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Banking on a Morbid Assumption
-Present Yourself or Resign, Nigerians Urge President Yar’Adua*
Like the legendary falcon in William Butler Yeats’ poem, “Second Coming”, which lost its sense of direction in an unfolding maze, President Umaru Yar’Adua’s presidency appears irretrievably heading down the widening gyre of the politics of his lingering illness. After nearly three years in office, marked by poor health and five controversial medical trips abroad, some people appear to be running out of patience with the hide-and-seek game over the health of the president and what they say is the consequent lull in the pace of governance. Reactions over his present hospitalisation, “medical check-up” in official parlance, in Saudi Arabia climaxed with the audacious call for his resignation by a group of 53 eminent Nigerians from the six geo-political zones of the country on Tuesday, December 1.The coalition of activists, politicians, academics and outstanding professionals include: Balarabe Musa, former governor of Kaduna State; Olu Falae, a former presidential candidate and former minister of finance; Aminu Masari, a former speaker of the House of Representatives; Abubakar Umar, a retired colonel and former military governor of Kaduna State and human rights activist; Femi Falana, lawyer and human rights activist; Odia Ofeimun, radical poet; Nasir el Rufai, former minister of the Federal Capital Territory, and Pat Utomi, a professor, politician and human rights activist. In a press statement, the group asked the president to resign honourably or present himself for medical examination to determine his fitness for the job, according to Section 144 (1) of the 1999 constitution.
Section 144, Chapter 1V, of the same document stipulates that the president or vice president shall cease to hold office if: (a) by the resolution passed by two-thirds majority of the federal executive council of the federation it is declared that the president or vice president is incapable of discharging the functions of his office; (b) the declaration is verified, after such medical examination as may be necessary, by a medical panel established under subsection (4) of this section in its report to the president of the Senate and speaker of the House of Representatives.
Subsection (2) states: where the medical panel certifies in the report that in its opinion the president or vice president is suffering from such infirmity of body or mind as renders him permanently incapable of discharging the functions of his office, a notice thereof, signed by the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives shall be published in the official gazette of the government of the federation. Subsection (3) further states: The president or vice president shall cease to hold office as from the date of the publication of the notice of the medical report.
Subsection (4) defines the medical panel and its composition: The medical panel...shall be appointed by the president of the Senate, and shall comprise five medical practitioners in Nigeria – (a) one of whom shall be the personal physician of the holder of the office concerned; and (b) four other medical practitioners who have, in the opinion of the president of the Senate, attained a high degree of eminence in the field of medicine relative to the nature of the examination to be conducted in accordance with the foregoing provisions.
The G53 states that the president’s ill health “has had a negative impact on his ability to discharge the functions of the highest office in our nation. Within the last few months, he has been unable to attend to crucial affairs of the state at home and abroad, and whenever he has found time to do so, his judgement appears impaired by his ill health.” Against this background, the group pre-empts their own suggestion of allowing the medical panel to determine Yar’Adua’s fitness and further demands: “In any event, it went on we are of the view that the president should immediately and unconditionally hand over to the vice president to complete the current term of office and conduct the next general election on the basis of the report of the Electoral Reform Committee headed by Justice Mohammed Lawal Uwais.” The Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, was the first group to call on Yar’Adua to resign due to his protracted illness, which has diminished his presidency and Nigeria’s stature in international affairs.
However, Ibrahim Haruna, a retired general and chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, says that the call for Yar’Adua to resign is unconstitutional. “The Nigerian Bar Association as an institution is a legal entity preaching law. But is that the law? I don’t think their judgment and pronouncement is the law. Have they had declarations from those vested with medical authority as evidence of their pronouncement? I thought lawyers pronounced judgment on evidence. If he’s sick, anybody gets sick. You go and see a doctor. But they have no right to declare him incapacitated or whatever to warrant pressurising him to resign. That is not the law.” He feels that if the NBA is serious it should follow due process: “If they feel that strong about it, they should go to court for a declaration. This is what professional lawyers should do, not peddling opinions on the pages of newspapers.”It was not only the NBA that "peddled opinions"; the nation was awash with wild rumours, permutations and "consultations" in the wake of the president’s sudden departure to Saudi Arabia for "medical check-up" on Monday, November 23. Prior to that departure he could not present the 2010 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly as scheduled because the Senate and the House of Representatives could not agree on which chamber should host the annual event this year. For the past two budgets, the practice had been that the president was received by the Senate in full session and after the formalities the senators joined the reps in their Green Chamber, which is more spacious, for the budget presentation. But this year, the Senate president decided, with full support of the Senate, that the exercise must hold in the Red Chamber of the Senate, which cannot contain the full strength of the House of Reps, 360, and the Senate, 109. The reps refused; both houses had been at loggerheads since the reps refused to do a joint review of the 1999 constitution with the Senate due to a supremacy tussle over the chairmanship of the committee and six subcommittees. The reps insisted that they are not inferior to the Senate and will, therefore, not play second fiddle.
