Kennedy Emetulu
Nigerian
writer Kennedy Emetulu, has written about the continued sojourn of
President Muhammadu Buhari in London for medical purposes. So much has been said and is still being said about President
Muhammadu Buhari’s illness, his absence and the law. Broadly, there are
four provisions in our laws that apply to this situation and all of them
taken together are clear as par what should happen despite the attempt
by some public commentators to give the impression that there is a
lacuna or a loophole that renders the applicability of the law as it is
impossible or doubtful. Three of these provisions are in the
Constitution (sections 144, 145 and 146(1)) and the other is in the
Public Service Rules - that is PSR 070316 which stipulates that the
maximum aggregate sick leave which can be allowed an officer in public
service who is not hospitalized, during any period of 12 months shall
be 42 calendar days.
Let’s take a look at the constitutional provisions and see how they apply.
First, section 145: “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”.
The commonest mistake some public commentators make about this
provision is that they overstretch its application to cover a situation
where the President is seriously ill when it is not meant to apply in
that situation as there are other constitutional provisions for that
eventuality - (sections 144 and 146(1)). The above provision applies
only in two situations. The first is when the President is going on a
vacation and the second is when he is otherwise unable to discharge the
functions of his office when the reason for such is not a serious
illness likely to render him incapable of discharging such functions.
So, when in June last year, the President proceeded on what the
presidency said was a 10-day holiday, with a claim that he would be
using the opportunity to treat an ear infection, no one had an issue
with that because he did the constitutionally required thing, which was
to transmit to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House
of Representatives a written declaration that he was unable to discharge
the functions of his office for that moment because he was proceeding
to London briefly for the stated purposes. There was no issue as to when
he would return or whether he would return to his post because no one
was thinking an ear infection will render him incapable of performing
his duty as president. In fact, the three issues of controversy relating
to the matter at the time were, one, the fact that he was seeking
treatment abroad when he himself has said during the campaign that he
was cracking down on medical tourism and the practice of public
officials seeking medical treatment abroad; two, the fact that he was
travelling to London for such a minor medical issue that Nigerian
doctors could have handled easily at home and three, the cost to
Nigerian citizens and taxpayers of such treatment. Indeed, we all recall
that the presidency actually engaged our own Professor Farooq Kperogi
who raised issues over the matter when they claimed through Mallam Garba
Shehu that it was only N20 million that was spent on the ear treatment.
Of course, knowing what we know now, it looks like the ear
infection story was a cover for something worse. This is because before
the President traveled out for that treatment, for weeks, he confined
himself to the Villa and on a number of occasions canceled trips
scheduled for outside the country and within. The Vice-President,
Professor Yemi Osinbajo represented him in some of them. For instance,
the Vice-President represented him in Papua New Guinea where the 8th
Summit of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States was held
and at the 48th Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government of the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which was held in
Dakar, Senegal. We also recall that the President had to cancel a
well-advertised trip to Lagos to inaugurate some projects executed by
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode despite the elaborate preparation made by the
Lagos State Government and his party, the APC to receive him as the trip
was billed as some kind of platform for re-engagement with the
South-West wing of the party after some internal disagreements. However,
the most high-profile miss on the domestic front was the fact that he
did not attend the much-publicised flag-off of the implementation of the
UNEP Report on the cleaning up of Ogoniland and the Niger Delta. I even
expressed an opinion then about why his miss was bad public relations
for the government. Of course, at the time, we didn’t know he was ill,
we only knew he was holed up in the Villa. Nonetheless, he left for that
trip on the 6th of June 2016 and returned on the 19th of June 2016. So,
constitutionally, everything went well even though Nigerians who
questioned his decision to go abroad for such supposedly minor medical
issue or the amount spent had a right to do so.
Then came January 2017 and once again the President traveled abroad
and this time we were told it was for another 10-day vacation. We
recall that even though the President’s letter to the National Assembly
stated the vacation was to start on the 23rd of January 2017, the
President was evacuated abroad two days earlier on the 21st of January.
