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THE SUN SUMMIT
Presidency and my 2011 fears
BY NOSIKE OGBUENYI
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
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President Yar'Adua
•Photo: Sun News Publishing |
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I am really pained by the agonies our dear President Umaru Musa
Yar’Adua is going through on his sickbed. When I was young,
I was advised to always sympathize with and possibly help the sick
because he who pities his fellow being in agony does himself a lot
of good in the sight of God.
That is why an Igbo proverb says that it is only a foolish person
who mocks the one-eyed man because no one knows who would be the
next person to lose an eye or become blind. The import is that we
should all be prayerful and sympathetic.
The above axiom shapes my attitude to the present health challenges
of our president. We have to show pity and pray for the sick, the
handicapped, the needy. That is how best to be human. Our president
is in pains and we should have imagination by putting ourselves
in his shoes. After all, the wise ones say that life is a process
of steady decline or aging if you like. And aging often comes with
sickness whether mild or severe.
Having said that, one must admit that what makes our president’s
case different from most cases is that he is in power. Power, they
say is the ultimate prize; the most alluring and infectious aphrodisiac
for man. He is not just another sick man, but he is the person holding
the highest and most potent instrument of authority in Nigeria.
So, his wellbeing is symmetrically tied to the wellbeing of Nigeria.
The reigning power that ceded the rulership of Nigeria to the newly
formed Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 1998 perfectly knew the
import of power, especially in a vast and complex country like Nigeria.
Everyone knows that the elections that ushered in the current democratic
era were held in April, 1999, but the deeper truth is that what
we had was a guided transition by which the PDP was the favoured
party to clinch the presidency. Yes, it won resoundingly in 1999
to the satisfaction of the out-going military junta headed by General
Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Then, the ruling clique had sat down and decided that a retired
General from the southern hemisphere of the country should be handed
the reins of power as president to usher in the current fourth republic.
The lot then fell on General Olusegun Matthew Obasanjo, a Christian
from Ogun State in Southern Nigeria. He was released from the gulag
in Yola and drafted into the presidential race on the PDP platform.
With officialdom’s secret helping hand, he won both his party’s
nomination and the presidential election proper. The formula worked
perfectly.
Obasanjo’s party, PDP, enshrined in its constitution that
the presidency shall rotate between the north and south of Nigeria.
It is a provision that currently has no place in the constitution
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The national constitutional
conference of 1994/1995 had actually recommended the inclusion of
rotational presidency in the country’s constitution but the
administration of General Sani Abacha saw enough reasons to expunge
the provision from the draft which it approved. The succeeding Abdulsalami
regime upheld the document and proclaimed it as the 1999 Constitution
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The constitution allows a maximum
two terms of four years each for the president of the country.
No other party other than PDP has rotational presidency enshrined
in its constitution. Within the PDP and the polity, the system proved
a psychological elixir to many giving them hope that one day, it
would be the turn of their own part of the country to produce the
president. The PDP, exuding with conviction that it has the best
formula for power sharing in the complex country declared that it
would rule Nigeria for 60 years (the incumbent national chairman
of the party, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor said that much).
An exultant Professor Ahmed Alkali, the national publicity secretary
of the party declared recently that in 2011, there will be no vacancy
in Aso Rock. His declaration was probably informed by the fact that
Yar’Adua’s predecessor, Obasanjo served two terms from
May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007. Obasanjo handed over to President
Yar’Adua on May 29, 2007. Ordinarily, Yar’Adua is therefore
expected to serve two terms like Obasanjo. In the estimation of
Alkali and many others, Yar’Adua will definitely seek re-election
in 2011 as Obasanjo did in 2003. And if re-elected, his (Yar’Adua’s)
second and last term will end on May 29, 2015.
While the president’s admirers and second term campaigners
were busy strategizing on his re-election in 2011, the unseen hand
of nature was at work weaving what may differ from their widest
imagination. An indication to this effect emerged early last week
when the man wearing the crown, Yar’Adua, was flown abroad
for medical treatment. Yar’Adua, 58, is being treated for
acute pericarditis (an acute heart disease), in King Faisal Specialist
Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Yar’Adua’s
health reportedly deteriorated in the last three weeks, keeping
him out of public glare for nearly as long.
With the president’s state of health, the PDP, on whose platform
he was elected in 2007, is certainly in a quandary as to how best
to plan and reposition for the approaching 2011 presidential contest.
If Yar’Adua is unable to run in 2011 as a result of poor health,
then the PDP would be facing daunting internal constitutional challenges.
