Nigerian Presidency Should Be One Term of Five Years Like South Korea’s — Obi
The 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has called for a constitutional amendment to limit the office of the President of Nigeria to a single term of five years.
Speaking on Friday during a visit to Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, at the Government House, Bauchi, Obi said such a provision would make any occupant of the office focus on delivering results within the limited time available, rather than preparing for re-election.
“If I have the opportunity, we should stop having a second tenure for presidents. It should be five years. That is what is in South Korea, so people come in and know that they have a job to do,” Obi said.
The former Anambra State governor criticised the current pattern where leaders, according to him, spend one year governing and use the remaining years to prepare for another term.
“What people do now is to be president for one year and use the rest of the year thinking about the next tenure. Let’s stop it, let’s face the real job,” he added.
Obi’s latest call follows his earlier pledge to serve only one term if elected president. On August 3, he reiterated his vow to serve a single four-year term, a commitment he first made during a widely attended X Space session tagged #PeterObiOnParallelFacts in June.
In a post on his X handle, Obi reaffirmed that his promise was “sacrosanct,” adding:
“In my political life, my word is my bond… My vow to serve only one term of four years is a solemn commitment, rooted in my conviction that purposeful, transparent leadership does not require an eternity.”
Obi argued that history has shown that the longer many African leaders remain in power, the greater the risk of corruption. He cited Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Nelson Mandela as examples of leaders who left enduring legacies without serving two terms.
However, his stance has not been without criticism. The governor of his home state, Chukwuma Soludo, recently questioned the rationale behind such vows, stating that any politician advocating for a single term “needs psychiatric examination.”
