Yaradua Did The Right Thing In 2010 But His Aide Deliberately Caused ‘Constitutional Crisis’-Jonathan

Former president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on Saturday absolved his late boss, Alhaji Umaru Yaradua from blame in respect of the ‘constitutional crisis’ that occurred in the country in 2010.

Dr Goodluck Jonathan disclosed that the late Alhaji Umaru Yaradua did the right thing by sending letter to the National Assembly to make him become acting president, but one of the former Katsina governor’s aides, who he refused to disclose his or her identity, however withheld the letter in question.

Team@orientactualmags.com learned that the former president, who said this in an interview with Rainbow Book Club, said Yar’Adua had gotten a formal letter to make him serve as acting president ready before travelling abroad, but the person who was supposed to ‘activate’ this deliberately withheld the letter.

This deliberate mischief, he noted, made the nation face a constitutional crisis as the country was left without an acting president or commander-in-chief for months.

Recall that the senate had on February 9, 2010, applied the ‘doctrine of necessity’ to transfer Presidential Powers to the then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, and make him become Acting President until Yar’Adua returned to full health.

‘There’s always a balancing between North and South, Muslims and Christians, Yar’Adua was a Northern Muslim, serving as president. He took over from a Southern Christian, Obasanjo, who ruled for eight years.

Definitely the Northern Muslims wanted Yar’Adua to at least do eight years before power would return to the South, likely to another Christian. But his health issues came up and it was a problem. That was why allowing me to act as president even became an issue.

One year that Yar’Adua was going for the medical checkup. Actually, a letter was written. Of course, the constitution says that for the vice president to act, the president would send a letter to the Senate and the House of Reps informing them.

That letter was written, but the person who the letter was handed over to, I will not mention the name to you now, was one of the aides of Yar’Adua, the person refused to submit the letter to the National Assembly. And Yar’Adua became so ill that he had no control over issues.

So, we had a country where the president was not available, and there was no acting president. Yes, as a vice president, you can take over the responsibilities of, some responsibilities of the president. You know the president of Nigeria has two main responsibilities.

First, you are the chief executive of the country, so, like a prime minister of a country. That, the vice president can assume, you don’t need any transfer. And I was doing that because we were having executive council meetings, we were approving memos from ministers, so the government was going on.

But there was no commander-in-chief. What is the second responsibility of the president of Nigeria, besides being the executive head of the country? And there’s nothing like acting commander-in-chief. Either you’re a commander-in-chief or not.

But when you become an acting president, you are at the same time a commander-in-chief. So, that was lacking, and no country allows that gap. A country like America, they don’t allow that gap at all.

If an American president wants to, even if it’s a whitlow, that he requires an extension, that he will be off for five minutes, he will hand over to the vice president before that procedure. Immediately he regains consciousness, he takes over. But we stayed for some time.

And that led to what they call the doctrine of necessity. When the National Assembly felt that the country was in a situation where it was not expected, they now had to initiate this doctrine of necessity. And they made me act as a president without a letter from Yar’Adua’ he said.

The late Alhaji Umaru Yaradua eventually died on May 5,  2010, and Dr Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as the substantive president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 6, 2010-Team@orientactualmags.com  Do you have any information you wish to share with us? Do you want us to cover your event or programme? Kindly send SMS to 08059100286, 09094171980 or get in touch via orientactualmag@gmail.com.  Thank you