Ondo State Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa has said that different legal interpretations exist regarding the constitutional provisions on the number of times a person can take the oath of office as governor.
Aiyedatiwa made the remarks during a media parley on Channels Television, where he addressed ongoing discussions about tenure limits and eligibility for future elections.
The governor noted that while some commentators insist the Constitution clearly restricts the number of terms a person can serve, legal experts have offered varying interpretations of how the provision should be applied in certain situations.
According to him, several lawyers have expressed differing views on whether completing a short unexpired tenure should automatically count as a full term.
He explained that he has read various opinions from legal analysts and commentators on the matter, as the debate continues to generate public interest.
Aiyedatiwa added that some people have raised questions about how the law should treat a situation where a governor only completes a small portion of a predecessor’s tenure.
According to him, “He quoted it rightly that I cannot run for office for more than one term, which he said was clearly stated, and then there’s the aspect of taking an oath three times. You see, different lawyers who talk about this same act argue differently. I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t want to go into discussions of, you know, but I’ve heard because I’m the person in question. I’ve read different kinds of positions of comments from different commentators. Somebody asked a question: if that unexpired tenure is 2 months, will you count that as a term? If it is one week, will you count that as a term? So those are issues. Now, when you say “taking oath,” somebody also said that the oath that was taken was not as an elective and that the act was talking about somebody not to be elected three times. That is what they’re trying to carry; that is the spirit of that.”
The governor noted that some commentators have asked whether a very short unexpired tenure—such as two months or even one week—should be regarded as a full term under the Constitution.
According to him, there are also interpretations suggesting that the constitutional provision focuses mainly on elections rather than simply taking the oath of office.
He explained that some legal analysts believe the intention of the law is to prevent a person from being elected governor three times, rather than strictly counting the number of times the oath of office is administered.See_More…