Fearing that the vacuum created by the absence of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua may spell doom for the country’s democracy, a decision may be taken this Tuesday. A political solution that will see Vice President Goodluck Jonathan take over the mantle of leadership has been arrived at in Abuja.
The move, which confirms speculations in the media at the weekend, will see the country’s 36 Governors meeting with Senators and working out a solution that may lead to the unprecedented step of swearing in the Vice President as Acting President.
But in the heat of all the enthusiasm, one principal officer of the Senate was circumspect. He confirmed that the lawmakers would meet with the State Chief Executives, but was at a loss on how the new deal will be put together. “When they come then we will know what it is all about,” he said.
He admitted that it would be impossible to do anything outside the 1999 Constitution. “May be they will come up with a novel idea but it has to be something that is not outside the constitution,” he said.
He added rather wryly that may be it would be necessary to buy many copies of the constitution for everyone at the meeting to leaf through on Tuesday.
It was gathered yesterday that the decision to take the step followed the adamant posture of the President in transmitting a letter to the National Assembly that would allow Jonathan hold the forte in his absence, which enters its 78th day today and its 80th on Tuesday.
Senate spokesman, Senator Ayogu Eze, unusually had his phone lines off yesterday, but one of his colleagues from the South-South geo-political zone, who offered to speak on condition of anonymity because, Senators from the area had chosen to maintain a studied public silence, said rather ominously: “Every nation has a milestone that needs a decision, and we have reached that milestone. We have to decide whether to remain as one or whether we want this democracy.
“You people (journalists) will have a job whether it is a democracy or the Army is in power, you will continue to write. As for us, if anything happens we have nothing again, so we have decided to save the chamber.”
The Senator would not make any clear statement on what will happen on the floor next Tuesday.
But a source close to the Senate Leadership told The Guardian last night, “they will meet on Tuesday and take a decision. The Governors will come to meet the Senators and take a decision to empower the Vice President.”
He disclosed that the “political solution” was being used because “nobody wants the President to be impeached, they do not want to go that way because the fear is there that the House of Representatives may scuttle it.”
Reminded that the 1999 Constitution did not make room for the option, the source said, “that is why it is a political solution.”
Last Friday, governors of the 36 states of the federation, under the Governors’ Forum, were at the Presidential Villa in Abuja for a solidarity visit to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan and announced plans to visit the National Assembly this week to press home their resolve that the lawmakers pass a resolution that would enable the Vice President assume the power of an Acting President, pending the return of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
A source at the Villa disclosed that the governors discussed with Jonathan the possibility of his being sworn in late on Tuesday, with the understanding that they would have persuaded the National Assembly to pass the resolution earlier that day.
Chairman of the Forum, Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State and his Akwa Ibom State counterpart, Godswill Akpabio, said the position being canvassed by the governors was a unanimous one.
According to Saraki: “We associate ourselves with the court ruling that has been given, concerning the President and the Vice President, and that we also agreed to meet with the leadership of the National Assembly to urge them to pass a resolution recognising the Vice President as the Acting President of the nation.
Asked the response of Vice President to their position, Akpabio explained: “He was happy with the decision of the governors that yes, while he is praying for the President to recover, there is need for a more assertive action and for us to bring all these publications in Nigeria to an end.
“This is because we must re-emphasise that the constitution made it clear that there is no vacuum and in order to give teeth to the fact, that there must not be vacuum.”
Cross River State Governor Liyel Imoke, on his part, stressed the need not to allow any vacuum in the Presidency, especially when President Yar’Adua and Vice President Jonathan share a joint mandate from the electorate.