NIGERIA’S PRESIDENTIAL VACUUM IN REAL TIME (NOV - DEC 2009)

Posted on 16. Mar, 2010 by The Muse in Issues, The Muse

NOVEMBER 22, 2009: President Umaru Yar’Adua leaves Nigeria for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for medical check-up.

NOVEMBER 26, 2009: President Umaru Yar’Adua is still absent and is therefore unable to read his budget proposal to the national assembly. It was the first time since the commencement of the Fourth Republic in 1999 that the sitting President did not personally perform the routine duty of reading his budgetary proposals to the National Assembly.

NOVEMBER 28, 20009: Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, is put under intense pressure from some of the country‘s power brokers to resign. Those behind the move, sources say, want to ensure that the delicate power sharing arrangement between the North and the South, which some military chiefs and politicians agreed upon in 1998, is preserved. Under the zoning arrangement agreed upon by the politicians of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, power is expected to rotate between the two regions at the end of two presidential terms.

NOVEMBER 29, 2009: The cheering news of a possible early return of President Umaru Yar’Adua to the country from his medical trip in Saudi Arabia was shattered when contrary information filtered through the political circles indicating that the president’s stay in the Arabian country would be further prolonged due to a relapse in his health condition.

DECEMBER 2, 2009: Nigeria’s federal executive council, the highest decision-making body of the government, says there is “no basis” for the president, Umaru Yar’Adua, to resign due to his ill health.Addressing the state house correspondents today, after the council meeting, the Minister of Information and Communications, Dora Akunyili, stated that “the federal executive council…took notice of calls by some people for the invocation of the provisions of section 144 of the 1999 constitution… for Mr. President to resign his appointment on the ground of ill health.” She added, “Council, having reviewed all the facts on ground, unanimously resolved that there is no basis for the invocation (of section 144)… for the reason that the president has not been found incapable of discharging his functions.”

Note: Section 144 (1) of the Nigerian constitution states that the president ceases to hold office if by a resolution passed by two-third majority of all the members of the executive council of the federation, the president or the vice-president is declared to be incapable of discharging his functions and that declaration is verified by a medical panel of five doctors including his personal physician.

DECEMBER 16, 2009: The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa (SAN) says President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua could perform his official duties from his sick bed at the King Faisal Intensive Care and Research Centre, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

DECEMBER 26, 2009: Nigerian terrorist attempts to blow up an airliner ariiving Detroit from the Netherlands. While the eyes of the world were fixed on Nigeria, she remained without a President and various parties withing the Nigerian governement struggled to put out a fire which only served to shed light on Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda and extremism in Nigerias muslim North.

January to February coming soon…