· Peter Obi can make a difference in four years, argues KALU OKORONKWO
· In a political environment where the presidency is often treated as the ultimate prize: an office to be captured, consolidated and, where possible, retained, the proposition that a president could deliberately limit himself to a single term sounds less like conventional politics and more like a provocation. Yet, that is precisely what former Anambra State Governor and the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Peter Obi, has put on the table.
· Predictably, the proposition has generated skepticism. Can four years be enough to govern Nigeria? Can a president confront insecurity, corruption, unemployment, infrastructure deficits, educational decay, healthcare challenges and an increasingly complicated economy within a single term? The answer to these questions is obviously no, but that may be a wrong question by all permutations. But there is a “but”. I shall come back to this.
· The more important question is: Can one term of four years be enough to restart the country, repair her institutional decay and place her on a trajectory that succeeding administrations would find difficult to reverse? Or, put differently, what if four years is not enough to solve Nigeria’s problems but is sufficient to change the conditions that makes going back to the years of infamy practically impossible?
