President Buhari Won’t Seek A Third Term

👤 By Abdul Tukur, DENISAURUS News

President Muhammadu Buhari has announced that he would not seek a third term in office, stating that it would be a mistake to do so.

There have been speculations that President Buhari, just like the only other head-of-state who became a civilian President, might try to amend the constitution in order to run a third term in office, an allegation he denies.

The 76-year-old Nigerian President, who began a second four-year term in May 2019, acknowledged that the “constitution makes provision for only two-terms.”

Speaking at a meeting with the National Executive Committee of the All Progressives Congress, APC – the party which brought him into power first in 2015, President Buhari noted that after 2023 he “won’t be needing anybody’s vote.”

“I said you should read the Constitution,” he said: “because I’m not going to make a mistake of attempting a third term. Besides the age, I am not going to contest for third term because I will go by the Constitution. The Constitution says two-terms. I’m going to be frank here because I won’t be needing anybody’s vote.”

A spokesperson for President Buhari has also denied a third term agenda will happen.

Garba Shehu, Senior Media Aide to the President, was responding to “demonstrations asking President Muhammadu Buhari to do a third term.”

In a statement to the press, he noted that “there are no circumstances – nor set of circumstances – under which President Buhari may seek to amend the Constitution regarding the two-term term limit on holding office as President.”

The President who lost several elections, before he successfully defeated an incumbent – the first time in Nigerian history, thinks leaders of the APC have to work hard to sustain the party when he is no longer in charge.

He has charged them to start looking for a successor in the next 18 months time.

But, the APC who recently won two elections that took place in Bayelsa and Kogi, many believe, might crumble after President Buhari leaves office.

Indication of the rift that would consume the party is starting to appear, with many leading members of the party asking for the resignation of the party chairman.

Adams Oshiomhole, who once had to scale a fence to avoid the wrath of furious members, is accused of causing a criss in Edo state.

The call for the resignation of the chairman resurfaced hours before the President addressed party faithfuls in Abuja.

In May this year, Mr Oshiomhole, a former governor of Edo who is also accused of causing the party’s defeat in Zamfara, also faced calls to step down from a senior member of the party.

In a six page letter, Lawal Shuaibu, Deputy National Chairman, North, blamed by Mr Oshiomhole for the party’s defeat in Zamafara.

Alhaji Shuaibu, an indigene of Zamfara, said in other climes when people “fail to add value over what they met on assumption of duty show civilised example, they honourably bow out.”