Veteran actor and politician, Kenneth Okonkwo, has claimed that the promise by former Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to serve only one term if elected was a calculated political strategy aimed at securing support from the North.
Okonkwo made the remark on Friday during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, where he argued that no opposition candidate can unseat an incumbent president without presenting such a compromise.
According to him, Obi recognized that without the one-term pledge, he risked losing significant votes from the northern region.
“So I brought the theory as a way for any opposition party to inspire Nigerians to know that each side will not lose when they make any choice, whether north or south,” he explained.
The lawyer and politician further recalled that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had first floated the idea of a single-term presidency, which Obi later adopted.
“Peter Obi keyed into it because he knows that if he, as a younger person, does not make that promise, he loses the entire North. So it’s purely a political strategy to say, ‘Look, I am not going to cut the eight years. I’m not going to shortchange you. So if I am elected, I will just do only four years to complete the eight years of the South.’ That’s just the whole idea about it,” Okonkwo added.
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