By Ochereome Nnanna
Section 145 of the
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, (As Amended) has this to
say about the power of the Vice President in the absence of the President:
“Whenever the President transmits to the President of
the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written
declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or that he is otherwise unable to
discharge the functions of his office, until he transmits to them a written
declaration to the contrary such functions shall be discharged by the Vice
President as Acting President”.
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| *President Buhari and VP Osinbajo |
Because of the cynical nature of Nigerian
politics which is sadly rooted in religion, ethnicity, sectionalism and
familial interests (factors that corrupt and debilitate our constitutional
democracy), a constitutional enactment as precise and self-explanatory as the
Section 145 is still made to seem hard to grapple with.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who has done very well in respecting the
Constitution by transmitting such letters to the leaders of the National
Assembly on each of the two occasions he went abroad to tend to his health
problems, however, introduced confusion into the issue when he said Vice
President Osinbajo would “coordinate” the activities of government in his
absence. The President was heavily criticised for this strange definition of
the status of the Acting President, though it hardly matters since it is the
Constitution, not the President that defines roles played by everyone in our
democracy.
This is the second regime in which our President had to be taken out of
the country for an extended stay out of power. When the case of the late
President Umaru Yar’Adua took place late in November 2009 he did not transmit
any letter as Buhari does. By February 2010, murmurs over a power vacuum became
cacophonous and Yar’ Adua’s handlers caused the British Broadcasting
Corporation to air an “interview” he granted to show he was not incapacitated.
