Atiku Abubakar’s Six-Year Rotating Presidency Proposal
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has proposed a six-year, single-term rotating presidency between Nigeria’s southern and northern regions.
In a letter to Deputy Senate President Jibrin Barau, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review, Atiku requested that his idea be examined as part of the National Assembly’s ongoing constitutional amendment process.
The letter, dated August 29, 2024 and made public last week, was signed by Atiku, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate for 2023.
The previous Vice President requested that paragraph ‘a’ be inserted to Section 130 (1) of the 1999 Constitution to read: “
The President’s office shall rotate among the Federation’s six geopolitical zones for a single six-year term, with the North and South serving for six years each.
He also requested that Section 135 (2) be altered to read: “Subject to the provisions of subsection 1, the President shall vacate his office at the expiration of a period of six years beginning on the date he was previously elected to such office.”
Abubakar has run for president six times over the last 30 years. In the 2023 election, he received 6,984,520 votes, trailing former Lagos governor Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who received 8,794,726 votes.
Tinubu was proclaimed the winner of the election and was inaugurated as President on May 29, 2023.