This lent credence to rumors that this was not a vacation, but a
medical-related evacuation. We all were witnesses to how presidential
media managers, Femi Adesina and Mallam Shehu Garba and the Minister of
Information, Lai Mohammed mismanaged the information about the
President’s condition, which led them to even begin to publicly engage
with people vociferously over the issue. They kept saying the President
was in London on vacation and that he was not in any hospital and he was
not ill, even though they had stated that during the vacation he would
do some “routine medical check-up.” They insisted he would be back to
work by the 1st of February, 2017.
Now, up to this point, the President was still constitutionally in
order, even though the lies about his condition were becoming
increasingly untenable. In fact, most citizens were mainly concerned
with how the President’s spokespersons mishandled information
surrounding his absence up to that point. However, shortly before the
1st of February, we were then told that the President would be extending
his stay indefinitely because he had to wait for the results of certain
medical tests conducted. We could see that they were still building up
on the lies. Obviously, because they had lied that he was only on
vacation and that he was only using that opportunity of the vacation to
do some routine medical tests, it was natural to continue that lie by
claiming now that his inability to meet up with the 1st February date
was because he had to wait for the test results. Terrible story, but
that was what they told Nigerians. It was the excuse they gave for the
President’s extended stay.
For the purposes of our analysis, we can see that at this point,
even if we accept their excuses for the President extending his stay,
the action he undertook under section 145 is no longer enough because we
were now straying into medical reasons for his absence. Besides, the
Constitution does not provide for the President being absent or being
away indefinitely. I mean, one of the things the supporters of the
President say is that this situation is different from that of President
Umaru Yar’Adua because Buhari transmitted the necessary letter handing
over to the Acting President to the National Assembly, but what they are
not saying is that they have handled information about the illness
itself rather poorly. They cannot continue to refer to the fact that he
transmitted a letter as justification for staying away for this long on
medical grounds. That letter is only useful where the President is
expected back at his duty post shortly after, not in this kind of
situation. Of course, if the President or his handlers had been
forthcoming with Nigerians about the situation at that point, things
would have been different because Nigerians would have given him more
time and given him the benefit of the doubt as far as there is hope that
he would recover fully and not be incapacitated from performing his
duties for an unduly long time.
At any rate, when the President eventually returned on the 10th of
March, it was obvious they couldn’t sustain the lies anymore because the
President looked severely emaciated and disoriented in the little time
the public saw him. More crucially, he himself spoke of how really sick
he was, implying he had to take blood transfusions and so on, which
altogether clearly points to some serious illness, even though he wasn’t
disclosing what this is exactly. He then added ominously that he would
soon be returning for more treatment in the UK. Meanwhile, between then
and the 7th of May when he returned to the UK, he was hardly seen in
public or in office. His handlers said he was working from home. Indeed,
the only times Nigerians saw him were when he was scrambled to attend
the Aso Rock mosque on Friday, the 5th of May (in order to quell the
rumor that he was incapacitated) and when he received the girls freed
from Boko Haram captivity on Sunday, the 7th of May. Even then, those
watching him with the girls on television could see his condition was
dire. A few hours after that he was once again evacuated to London. It’s
now almost a hundred days he’s gone in this last instance.
So, clearly, at this point, section 145 of the Constitution is not
applicable anymore because the matter is beyond mere vacationing. The
President is gravely ill. The Constitution expects that a patriotic
citizen occupying the position of the President would know when to
resign to go take care of his health because that is indeed a personal
decision considering all the circumstances. That is the purpose of the
constitutional provision for resignation in section 146 which stipulates
resignation as one of the circumstances under which the Vice-President
should take over as substantive President in order for there not to be a
vacuum in government. But rather than take that opportunity, the
President and his handlers have left the Vice-President in an acting,
ineffectual capacity while the nation suffers unduly.
Yet, the Constitution recognizes human selfishness and capacity for
poor judgment where something is left to their discretion. That is why
it vested the power to declare the President “incapable of discharging
the functions of his office” in the hands of a collective of people at
the highest level, people representative of the plurality of the country
because of the way they are constitutionally appointed in line with the
Federal Character principle.
***
Written by Kennedy Emetulu
0 comments:
Post a Comment