By Bayo Oladeji
Senior Correspondent, Abuja

The bone of contention was a fresh directive coming from the governors asking them to mount pressure on the conference to revisit the four-year two-term tenure adopted after the South-South and South-East and some delegates from the South-West had walked out in protest.

At a meeting held in Ibadan, Oyo State, the delegates were asked to ensure that the six- year single term is adopted instead but their counterparts from Lagos and Afenifere are not in the league as they were said to have resolved to team up with delegates from the North who favoured the four- year term.

“ We have all agreed to ask the conference to reverse itself over all the decisions made while most delegates from the South-South had left the hall or face our own walk-out. It is not any directive from the governors or President Olusegun Obasanjo”, Olu Alabi said.

Speaking further, he argued that it was unfair to allow such a decision to be binding and if that was the stand, then “most of us from the South-South would not endorse the report. The conference should reconsider its stand before we reconvene or face the consequence”.

But another delegate from Lagos said no delegate from the state would do President Obasanjo’s bidding adding: “He wants that six- year single term for his interest and with what he has done to us in Lagos, he should forget it”.

Checks also revealed in Abuja that those who want the North to corner the presidency for the same number of years like the South-West are the forces behind the speculation going on that the idea originated from the Presidency.

Zik Obi of Anambra State who shares this view declares “ I am not an Obasanjo man, I am against any extension of his tenure by a day but I support the six- year single term and what we are going to do is to ensure that we state it clearly that the incumbent would not be allowed. Those who think they had passed the decision are joking”.