The Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Soludo, has justified his controversial comment that politicians who vow to serve only one term in office should undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
New Telegraph recalls that the 2023 Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, had last week promised to spend a single term in office if elected President in 2027.
According to the former Governor of Anambra State, who is single presidential bid in 2027, said one term in office is enough for him to deliver good governance to Nigerians.
Speaking on Arise Television on Wednesday, Soludo argued that past politicians had made similar promises, but voters repeatedly rejected them at the polls.
Governor Soludo asserted that pledges like that are usually a facade, used to deceive the electorate, especially when campaign manifestos suggest the opposite.
Soludo recalled that in 2017, during his predecessor’s re-election campaign, certain politicians tried to exploit the one-term pledge as a strategy, but the electorate decisively dismissed the idea.
He said, “You see, I said that in the context of the debate going on in my state, in a context where you have established a process of zoning, and somebody wants to cut short that particular zoning.
“They come with this sweetener, ‘Oh, if you give me this, and then I will only spend this time.’ They know they were being disingenuous.
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“They came with that argument in 2017 when my predecessor was running for a second time. They came here and told Anambra, or some people promising us, including some people on the terrain today, that Anambra people were quick to see through the disingenuity of that kind of promise, and of course, voted massively.
“The fact is that we won 21 out of 21 local governments in that election. Nobody bought that crap, as it were.”
He added that despite the existing zoning arrangement, which rotates the governorship among the North, South, and Central senatorial districts, some politicians from the South are once again reviving the “one-term” promise ahead of the forthcoming election.
“And now again, we are in for another election, and some people are again, imagine in the same state I am from, the South and the North just finished, handed over to the South, and the South will serve its time, and then it will go to central. And now some people from the South senatorial zone are showing up… ‘If you vote for me, I will spend only one term’,”
The governor criticised the tactic, calling it misleading and disrespectful to the voters’ intelligence.
“Meanwhile, you see the manifesto that they are rolling out. You realise that even if they were to spend 20 years, they wouldn’t even scratch it. I mean, it’s just, I don’t know how to describe it. So you’re just taking the people to be…you’re just playing with the people’s intelligence. You just think everybody is a fool.
He continued, “If anybody’s saying that it’s either he is just being deliberately deceitful or there is probably something not working right upstairs to take the entire people of Anambra State as fools… then the person must have a mental issue.”