The same scenario would arise if (God forbid) anything happens to
the president before the 2011 presidential election by way of transition
from mortality to immortality. If the latter situation arises, will
Yar’Adua’s deputy, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan,
a southerner, be allowed to not only succeed him but seek election
as PDP presidential candidate in the 2011 poll? Already, there are
speculations that Jonathan is under pressure to sign an undated
letter of resignation.
If Yar’Adua stays alive but is unable to run for the presidency,
will the north accept it in good faith for him to hand over the
baton of power to a successor from the south? If the north insists
on nominating another northerner to complete its turn of eight years,
won’t that be a contravention of the north-south spirit of
rotation in PDP? It would entail a northerner handing over to another
northerner. Invariably, many would view that as a negation of the
spirit of rotation as conceived by the founding fathers of PDP.
Conversely, if it is agreed that the PDP should nominate a candidate
from the north to complete the eight years for the zone, what will
be the guarantee that the candidate so nominated, if he gets elected,
will not be tempted to seek re-election in 2015 thereby increasing
the number of years power would reside in the north to 12.
These are grey areas and puzzles PDP egg heads and leaders should
begin to ponder if the party must not find itself in a precarious
situation should the unforeseen happen. If the opposition groups
fail to put their camp in order by forming a formidable alternative
platform (say mega party) to take over power from PDP in 2011 if
it finds itself in such a fix, then Nigeria may be in for a turbulent
political weather in 2011.
Already, the uncertainty over the president’s health and the
attendant political calculations by power groups, as already stated,
are said to have put Vice President Goodluck Jonathan under intense
pressure. But section 146 (1) of the 1999 constitution provides
that: “The Vice President shall hold the office of President
if the office of President 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
sections 143 or 144 of the constitution”.
Against the backdrop of the present scenario, the leadership of
the ruling PDP has an intricate task in its hands to expertly extricate
the country from the impending logjam. If the helmsmen of the PDP
know that Yar’Adua is no longer medically fit to continue
to function in the capacity of the president in the first place,
then they should muster the guts to so declare so that the aforementioned
sections of the constitution will come into force.
Even though I don’t really hold the PDP or Obasanjo blameworthy
for selecting Yar’Adua as candidate in the April 21, 2007
election, some concerned Nigerians are beginning to suspect that
certain members of the inner caucus of the ruling party might have
been privy to his failing health then. And not a few patriots can
still recall how Yar’Adua collapsed in the heat of the 2007
electioneering campaign for the presidency and had to be rushed
to Germany for treatment. Just like it happened last week when rumor
mongers had it that the president had passed on, rumours became
rife amongst anxious Nigerians that the then PDP candidate had given
up the ghost. Infact, in the 2007 incident, it took the assurance
of the out-going President Obasanjo through a phone call to ailing
Yar’Adua, relayed live on a network radio service, to douse
the apprehension of Nigerians. Obasanjo had asked ailing Yar’Adua
in that epoch phone call, “Umoru, are you alive or dead?”.
Today, if the PDP leaders are capable of gauging the mood of Nigerians
correctly, then they would have to do more to prove to the people
that Yar’Adua is fit enough to face the grueling demands of
the office of the president of Nigeria. Again, if he is not strong
enough to undertake the rigours of electioneering campaigns across
the length and breadth of the country, the PDP goons should come
to grips with the fact fielding him for the 2011 election would
approximate to a recipe for failure at the poll. The Nigerian voters
are getting wiser and more courageous by the day. They are also
beginning to overcome some of the barriers that had been dividing
them. The 2011 presidential election may thus turn out a different
kettle of fish from that of 2007.
This time the electorate will more likely insist on who they consider
the best for the country – someone who is rounded and as fit
as a fiddle to elect as president. That is not to pronounce Yar’Adua
unfit for the race or to posit that being incapacitated has become
a crime. No. It is just that it would amount to a mismatch to pit
someone who is afflicted with a chronic cardiac disease, for instance,
against Usain Bolt in a 100 metres dash. The outcome will be too
predictable if the rules of the game are applied by the umpires.
Recent experience in some parts of the country where elections were
held, are pointers that if the people’s wish is subverted,
they may be forced to take their destiny in their own hands by rising
in their large numbers against the vote thieves.Before Obasanjo
One of the great achievements of the PDP is that itWhat is happening
today as per the president’s deteriorating health condition
will go down as one of the lessons from our democratic quest. It
was not envisaged, at least overtly by the PDP that the kind of
situation that is likely to develop with regard to the president.
Behaving as if two plus two is always four in democracy or that
there is no God, the PDP had
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