President’s Return: ‘Verify Yar’Adua’s signature’ – Legal Luminary
Africa’s most populous nation regains its place as the grand jester of the community of nations with the clandestine return of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Shrouded in secrecy, the President’s return was said to have been stage-managed by persons purportedly unknown
, who successfully deployed a detachment of over 300 armed soldiers to guard the airport route and escort a slow-moving convoy that left the airport around 2.30 a.m. – almost four hours after the air ambulance conveying the President touched down at the Nnamdi Azikwe airport of the nation’s capital Abuja.
First Lady in Charge of Government
In the hours that followed, the world watched incredulously as local headlines announced that the First Lady Turai Yar’Adua was in charge. “Turai checkmates Jonathan”, “Turai takes over”, ‘Turai takes Charge” were some of the headlines of newspapers, further fueling rumours that the President has long been incapacitated, perhaps brain-dead as NEXT newspapers reported on 10 January and that the First Lady has in fact been orchestrating a grand charade aimed at preventing the truth from being known, while she ruled the country by impersonating the President. On Monday, the Daily Trust newspapers reported that the Northern Union hailed the National Assembly’s decision to empower the VP as Acting President.
The President’s prolonged absence without leave had cast the nation into a power vacuum as he did not transfer power to the VP. After weeks of murmurings by an increasingly frustrated populace and on the eve of a planned protest match to the nation’s seat of power, the BBC aired a radio interview with a person said to be President Yar’Adua, claiming to be recuperating in Saudi Arabia. The identity of the speaker remains in question as the President had not been seen for weeks prior to the interview even by his closest aides. Under pressure to fill the power vacuum but reportedly living in fear of reprisals from the First Lady, rather than invoke the full weight of the law on a President who had effected bailed out on the country, the National Assembly sidelined the Constitution to arrive at a resolution that made allowance for Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to assume executive powers as acting president. Both the Senate and the House of Assembly cited the BBC interview as evidence in lieu of a formal letter written by the President to name the VP as Acting President.
Palace Coup
Two days after his arrival in the country, the true state of the President’s health remains unknown to the Nigerian public. NEXT newspapers report that the President remains confined in a prostrate state to the intensive care vehicle that retrieved him from the airport until a replacement ICU is installed on the grounds of the Presidential villa. This raises questions about who exactly is the commander in chief at the moment, as it is reported that the 300-man strong military force comprising two army units, as well as a battalion and Guards brigade that escorted the President’s convoy on arrival did not receive their orders from the Acting President’s office. There are also speculations that the Acting President might be under house arrest as his offices were searched by the State Security Service on Wednesday afternoon and sentries were assigned to guard the President’s seat ostensibly to stop the Acting President from presiding over the Executive Council meetings.
President Returns, Now what?
As a stalemate looms among the President’s loyalists and the swelling groups of persons genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of the nation, a statement posted on the US Diplomatic Mission Nigeria website and credited to US Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson welcomed the news of the President’s return but expressed concerns: “We hope that President Yar’Adua’s return to Nigeria is not an effort by his senior advisors to upset Nigeria’s stability and create renewed uncertainty in the democratic process”. In the statement, Secretary Carson said Nigeria is “extraordinarily important” and called on all concerned to put the health of the President and the best interests of the country and people of Nigeria above ambition or personal gain.
About-face
In a Press Conference in the late hours of Thursday, Senior Special Adviser to the President – Mr Segun Adeniyi, read a note purportedly from the ailing president hastily absolving the First Lady of any wrongdoing. Stating that it was unfair to accuse Turai Yar’Adua of taking over power, Adeniyi said the Acting President is the commander-in-chief “until the President returns to the office” and described the relationship between the president and his deputy as “very cordial”. Only yesterday, the President’s spokesperson pointedly referred to Mr Jonathan as Vice President in a public statement, a reference that many believed was meant to underscore the fact the First Lady was not planning on allowing the VP to continue as Acting President. Many now believe that the nation’s growing impatience with the First Lady’s duplicity has forced a change of tactics.
Not his signature
Amidst all the speculations, former Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Benin, legal luminary and Senior Advocate of Nigeria Professor Emeritus Itse Sagay has expressed doubts that the President actually appended his signature to the 2009 supplementary budget signed late last year while he was on his sick bed. Nigeria’s Sun Newspapers reports Professor Sagay as saying: “There has been so much manipulation, lies, deceit, arrogance and improper behaviour by a select group in his absence …anything is possible”. Sagay says he believes that a handful of people have “behaved like gangsters and kidnapped power”, adding that the National assembly did what they could to resolve the situation.
“Invoke the Constitution” – Save Nigeria Group (SNG)
Yesterday, the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) expressed dissatisfaction over the manner in which the President was smuggled into the country and remains in seclusion. Insisting that the situation be conclusively resolved with actions consistent with the provisions of section 144 of the Constitution, the Group also called on the Federal Executive Council to prevail on the President to address a joint session of the National Assembly and the nation or it would lead civil disobedience from March 3. On Wednesday, 89 senators voted to amend the Nigerian constitution, setting a time limit of 14 days as the period in which a sitting president can be away from the office. Two senators voted against the amendment that empowers the legislative council to appoint the vice president as an acting leader under those circumstances. The original text of the Constitution allowed the President to be away indefinitely. The amendment becomes law if passed in two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states.