It was found that the presidency exploited this feud to find an escape route for an unfit Yar’Adua, who could not have borne the rigours of the budget presentation. In the absence of a consensus, his National Assembly liaison officer laid separate copies of the 2010 budget to the Senate and the House of Representatives. TELL’s investigation showed that before the quarrel over venue, which was alleged to be an afterthought, the stage had been prepared for the ceremony to be hosted in the House of Reps chamber. To underscore the precarious state of the president’s health, he was to enter from a back entrance instead of the normal front entrance. The red carpet had been laid at the back entrance. The magazine’s sources alleged that part of the security measure that would have been used to hoodwink the legislators was that the president would not be allowed to shake hands with anybody and he would have laid the budget on the table and not present it, as it were. He was not to be allowed to stand for a longer time. However, the allegedly contrived venue conflict saved the day and the president left for Saudi Arabia quietly in the shadow of the "conflict". That further enriched the rumour mill. Some alleged he was helped into the plane. Some said he was in a coma, and was in a coma at the Saudi hospital for about four hours, fuelling the rumour that he was dead. Some Nigerian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia helped spread the rumour and stampede.
However, the presidency moved swiftly to counter the mounting stampede. Barau Banye, the president’s personal physician, in a rare display of transparency revealed that he was suffering from acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining around the heart, the pericardium, causing chest pain and accumulation of fluid around the heart, pericardial effusion. Yar'Adua is alleged to be suffering from Churg-Strauss syndrome of which acute pericarditis is a complication. He is believed to have been suffering from the affliction since his tenure as governor of Katsina State. The day-to- day running of the state then was on the shoulders of his deputy, now the Nigerian ambassador to Saudi Arabia. According to medical authorities, Churg-Strauss can affect many organs, including lungs, skin, gastrointestinal system, kidneys, muscles, joints and heart. Complications may include:
• Peripheral nerve damage – Peripheral nerves extend throughout the body, connecting organs, glands, muscles and skin with the brain and spinal cord. Churg-Strauss syndrome can damage peripheral nerves (peripheral neuropathy), especially those in the hands and feet, leading to numbness, burning and loss of function. In some people, this damage may be permanent;
• Skin scarring – The inflammation may cause sores to develop that can leave scars;
• Heart disease – Heart-related complications of Churg-Strauss syndrome include inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart (pericarditis), inflammation of the muscular layer of the heart wall (myocarditis), heart attack and heart failure;
• Kidney (renal) damage – If Churg-Strauss syndrome affects the kidneys, one may develop glomerulonephritis, a type of kidney disease that hampers the kidneys' filtering ability, leading to a build-up of waste products in the bloodstream (uremia). This is the first time the presidency is being specific about Yar’Adua’s ailment.
Immediately he was taken to Saudi Arabia, many weird and wild succession schemes were floated in the media, possibly to gauge public tempers. One of these was that in the event of the permanent incapacitation of the president or death, the North might not want Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to succeed Yar’Adua. Incidentally, among those calling for adherence to constitution are some leaders from the North. It was widely reported that Jonathan might have been approached to agree to resign with Yar’Adua, in the event of that possibility. This morbid assumption is rejected by some people, principal among whom is Haruna. This faceless group that was using seemly harmless individuals to filter their plot to the media would prefer that David Mark, president of the Senate, takes over for the constitutionally allowed three months and organises a presidential election. Naturally, this caused anger and consternation in the South, especially the South-south where Jonathan comes from.
The magazine’s investigation, however, revealed some facts. Sources close to Jonathan confirmed that no approach whatsoever had been made to him, let alone "pressure" being put on him to resign. The character profile of the VP confirms that though he is humble and silent, he is not a coward, and cannot be made to sign such an agreement. It was also found that the wild scheme was not a ruse but that it was not actually a northern scheme per se, as the visible elders and leaders of the North rejected such a possibility. Haruna told the magazine it was a “contemplation of anarchy” not in tandem with the law of the land. He said that should Yar’Adua be found unable to continue in office, Jonathan must be sworn in as president.
