"Goodluck Jonathan ready to forgo second term ambition, if..." - Presidency

The Presidency on Wednesday said President Goodluck Jonathan was ready to forget his ambition to run for second term in 2015 if the Senate passed its proposal for a single non-renewable six-year tenure into law.

Though Jonathan had made half-hearted denial of his ambition for another term in office, the body movements of the President and his loyalists had clearly shown that he was preparing to run in the 2015 general election.

But the President’s Special Adviser on Political Matters, Dr. Ahmed Gulak, said the ambition to stage a return would be shelved if Senators decided in favour of a single term for the President and state governors.

Gulak said, “Nigerians will remember that it was President Jonathan that suggested an idea of a single term tenure from the beginning. So if the proposal becomes a law, the credit should go to the President.

“If it becomes a law and is enshrined in our constitution, the President and everybody will be bound by the provision of that law. Let us wait and see what happens.

“We are not seeing the move as a way of stopping President Jonathan from re-contesting in 2015. The law cannot be made because of one individual.

“When it takes effect, everybody will be bound by it.”