THE month of November 2009 marked a turning point for Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s political career and a wakeup call for all Nigerians with regard to the powers of Presidents as well as constitutional provisions guiding the conduct of Presidents and the relationship between them and their Deputies.

Emergent developments further proved to be a major test of character for Dr. Jonathan, and for virtually every power centre in the country including the military, civil society, parliament, the media, political parties, and ethnic nationalities. On November 23, 2009, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua left the country for Saudi Arabia. The original official explanation for his absence, which would later turn out to be terminal, was that he had gone on lesser hajj or umrah, which is a common practice among Nigerian Muslim leaders even if this advertisement of private morality has no connection whatsoever with their public conduct.

The President had made a few of such trips since 2007; concerns about his ill-health had also been a recurrent issue in his presidency. Indeed, before his Saudi Arabia trip, the President had reportedly complained about chest pain and fever shortly after returning from a Friday Juma’at service  in Abuja. Within 48 hours, word went round quickly that the President had died in Saudi Arabia, with many Nigerians demanding the whereabouts of their President and the exact status of his health.

On November 26, 2009, the Presidency was forced to issue a statement on the President’s condition. In a statement sent from the King Faisal Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Dr Salisu Banye, then Chief Physician to the President reported that “at about 3.00 pm on Friday, November 20th after he returned from the Abuja Central Mosque where he performed the Juma’at prayers, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua complained of left sided severe chest pain.

Preliminary medical examination suggested acute pericarditis (an inflammatory condition of the coverings of the heart)…It was then decided that he should take confirmatory tests at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where he had his last medical check up in August. The medical review and tests undertaken at the hospital have confirmed the initial diagnosis that the President is indeed suffering from acute pericarditis.” He added that the President was responding “remarkably well.” Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, Special Adviser (Media) to the President, further added that the President was indeed responding well to treatment and that the country would be regularly updated on his progress.

That however did not happen. Instead what followed was high-wire politicking with the country’s affairs and future. President Yar’Adua would remain in Saudi Arabia till February 24, 2010 about 93 days. Once the nature of his illness was announced, the entire country became more or less a hall of medical experts as it soon became public knowledge that acute pericarditis could take up to six weeks to treat. The experts on the subject however pointed out that given President Yar’Adua’s medical history complicated by problems with his heart and kidneys, it could turn to be a terminal ailment for him. One expert opinion stated that even if he survived, he would be in a vegetative state.

Where the President is likely to be away from his office for a period of time for health or vacation reasons, he is required by the Constitution to write formally to the National Assembly to that effect, and with this the Vice President is empowered to act on his behalf. Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution is explicit enough: “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.” President Yar’Adua refused to comply with this Constitutional provision, thereby leaving the entire country in a lurch.

What should have been an ordinary procedure, and an action taken in accordance with the Oath of office which the President took on assumption of office ended up polarising the Presidency and the rest of the country, with palpable threats to national stability. By November 30, a group of eminent Nigerians under the umbrella of G53, had called on the President to resign from office and allow the country to move ahead. This view was soon echoed by other stakeholders in the Nigerian project who felt that the country had suffered enough from having a sick President. Apart from the slowness of the administration, the country itself was beginning to look sick in the eyes of the international community.

In September, the president had travelled to Saudi Arabia to attend the opening of a university of science and technology and visit the King (in Nigeria, university teachers were on strike at the time!). He also could not attend a UN Summit of world leaders in New York, United States. In November, a scheduled state visit to Brazil had to be cancelled. Yar’Adua was Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); that body had to postpone its 37th summit twice because its incumbent Chairman was ill.

The effect on governance at home was worse as a pro-Yar’Adua group led by his wife Turai Yar’Adua, and others suddenly took over the reins of power and began to exercise power by proxy.  This group, the cabal as it became known, was said to have insisted that the Yar’Adua Presidency needed to be protected in the interest of the North. They wanted the state of confusion in the country to persist because to allow Goodluck Jonathan to hold power as Acting President, would amount to robbing the North of its claim to power. There were clear indications however that the cabal was interested in its own agenda, and was not acting in anyone’s interest. Indeed, there were voices of reason from the North who insisted that the laws of the land should be respected; former Governor of Kaduna State and leader of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) in fact called for the activation of Section 143 of the Constitution; that is impeachment proceedings against the absentee and invisible President. General Aliyu Gusau (veteran National Security Adviser) and other Northern leaders would also later step forward to help Jonathan maintain stability. Other Northerners who defended the rule of law included Mallam Yahaya Mahmud and Uba Sani.
This was a season however, when the irresponsibility of a segment of the Nigerian political elite was well-advertised. Michael Aondoakaa, Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice at the time had argued shamelessly that the President of the country could exercise power from anywhere in the world, whereas there is no such thing in the country’s Constitution. Pundits drew attention to models from other parts of the world, but the Yar’Adua cabalists stood their ground. Rather than the law of the land being respected, what was soon became an issue was Goodluck Jonathan’s continued stay in office. There were allegations that he was being pressurized to resign his position as Vice President, to prevent the South South from benefiting from Yar’Adua’s ill-health.