That was not the calculation of a clique in the administration said to have been working against allowing Jonathan to step into the shoes of his boss. Sources say they were planning to have the vice president step down so they can make a choice from three options, one of which is constitutional. Were they able to pull it through for Jonathan to resign, some elements within the group wanted Mark to take over and supervise another election within three months. That is in line with the constitution. But some people are said to be opposed to that suggestion for three reasons. First, they suspect that proponents of the option are those who either want to benefit from the situation or want to sponsor their associates for the two offices. Second, some of them are afraid that another election so soon may spell doom for the PDP because of the general complaint that the Yar’Adua government had performed below expectation. They however said that they opposed the option for fear that it could bring about violence. Third, some opposed it for fear that Mark, a retired general, might get ideas and consolidate in office, using military tactics. Some are afraid of what they described as his “IBB tendencies.” They fear that if he conducts an election, the winner could be his preferred choice. Mark, a senator from Benue State in the North Central geo-political zone, is said to be an ambitious man, so his attitude as acting president cannot be guaranteed. That is why the second option of military coup was also not attractive.
Some people are said to have claimed that some elements in the military are only waiting for the whistle. But some others say apart from military coup being old fashioned, it could attract outrage from the populace, particularly from Nigerians who believe that military men in power are worse than politicians. They also insist that majority of the politicians may be at the receiving end, in the attempt by the military to build integrity for themselves.
The third option is the worn idea of interim government. Politicians continue to bandy this option in spite of the fact that it is alien to the constitution. What is apparent is that some of the power mongers are more interested in winning the political war, even at the expense of the constitution and tenets of democracy. This too is premised on the belief that the vice president would be persuaded to step down. However, that postulation may have been discarded in reaction to the uproar from the Niger Delta, concerned groups and opinion leaders.
Last Wednesday, a group of 19 eminent northerners, one each from the 19 northern states, in newspaper advertorials added their voice to that of Haruna and others: “We must stand by the constitution.” The group that includes Audu Ogbe, a former PDP chairman; Lai Mohammed, Action Congress publicity secretary; senators, reps, retired generals and retired senior police officers described the gambit as “arrant nonsense,” which was degenerating into “dangerous dimensions” with “the potential capacity for destabilisation.” Though majority of these people appear to be in the opposition, to the ruling PDP, their position rests on the need to stand by the constitution. In this case they are one with the ACF. For instance, like the ACF, they insisted that Jonathan must be sworn in “immediately” as president should Yar’Adua vacate the seat. “Any other ploy will have grave consequences for the evolution, unity and integrity of Nigeria.” They further urged all state institutions to show loyalty to the constitution “at all times.”
The Niger Delta people were shocked at the gambit, but not entirely unprepared. They had known of such a possibility when the kite was first flown in 2007 but with the recent gain in the amnesty programme they were amazed that some Nigerians could resurrect the idea so swiftly. Back in 2007, the Ijaw people had prepared some lines of defence for Jonathan, and even with the surrender of weapons by the militants, they are still capable of shutting down the economy in retaliation for any wrong. But the Joint Revolutionary Council, JRC, an umbrella group of major militant commands instantly issued a warning about the dark consequences of scheming out Jonathan. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, considered JRC’s reaction as premature. To MEND, it was just a joke not worthy of a response. Several meetings of Niger Delta elders, the Ijaw National Council, INC, and youths were held in Abuja, Warri and Lagos to prepare for any eventuality. Joseph Evah, president of the Ijaw Monitoring Group, warned politicians not to stampede the vice president out of office. It was only the swell of solidarity with the constitution from across the six geo-political zones of the country that assuaged the feelings of the Niger Delta.
Bariagha Amange, the senator representing Bayelsa East, expressed surprise that opposition to Yar’Adua is more from the North. “It is the same northern people looking for who will succeed him. Such plot consumed (Babagana) Kingibe; it’s still alive. I hope they will not do anything to eliminate the president. I’m surprised they want the president to go.” On the promoters of the plot, he said: “They are a cabal from the North; they are not working for the North but for themselves. They feel they are not getting what they want from Yar’Adua; they want their own person there.” On the Niger Delta, he said people were scared about what “these over-ambitious people will do.” He strongly believes that the constitution will be obeyed.
