Seyi Makinde, Governor of Oyo State has made a case for a single year term for political leaders, saying the nation needs to take a cue from the single term leadership of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN).
The governor, who won a second term in March, said this while reacting to PFN’s National President, Bishop Wale Oke’s claim that there is no second term in the leadership of the association.
The Bishop said this while delivering his welcome address during the opening ceremony of this year’s National Executive Retreat of PFN held in Ibadan, Oyo capital.
Makinde said Nigeria needs to learn from the single term arrangement.
He continued by saying when the opportunity arises for discussion on the topic, it would be realized that five or six years is enough to do whatever one proposes to do.
“I am hearing for the first time that there is no second term in the PFN. Maybe, we need to learn one or two things from that arrangement for our nation. I am a supporter of a single term structure. As a matter of fact, I did not want any second term and I told the fathers of faith that four years is not enough to do everything that you want to do bit it is long enough to make your own impact and go your own way.
“If we get opportunity to discuss this, I think five or six years single term, maybe five years will really be enough for most of us to do whatever it is that we are supposed to do,” he said.
Makinde also encouraged the citizenry to pray for the leaders irrespective of their differences and to be involved in partisan politics so as to work for their choices and preferences in the next election.
He said, “If we continue to make riff-raffs and people who are not as intelligent as us to keep making decisions for us, those decisions are binding on all of us.
Speaking on the emergence of a Muslim president and vice president which did not go on well with some people in the Christendom, he said it is ”impossible to continue to do the same thing, that is; waiting every four years when election comes, then expect a different result.
“The fathers of faith came to me and said that they don’t want a Muslim-Muslim ticket, we have an issue with it, I said well, tell me, where is the structure for your preference? I asked them. If you can show me the structure, then you have me. But also, let’s take a step back, because the party I belonged to chose a Muslim and a colleague of mine then, the governor of Delta State as a running mate.
“I said okay, this is very similar to where we were coming from in this past eight years. It is even slightly lower because previously, it was a Muslim and a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, now we moved to a Muslim and a Christian who is not a pastor.
“So, tell me collectively as a body of Christ, the gains if you cannot say it in very clear terms, then let us go back and make our own charter of demands, what is the vision that we have for the body of Christ within the Nigerian federation.
“And I still think that if we keep waiting every four years to do the same thing, we will be forced to choose from among those we have been presented and make decisions based on several factors. So, we must change our approach, not when it is a year to the election but from today,” he submitted.