The game plan as revealed was for the Senate President, David Mark, to take over as Acting President and then organize elections within three months.  This caused some tension in the polity. The Ijaw Monitoring Group, the Ijaw National Congress, and the Joint Revolutionary Council, a wing of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), also representing the Reformed Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, and The Martyrs Brigade issued a statement that if Jonathan was forced to resign instead of the Yar’Adua group respecting the Constitution, there would be anarchy in the land. The seed for the later division over the politics of zoning within the PDP had been sown; the country on account of one man’s illness was already tottering on the brink. The Nigerian Rally Movement (NRM), an NGO also rose in Jonathan’s defence. The Lawyers of Conscience also later issued an ultimatum asking Yar’Adua to resign.

Apparently to douse the tension, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, through his Special Adviser Media (Ima Niboro) described reports of his alleged plan to resign as “false and mischievous”. The general public was advised to discountenance such “drivel.” But it would soon be clear to all and sundry that Vice President Jonathan (as he then was) was having a running battle with those who did not want him in power. In February 2010, close to three months after the President’s absence, Jonathan’s Ima Niboro would again issue a statement in response to allegations that his boss, anxious to become Acting President had lobbied and bribed state Governors and Federal lawmakers with $2 billion and another N300 million.  

Niboro wrote about “a campaign of calumny” against Jonathan. The real calumny however lay in the resistance of Jonathan’s authority by Yar’Adua’s Ministers. In spite of the regime of uncertainty in the country, Jonathan whose strength of character and loyalty were the high points of this troubled season tried as much as possible to hold the reins of power. On November 27, he told the country that he had spoken with his boss a day earlier and that he was hale and hearty. “He is okay”, he said. During Sallah, he played host to Muslim leaders. In a 2009 Christmas message he thanked Nigerians for their prayers for Yar’Adua’s recovery which he said was “having a good effect”, asking them not to relent.  There were so many calls for prayers for the ailing President during this period: the Arewa Consultative Forum, Vincent Ogbulafor, then PDP Chairman, and all kinds of persons. Jonathan did his best to hold the government together, but he was grossly handicapped.

The Ministers treated him casually. The Constitution requires the cabinet in the event of the President’s incapacitation to so declare and thus activate Section 144 of the Constitution. But the Ministers were reluctant to act in the national interest. In September 2009, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Baba Gana Kingibe was reportedly relieved of his position for conducting himself as a possible replacement for Yar’Adua. When the ailing President returned to the country, Kingibe was sacked. And so every Minister played safe. Jonathan presided over the Wednesday Federal Executive Council meetings, but the Ministers usually arrived late. The Vice President signed memos, and the approval of contracts. But he lacked real authority. In December after five FEC meetings, he tried to assert himself by stopping the Ministers from going on Xmas holiday. He also presided over the 49th NEC meeting of the PDP, where he boasted that if elections were conducted 100 times the PDP would win, drawing the ire of the opposition.

But the same Vice President could not sign the 2010 Appropriation Bill because he had no powers to do so, he also could not swear in the country’s new Chief Justice (CJN), Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu. The country was saved an imminent embarrassment by the Oath Act of 2004, which allows a departing CJN to swear in his successor. The amnesty programme in the Niger Delta was stalled and the 2009 National Honours’ Award could not hold. On Christmas day, one Nigerian Umar Abdumuttallab tried to bomb a US-bound plane; it was  Jonathan’s call to stand up for Nigeria.

Exasperated by the drift, The Save Nigeria Group (SNG) led by Professor Wole Soyinka, Femi Falana, Uba Sani, Ayo Obe, Ndubuisi Kanu, Yinka and Joe Odumakin staged rallies in Abuja and Lagos, protesting the lack of respect for the laws of the land. The Nigerian Liberty Forum wrote to the King of Saudi Arabia asking him to produce Yar’Adua. The Jubilee Group gave Yar’Adua a seven-day ultimatum!. But where was the Federal Executive Council and the National Assembly whose responsibility it was to act as guardians of the national interest?