six-year tenure and after that no more. It should be across the board so after that regime, everybody would be held accountable for the period of six years that they served,' he said.

Asikpo, who in 2007 aspired to be governor of Akwa Ibom state on the PDP platform, told Saturday Sun that there is no opposition in Nigerian political lexicon rather what exists are alternative parties that only seek how to win elections and get into office.

He posited that opposition should exist on ideological line, arguing that such was absent in Nigeria as all the parties behave alike with no ideological differences.