What seems the next phase in the raging leadership crisis bet-ween President Olus-egun Obasanjo, and the Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, opened yesterday as the President finally declared the office of Vice President vaccant.
Obasanjo said Atiku’s replacement would be announced after he has made wide consultations.
Promptly, Atiku in a statement described the Presi-dent’s move as a coup against the constitution. Obasanjo�s action was sequel to the Vice president’s defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that brought him to office into the Action Cong-ress (AC).
Also last night, security officials from the State House, acting on the instructions of President Obasanjo, moved into Atiku�s official residences in Abuja and Lagos to remove all the official vehicles of the Vice President.
Atiku who is presently in the United States of America (USA), had last week emer-ged AC’s presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections few days after he formally joined the party.
Following Atiku�s defection, PDP had Friday asked President Obasanjo to invoke Section 142 of the 1999 Constitution and get a replacement for the Vice President following his defection to AC.
Obasanjo’s move has however, elicited disparate reactions as legal practitioners are divided over the legality of the actions.
The Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Mallam Uba Sani, who announced Obasanjo’s decision to sack his deputy while speaking with newsmen, said the move was spurred by Atiku�s abandonment of his official responsibilities.
The presidential aide added that the vice president had also deserted PDP, the party on which platform he came to power, the President and Nigeria with his defection to AC.
Sani also disclosed that President Obasanjo had already taken steps to inform the National Assembly and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of the decision he had taken.
Giving further insight into the trip to the US by the Vice President which he interpreted to mean abdication of office, the presidential aide said the Vice President had last week applied to President Obasanjo for and received estacode to enable him proceed on his annual leave in the US only for him to end up in Lagos the next day for AC’s national convention where he was nominated as its presidential flagbearer in the 2007 presidential elections.
He added that not only did the Vice President accept the offer, he went a step further by making derogatory rem-arks about PDP, the party on which platform he became the nation’s number two leader.
�It is instructive that the vice president in his acceptance speech at the venue of his nomination posited inter alia that the PDP was a dying party which had failed to properly deliver democracy dividends to the electorate.
�This posture raises the question whether his continued holding of the office can legally and morally be justified and more importantly whether the President can continue to delegate matters of state, as constitutionally envisaged, to the vice president in these circumstances,� Uba said.
Citing section 142(1) of the 1999 Constitution, Sani said by defecting to another political party, the vice president had raised constitutional questions, primary of which was the basis for his continued holding of the office.
The constitution, he said, seeks to promote cohesiveness and focus in the administration of government and wondered whether in the present context of Atiku belonging to an opposition party the constitutional expectation of consensus and cohesiveness would be met.
�The effect of Atiku�s declaration for another political party and consequent acceptance to run as a candidate of that party is the abandonment of the platform on which he was elected into power as well as a severance of his relationship with the President and the Party.
�The net implication is that at the moment, he lacks a platform that can allow him to continue to occupy that office, and the office is now deemed vacant. This satisfies the provision in Section 146 (3) ( C ) to the effect that the vice president�s seat can become vacant �for any other reason�, he added.
But the Vice President has described Obasanjo’s move as a coup against the constitution.
In a statement personally signed by him, he said: “It has just been brought to my attention that President Olusegun Obasanjo has decided to withdraw the rights and privileges conferred upon me by the Nigerian Constitution as the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
�This latest unilateral and reckless action by the President must be seen by all Nigerians as a coup against our constitution. The 1999 constitution which is the grund norm of our democracy does not give the President power to either declare the Office of the Vice President vacant or to withdraw the rights and privileges of the Vice President.
“I have instructed my lawyers to challenge this illegality in a competent court of law and I have also begun wide consultation with stakeholders in the nation to halt this sad and regrettable slide to tyranny and lawlessness.
�I implore all my supporters and well-wishers to remain calm and law abiding. We have entered another phase in our long and difficult struggle to entrench true democracy in our country and I am confident that the rule of law and constitutionalism will triumph.
