President's Prolonged Absence: The Way Forward.

Introduction:
The prolonged absence of the president from the country has no doubt seriously hampered the inner workings of President Yar’Adua’s administration because many policy decisions which were to get the consent of the president were left unattended to. This was even made more complicated because the president did not hand over properly to his Deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, before embarking on his latest medical trip to Saudi Arabia.

Going by the spirit of the 1999 Constitution, if President Yar'Adua had written a letter to the National Assembly it would have automatically paved the way for Vice President Jonathan Goodluck to properly take over power as Acting President in line with Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution which says:

"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."

Even though section 145 did not say what happens in a situation where the president fails to transmit such written declaration to the legislature as is presently the case. It is obvious that the formulators of the constitution did not contemplate that the country should be without somebody at the helm of affairs at any time, that is why section 146(1) stated clearly who should hold forth in the absence of the President.

The said section states as follows:
“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 section 143 of this Constitution”.

The framers of the constitution equally believed that those who would hold such high public office as strategic as the presidency would not ordinarily refuse to hand over power temporarily when they are on vacation or on sickbed knowing fully well that they do not lose such positions for the mere fact that they went on vacation or medical treatment. The framers of the constitution provided for the office of the Vice President in order to forestall the present situation in which we find ourselves as a result of President Yar’Adua’s refusal to hand over power to his deputy. That act in itself is a grave constitutional breach amounting to gross misconduct.

International Best Practice:
In other jurisdictions practising similar model of democracy such as ours, the honourable and most reasonable thing for an ailing President to do is to hand over power temporarily to his deputy when he knows that his health may be a barrier to carrying out his official functions.

For instance, two presidents of the United States (U.S.), found themselves in situations similar to ours. President Ronald Reagan underwent a colonoscopy procedure in July 1985, during which a villous adenoma, a pre-cancerous tumour, was discovered in his body. Before the operation, he told his countrymen that:
“I am about to undergo surgery during which time I will be briefly and temporarily incapable of discharging the constitutional powers and duties of the Office of the President of the United States.”
He then transferred his constitutional powers to then Vice President George Bush, (senior).

Again the second case was that of President George Bush, junior. He was scheduled to undergo a colonoscopy procedure on June 29, 2002, when he was expected to be under light sedation. Bush transferred his constitutional powers to then Vice President Dick Cheney. The U.S. was at war at the time and Bush was quoted as saying,
“I did so because we’re at war and I just want to be super – you know, super cautious.”

Implications of the President’s Absence:
The confusion and the unnecessary heating of the polity could have been avoided if President Yar'Adua's aides had advised him properly on the political implication of his not writing a letter to the National Assembly before jetting out of the country.
Consequently, anarchy is now the order of the day in governance of the country as the Vice President who should ordinarily be in charge of Government by the clear provisions of the Constitution is divested of all authority to call errant ministers to order. In what looked like a test of his authority last month, petroleum minister Rilwanu Lukman defied the vice president’s order to forgo the Christmas holiday and stay behind in Abuja to find a solution to the fuel problem, which surfaced suddenly early last month.

Lukman’s defiance of the vice president is a clear cut indication that the country is on auto pilot, with no one monitoring the actions of ministers, and the machinery of government has indeed grounded to a halt. The only reason the petroleum minister could have told off the vice president is because he knows the Vice President lacks the constitutional power to issue any directive to him, since he is not recognised as the acting president.
Conclusion:

The President’s negligent refusal to properly hand over power to his deputy thereby plunging the country into chaos and anarchy and generally grounding the governance of the country to a halt, with due respect, is a grave violation of the Constitution which tantamount gross misconduct and by the provisions of section 143 of the constitution, is an impeachable offence. Gross misconduct according to section 143(11) means:
"A grave violation or breach of the provisions of this Constitution or a misconduct of such nature as amounts in the opinion of the National Assembly to gross misconduct”.

The omission by the President in concert with the Federal Executive Council, is also an abdication of their constitutional responsibilities which should necessitate the invocation of section 146(1). The National Assembly members that have sworn to protect the Constitution must act decisively and without sentiments in order to resolve the constitutional crisis occasioned by this flagrant disregard of the constitution by the President and his aides.

The way forward clearly are; since the Federal Executive Council have decided not to carry out their constitutional function of passing a resolution on the state of health of the President and allowing the National Assembly to verify the state of health of the President pursuant to section 144(1)(b) of the Constitution. Therefore the National Assembly should either treat this infraction of the Constitution as gross misconduct and impeach the President for abandoning the ship of state rudderless; or, invoke the provisions of section 146(1) and treat the President’s prolonged absence from his constitutional responsibilities due to ill-health as amounting to permanent disability within the context of section 146 of the 1999 Constitution.