Still on the single tenure bid, three leading parties responded yesterday to President Goodluck Jonathan’s statement about the single tenure bill on Thursday in Abuja. The President said that the idea of the single tenure was conceived by all the major parties in the country with the exception of the ACN and that the idea was arrived at during a meeting of an inter-party committee, which his immediate predecessor, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, asked him to chair.
Responding to this the Labour Party, All Nigeria Peoples Party and the Peoples Progressive Party said in separate interviews that they did not at any time attend any meeting where the single term proposal was discussed. The Labour Party and the ANPP made it clear that they had never had discussions with the President whether while he was executing his duties in the capacity of Vice-President, Acting President or as the President. The Chairman of the PPA however expressed his party’s support for the proposed bid.
The House of Representatives and the members of the Senate have expressed varied opinions regarding the single term bill; while it seems quite a number of PDP members in the House of Reps and Senate support the single term, many other members do not.