�This is not about Atiku Abubakar. It is about democracy, rule of law and the future of Nigeria. Let no one be deceived about the ultimate objective of these anti-democratic forces. They are unrelenting in their desire to create a maximum leader for Nigeria who will turn our dear country into his private estate and make our strong and dynamic people his vassals.
“Throughout human history, leaders who in their delusion equate themselves with the state have ended up in ignominy and at great cost to their countries. We all have a duty to prevent this tragic fate for our country,” he said.
In another statement, the Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation said �any attempt to declare the Office of the Vice President vacant would be an exercise in political masturbation by a bunch of politicians who are incompetent at handling political differences without recourse to gangsterism and abuse of the nation’s constitution and the basic tenets of democracy.�
“There is nowhere in the Nigerian or the PDP Constitution where the party is empowered to declare the Office of Vice President vacant. The Nigerian 1999 Constitution which is the grund norm of our democratic practice is very clear about the process of impeaching a Vice President. “Section 143 of the Constitution clearly spells out the procedure for the impeachment of a Vice President by the National Assembly. “Section 146 which spells out all possible scenarios of the Office of Vice President becoming vacant and lists them as �by reason of death, resignation, impeachment, permanent incapacity or removal in accordance with Section 143 or 144 of this constitution.”
According to the organisation, none of these provisions gives any role to the political party as the PDP illegally assumed. “Section 142 of the constitution, on which the PDP based its illegal action, deals strictly with the nomination of a Vice President. It is trite in law that you cannot infer into the constitution what is not stated therein.
�No political party can arrogate to itself powers that are not conferred on it by the constitution. The Vice President of Nigeria was elected by Nigerians and no party can arrogate the sovereignty of the people which is vested in the National Assembly in this instance to itself. What the PDP assumed to have done is therefore null, void and of no effect.�
The group also took a swipe at Lagos-based lawyer, Chief, Gani Fawehinmi saying �the so-called legal opinion offered by the radical lawyer should be seen as the product of a confused and disoriented mind,� the campaign group said.
Fawehinmi on Friday told THISDAY that Atiku had lost his position as Vice President by virtue of Sections 142 and 146(3) (c) of the Constitution when he abandoned the party on whose platform he was elected.
Meanwhile, the Vice President has given reasons why he resigned from PDP. He said, �Nigerians would recall that technically I ceased to be a member of the PDP since 2005 when I was refused registration by the self appointed new leaders of the party during the ill-advised and unconstitutional membership revalidation exercise.
“It has now become very clear that the co-called revalidation exercise was designed to shut out from the party certain individuals considered likely to resist the bastardization of the party’s cherished values.
“Although when I publicly protested against my treatment, the party leadership promptly organised a show registration for me in my office in Abuja, anyone who is familiar with the party’s constitution knows that for the membership registration to be valid it has to be processed and signed by the ward chairman and other officials of the party at that level. In other words my registration in Abuja remains invalid.
�It was therefore a mere formality when the party in September this year decided to suspend me from the party for three months on the basis of my purported indictment by the spurious EFCC/ Administrative Panel Reports. A court of competent jurisdiction has now declared the so-called indictment null and void while another court has also nullified my suspension from the party,� he said.
But speaking with THISDAY Saturday night, on the declaration by the President that the office of the Vice President is now vacant, the President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), said the right thing for the President to do was to go to court to seek an order allowing him to declare the office of the Vice President vacant.
He said only the court is empowered to interprete the provisions of the constitution.
On the political side however, Agbakoba said, “if somebody ceases to be a member of a political platform which produced him, it is a matter of honour for him to resign. But that is on the political side.”
Mr. Fred Agbaje, said the PDP and President Obasanjo had the powers to declare the seat of Atiku vaccant and request for the conduct of a bye-election under section 109 (g) of the Constitution.
Also, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, AC said “just when we thought this lawless party and its visionless leaders have reached rock bottom in their acts of brigandage, they over-reached themselves by perpetrating the mother of all illagalities.”
Dec242006