The erstwhile
President Goodluck Jonathan voluntarily offered to relinquish power to the
President-Elect as he then was, Gen. M. Buhari of All Progressive Congress on
May 28, 2015 in view of sportsmanship, unfortunately inconsistent with the
provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The APC
on the other hand strenuously rejected such a great benevolence sticking to the
formal date of May 29, 2015 as specified by the enabling Act and the
Constitution.
To the
officious bystanders out there, the President and PDP were manifestly inclined
to peace having lost out in an election, and prior to the formal announcement
of the winner voluntarily conceded defeat to APC and recently too, allegedly
offered to ‘hasten’ inauguration.
On the other
hand, APC could, without mincing words, be viewed as a group of ingrates who
strategically use any given opportunity to seek relevance under the guise of
'change'. Of course, it sounds unreasonable for the President-elect and APC to
have wilfully discarded such a golden offer of hand-over of power which it
ardently put in its best to acquire just a day to the inauguration date. Its
rejection of the juicy offer was simply on ground of inconsistency with the
Constitution. Impliedly, it portrays a full grasp of governance that power
(sovereignty) doesn't belong to a person and hence cannot be assigned
arbitrarily without due process.
Ordinarily,
such a rejection is no doubt, deficient of common sense, but in a democracy, amazingly,
a desideratum as the offer itself is imperatively an aberration, baseless and
unfounded. But why?
Democracy
connotes constitutionalism; a government strictly based on the provisions of a
written constitution in which deviation of any kind is impermissible. This
therefore implies that a constitutional government doesn’t
usually give cognizance to common sense approach or sentiments except where
discretions are permissible.
In the light
of this, Section 1 (2)(ibid) explicitly laid down the base upon which
government of the country will be formed. It provides that “the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall
not be governed, nor shall any person or group of persons take control of the
Government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the
provisions of this Constitution”.
The
Constitution in this vein, established the office of the President with a
four-year tenure at first instance subject to renewal if re-elected. Presently,
the person occupying the office is to emerge from a political party and paired
with a running mate who on inauguration becomes the Vice-President, and
exclusivelysucceeds the President within the years of the administration where
a necessity arises except where the office of the Vice-President is already
vacant or both are removed from office simultaneously in accordance with the
provisions of the Constitution.
Section 135 (1)(ibid) provides“... a person shall hold the office of
President until:-
(a) when his successor in office takes the oath
of that office;
(b) he dies whilst holding such office; or
(c) the date when his resignation from office
takes effect; or
(d) he otherwise ceases to hold office in accordance with the provisions
of this Constitution”.
In view of
this, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the Vice-President as he then was, took Oath of
Allegiance and Oath of office as President/Commander-in-chief of the Armed
Forces of the Federation succeeding President Umaru Musa Yar’dua
who passed on in office on Thursday May 6, 2010 in completion of his
administration billed to end May 29, 2011.
Section 135 (2)(a)(b)(ibid.)
provides that “the President shall vacate his office
at the expiration of a period of four years commencing from the date when he
took the Oath of Allegiance and Oath of office”.
Jonathan upon
completing the tenure of Late President Umaru Yar’ardua
contested the 2011 presidential election as the candidate of PDP (People’s
Democratic Party) along with other political parties, and was overwhelmingly
elected, and accordingly took Oath of Allegiance and Oath of office on 29thMay,
2011 as the President/Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation.
By implication, President Jonathan could voluntarily or otherwise only legally
cease to hold office as the President/Commander-in-chief within the ambit of
Section 135(1) above, and hand over power to a successor.
However, the
crux of the matter here centres on whom the hammer of successorship will
legally fall on in a situation wherethe President by mission or omission
decides to throw in the towelprior to May 29, 2015. This is however relative as
two options apply. First, as noted in Section 135(2) above, a President can
only vacate his office at the completion of four years or secondly, in a
situation any of the factors envisaged under subsection (1) of Section 135 (ibid.)
Interestingly,
the above two options albeit of the same status and effect, however, explicitly
differ in procedure. A salient distinction is that in the former, a
President-elect cannot be sworn-in without the Vice-President-elect unlike the
later. The former is also analogous to the present situation in Nigeria with a
four-year lifespanin which power is transferred based on the outcome of
electionwhich usually signifies the inception of a new republic, and therefore
only transfers power to the President-elect as declared by the electoral body
in the presidential election. Inevitably,the handover takes effect on the last
day of the incumbent government in accordance to the Constitution, and not any
other day, otherwise, a defective title is assigned.
On the later,
Section 146(1)(ibid) succinctly and exclusively empowers the Vice-President to
succeed the President within the life of the administration/tenure, thus: “the Vice-President shall hold the office of the President if the office
becomes vacant by reason of death or resignation, impeachment, permanent
incapacity or the removal of the President from office for any other reason in
accordance with section 143 of this Constitution”
except where the office of the Vice-President is also vacant.
In such
circumstance, Section 146(2) provides “the President of the Senate shall
hold the office of the President for a period of not more than three months,
during which there shall be election of a new President, who shall hold office
for the unexpired terms of office of the last holder of the office”. Suffice to say that until
the expiration of this administration which terminates on May 29, 2015, no
person outside the officials of the incumbent government mentioned above,
impliedly of the same political party, PDP can successfully be sworn-in as
successor of President Goodluck Jonathan. Anything outside this is tantamount
to coup d’état against the 1999 Constitution.
No doubt, Jonathan
had the constitutional right to voluntarily give up the sovereignty domiciled
in him prior to May 29, 2015 by either resignation or impeachment but strictly
to his Vice-President as a successor, and absolutely not to the President-elect
from another party based on the newly conducted election.
The APC-government’s
contract by virtue of the popular mandate in the presidential election on March
28, 2015 could only kick-start on May 29. It’s
a sacred mandate from the great people of Nigeria as laid down by the 1999
Constitution and the Electoral Act, and cannot therefore be reduced to a
presidential gift from outgoing to the incoming President for any reason
whatsoever.
Consequently,
the May 29, handover date signalling the expiration of the presidential administration
and inauguration of a new government is, at the moment, sacrosanct, and
therefore doesn’t come under the discretion of
anyone, be it political or magnanimously.
May Friday
29, 2015 was epoch-making particularly in Nigeria and Africa in general. A day
our nascent democracy takes a new dimension progressively as it is among the
developed nations. Indeed, gone are the days a leader sits insensitively tight
in office with no sense of accountability but absolute confidence on the power
of incumbency. The date is special to the majority of Nigerians as a day set
apart by statute for Nigeria to sign-up with the realities of dividends of democracy.
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