Peter Obi’s one-term pledge a tactical move to win northern votes – Kenneth Okonkwo

Kenneth Okonkwo, a former Labour Party chieftain and opposition coalition member,  has claimed that former Anambra State governor Peter Obi’s much-publicised promise to serve only one term if elected president in 2023 was a calculated political strategy aimed at reassuring northern voters.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday, Okonkwo said the pledge was never about personal ambition but about addressing Nigeria’s delicate power-sharing arrangement, which often determines the outcome of presidential elections.

“It was Atiku Abubakar who first said he was going to do one term. Then 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,” Okonkwo explained.

The lawyer-turned-politician said the strategy was designed to neutralise fears of domination in a country where zoning, informally rotating power between the North and South, remains a sensitive issue.

“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,” he added.

Okonkwo revealed that the concept of a one-term presidency for opposition candidates originated from his own political theory. According to him, any party that genuinely hopes to defeat an incumbent president must make concessions to avoid alienating key voting blocs.

“I was the one who propounded it as a theory, saying that any party that is serious about fighting an incumbent must have to say that whoever is going to contest should have to do one term so that no side will feel cheated,” he said.

He argued that Nigeria’s political balance makes the arrangement almost inevitable. “If you are a southerner and don’t agree to do one term, the northerners will say you want to do another eight years, which will offend the system. If you are a northerner and don’t agree to do one term, the southerners will say that means you want to cut us short early,” he explained.

Okonkwo insisted that the pledge was never an act of weakness but a deliberate move to build a national consensus in a deeply divided political environment.

Peter Obi, who contested under the Labour Party platform in the 2023 presidential election, announced that he would serve only one term if elected president.

The former Anambra governor emphasised that his administration would focus on stabilising the economy, reforming governance, and strengthening institutions within four years.