By Obinna Uballa
Opposition coalition member and former Labour Party chieftain, Kenneth Okonkwo, has alleged that former Anambra State governor Mr Peter Obi’s promise to serve for just one term if elected president was a calculated political strategy aimed at securing votes from the North.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday, Okonkwo said Obi understood the political realities of Nigeria’s power rotation debate and adopted the pledge to reassure northern voters who might feel marginalised if a southerner stayed in power for eight years.
“It was Atiku Abubakar who first said he was going to do one term. Then Peter Obi keyed into it because he knows that if he, as a younger person, does not make that promise, he loses the entire North,” Okonkwo explained.
According to him, the idea was to assure northern stakeholders that Obi would only complete the remaining four years of the South’s turn in power.
“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.’ That’s just the whole idea about it,” he added.
Okonkwo further disclosed that the concept of a one-term presidency was his brainchild, designed as a strategy for any opposition party serious about unseating an incumbent.
“I was the one who propounded it 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,” the lawyer stated.
He explained that Nigeria’s political balance makes the arrangement critical: “If you are a southerner and 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 and don’t agree to do one term, the southerners will say that means you want to cut us short early.”
Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, had publicly declared that he would serve only one term if elected president.
The former Anambra governor said his administration’s focus would be on stabilising the country, restructuring governance, and laying a solid foundation for economic revival within four years
