Nigerian lawmakers recommend 3rd term for president

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Mar 10 (Reuters) A Nigerian committee of lawmakers will recommend a constitutional change that would allow Olusegun Obasanjo to stand for a third term as president of Africa's top oil producer, the committee chairman said.

Under the constitution as it stands, Obasanjo has to step down next year after two terms of four years. This would mark the first time one civilian president hands over to another in Nigeria's 47 years of independence.

''The third term option was adopted,'' committee chairman Ibrahim Mantu told reporters yesterday during a break in proceedings in the southern city of Port Harcourt.

The recommendation is one of several proposed amendments to the 1999 constitution that will now be put as a bill to the National Assembly and would need a two-thirds majority to pass into law.

A campaign by Obasanjo's supporters to allow for a third term has been hugely divisive for Africa's most populous nation, where at least 14,000 people have died in political, religious and ethnic violence since the restoration of democracy in 1999.

It is opposed by many politicians in the Muslim-dominated north, because they had expected to inherit power after eight years of rule by Obasanjo, a Christian southerner.

But many state governors, even in the north, support it because they expect to benefit from any extension in tenure.

REGIONAL RIVALRY Rampant corruption in government has fuelled rivalry between regions and tribes in Nigeria, where political office comes with discretionary power over billions of dollars of oil revenue.

The committee will also recommend an increase in the share of oil revenue kept by the oil-producing states of the southern Niger Delta from 13 to 18 per cent, Mantu said.

More control over the delta's oil resources has been a key demand of militants waging a three-month campaign of sabotage and kidnapping against the world's eighth largest oil exporter.

The committee has been meeting behind closed doors since Monday, and is expected to wrap up its recommendations by today.

Members expect the constitutional review to be proposed as a bill to the National Assembly at the end of March. It would then be voted on in all 36 state houses of assembly, where it would also need a two-thirds majority to go through.

The committee has yet to discuss the clause on legal immunity for politicians, which Obasanjo wants to expunge from the constitution but many governors want to keep.

Obasanjo has accused many state governors of corruption, but some have successfully invoked the immunity clause to escape sanction. They argue he is using his anti-corruption campaign to get rid of political enemies.

The committee's recommendations will now be discussed clause-by-clause in the National Assembly, which could change or discard any recommendation it chooses.

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