The Federal Executive Council, FEC, last Wednesday said that all the organs of government were working and that Jonathan was in charge of affairs. Dora Akunyili, minister of information, read a prepared statement: “The Federal Executive Council at its 46th meeting, held today, Wednesday 2nd December 2009, took notice of calls by some people for the invocation of the provisions of Section 144 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for Mr. President to resign his appointment on the ground of ill health. Council, having reviewed all the facts on the ground, unanimously resolved that there is no basis for the invocation of the provisions of Section 144 of the constitution, for the reason that the president has not been found incapable of discharging his functions. Council wishes to inform all Nigerians that all organs of government are functioning, and that government will continue to deliver.” Yayale Ahmed, secretary to the government of the federation, also stated of the G53: “They have been in government before and we know some of these people (and) what they have been doing... Nobody can teach us the constitution and its application, and when the time comes we will do it. You will cross the bridge when you reach the bridge, that is the issue, and if there are more information that requires dissemination in order to cool down the anxiety and the curiosity, we would gladly say it, but if it’s not necessary we cannot say it just because we want to play to the gallery.”
The magazine’s investigation further shows that the North may have done the cost benefit analysis of upsetting the constitution by frustrating Jonathan out and found the odds too heavy. For instance, the much needed oil revenue will be shut down by militants if Jonathan is forced out of power. They have come to the realisation that the only way out, apart from military takeover, is to follow the constitution. But those pushing for the ouster of Jonathan do not seem to bother about sentiments of constitutionality and they are not necessarily representing the interest of the North. They may have also contemplated instigating a military takeover but equally found the odds heavily against it.
The immediate beneficiary of the adherence to constitution is Jonathan. The vice-president, it is said, would serve out the remaining part of the tenure he shared with Yar’Adua, but may not be allowed to run in 2011. Though some people raised the fear that Jonathan may so speed up development efforts that the party may have a problem refusing him ticket, those who want the presidency to remain in the North by 2011 appear to have taken care of that. His own vice-president will take over. That is why the choice of a very senior member of the cabinet is said to have been made for him. The fellow is a bureaucrat, who also served in the administration of the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo
For Jonathan; his good luck appears to have once again saved him. But for how long? The thinking of the North is that if Yar’Adua could not continue in office, Jonathan should complete the tenure and hand over to another northerner in 2011. The Yar’Adua years will be written off and the North will do fresh eight years. The South-east and South-south do not like this a bit. They would prefer that a new northern president should do only the remaining four years and hand over to either of them. So to them and Jonathan it is better for Yar’Adua to recover and finish his eight years and hand over. Should he conclude Yar’Adua’s remaining term as president, Jonathan’s political career may come to a premature end. Will he, after being president, accept to return to the number two slot and play second fiddle for another eight years? Will the new president want to keep him? If he goes, will he still be relevant after eight years on the sideline to be in contention when power shifts again to the South? Not likely. So as PDP and the Senate engage in prayers for the quick recovery of the president, Jonathan should be in the front seat because in Yar’Adua’s recovery and return to work lies his own future.
Luckily, the Nationally Assembly leadership is in support of Yar’Adua. Any attempt to impeach him will not sail through, despite the overwhelming feeling of the legislators that his government is a failure. During the debate of the general principles of the 2010 budget, most of the senators expressed anger and disgust over the failure of the 2008 and 2009 budgets and felt government might not do better in 2010 if the machinery of governance was not overhauled. Yet when Victor Ndoma-Egba, deputy Senate leader, moved a motion to ask for prayers for Yar’Adua, which would have opened up the saga for debate, the senators rejected it. Some said they did not know Ndoma-Egba’s full intentions. That is curious because some sources insist that the leadership of the National Assembly is privy to the critical condition of the president, who a security source said might be in coma by the middle of last week. But on the suspicion that the presidency might keep Yar’Adua on life support, if necessary, while saying another thing to Nigerians, the senators said they would not allow that. They said that should the president not return after 30 days then the NASS would inevitably have to look into it.Be that as it may, it appears the chances of Yar’Adua getting a second-term ticket in the PDP are receding fast. If he survives till 2011, he will need to show a massive improvement in his health to be nominated by the ruling party. Already, the searchlight is on for possible replacements but most of the people being mentioned, except two serving governors -- one in the North-west and another in the North-central -- are not viable for now. So a real dilemma faces the PDP over who replaces Yar’Adua.
*Courtesy of Tell Magazine Nigeria
