The Nation Newspaper

Tag: constitutional crisis

  • Nigeria heading for constitutional crisis, says Dickson

    •Governor urges Buhari to convene Council of State meeting

    BAYELSA State Governor Seriake Dickson has warned of a looming major constitutional crisis, if the elections failed to hold as rescheduled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    Dickson, who briefed reporters in Government House, Yenagoa, said there was a need for stakeholders to work collectively to avert the crisis.

    Dickson suggested that President Muhammadu Buhari should immediately convene an expanded emergency meeting of the National Council of State.

    He said the meeting should have the service chiefs, INEC, political party leaders, their candidates and other major stakeholders in attendance.

    He said the stakeholders should resolve on the new date for the postponed elections, adding that INEC was wrong to have unilaterally chosen next Saturday for the rescheduled polls.

    He cautioned leaders against name-calling, appealing to them to work in the interest of the country to avoid plunging Nigeria into avoidable succession crisis.

    He said it was unpatriotic for anyone to be calling for the removal of the INEC chairman, adding that the country would be on a crossroad, if two critical institutions – INEC and the Supreme Court – were undergoing crisis at the same time.

    He said: “This postponement belittled our country. It doesn’t show us as a serious country. Unless all stakeholders drop the habit of name-calling and claiming to be rights, we are moving close to a major constitutional crisis.

    “If anything should go wrong, we will have a full-blown crisis; crisis of succession at a time the Supreme Court is also undergoing crisis. We should not call for the removal of the INEC Chairman. If INEC is in crisis and the Supreme Court is crisis, I don’t know where we are headed.

    “I call on President Muhammadu Buhari as the leader of the country to convene an emergency meeting of the National Council of states to enable service chiefs and the INEC brief stakeholders on their preparations.

    “The meeting should involve the political party chairmen and the presidential candidates to examine the developing scenario, which may plunge our country into crisis. I believe that if we all sit down and know the circumstances, we should agree on a new date.

    Read also: Will litigants get justice at election tribunals?

    “I disagree with INEC’s unilateral announcement of Saturday as a new date. I do not believe that all the challenges that INEC has can be resolved within six days. A more sensible approach is needed. Our nation cannot afford another postponement.”

    The governor noted that few hours to the postponed elections, Bayelsa did not have ballot papers for presidential elections and stamps to authenticate votes.

    “Even now, I am told there are issues of unserialised ballot papers”, he said.

    The governor hailed Buhari for calling on security agencies to deal ruthlessly with troublemakers during the election.

    He said by such presidential directive, security agencies should no longer be encumbered from doing their jobs without fear or favour.

    He particularly appealed to security agencies to ensure the application of the directive in Bayelsa, especially in areas like Ekeremor and Brass, where he said some known political figures had been fomenting troubles.

    Dickson called on the electorate to maintain their momentum and not to be discouraged by the postponement.

    He also disagreed with INEC on suspension of campaigns, saying that his party would continue to engage the people in accordance with the established law of the land.

    Dickson, who insisted that it was unfortunate that INEC postponed the poll despite all the preparations in the state, including declaring a two-day holiday, asked stakeholders to work against further shift.

  • Dickson: Nigeria heading for constitutional crisis if…

    Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson on Monday warned of a looming major constitutional crisis if the elections failed to hold as rescheduled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    Dickson, who briefed journalists in Government House, Yenagoa, said there was a need for all stakeholders to work collectively to avert the crisis.

    To avert looming succession crisis, Dickson suggested President Muhammadu Buhari should immediately convened an expanded emergency meeting of the National Council of State.

    He said the meeting should have the service chiefs, INEC, political party leaders and their candidates and other major stakeholders in attendance.

    He said the stakeholders in the meeting should resolve on the new date for the postponed elections, adding that INEC was wrong to have unilaterally chosen next Saturday for the rescheduled poll.

    He cautioned leaders against name-calling, appealing to them to work in the interest of the country to avoid plunging Nigeria into avoidable succession crisis.

    He said it was unpatriotic for anyone to be calling for the removal of the INEC chairman, adding the country would be on a crossroad if two critical institutions of INEC and the Supreme Court were undergoing crisis at the same time.

    According to the governor: “This postponement belittled our country. It doesn’t show us as a serious country. Unless all stakeholders drop the habit of name-calling and claiming to be rights, we are moving close to a major constitutional crisis.

    “If anything should go wrong, we will have a full blown crisis; crisis of succession at a time the Supreme Court is also undergoing crisis.

    “We should not call for the removal of the INEC chairman. If INEC is in crisis and the Supreme Court is crisis I don’t know where we are headed.

    “I call on President Muhammadu Buhari as the leader of the country to convene an emergency meeting of the National Council of states to enable service chiefs and the INEC brief stakeholders on their preparations.

    “The meeting should involve the political party chairmen with the presidential candidates to examine the developing scenario which may plung our country into crisis. I believe that if we all sit down and know the circumstances, we should agree on a new date.

    “I disagree with INEC unilateral announcement of Saturday as a new date. I do not believe that all the challenges that INEC has can be resolved within six days.

    “A more sensible approach is needed. Our nation cannot afford another postponement”.

    The governor recalled that few hours to the postponed elections, Bayelsa did not have ballot papers for Presidential elections and stamps to authenticate votes.

    “Even now I am told there are issues of unserialised ballot papers”, he said adding that stakeholders expected customization of electoral materials.

    Read Also: Dickson: APC leaders don’t want me to receive Buhari

    The governor further commended Buhari for calling on security agencies to deal ruthlessly with troublemakers during the election.

    He said by such presidential directive, security agencies should no longer be encumbered from doing their jobs without fear or favour.

    He also disagreed with INEC on suspension of campaigns saying that his party would continue to engage the people in accordance with the established law of the land.

  • Constitutional Crisis and Opportunity

    Neither Onnoghen nor Mohammed

    There is always an opportunity in every crisis. A crisis of opportunity is often worse than the opportunity of crisis itself. As we predicted in this column a fortnight ago, a judicial snafu has now snowballed into a full blown constitutional crisis with the three arms of government in open confrontation even as their hierarchs work at hostile cross purposes.

    In the long and tortured history of the country, the executive has occasionally been at daggers drawn with the legislature even where the ruling party holds the majority, and the judiciary has occasionally double-crossed the executive even as it came under its despotic hammer. But this is the first time in the chequered history of the nation that all three are openly embroiled in an asymmetrical political warfare which can only end in the mutual ruination of all and —God forbids—the Fourth Republic itself.

    And this coming barely a fortnight to a make or mar presidential election. The omens could not be more dire for the nation. It is time for the few remaining Nigerian patriots to put on their thinking cap about how to rescue the nation from a constitutional quagmire inflicted on it by elite perfidy.

    The legal profession which could have acted as a moderating and modulating influence on the three arms of government appears to have lost its old sheen and sinews, split down the line and polarized along ethnic, political and cultural lines. Civil society is weak and enfeebled.

    The old Nigerian civil society which reached the zenith of its glory during the struggle against autocratic military rule may be gone forever. Only a deeper and stronger civil society can call to the deep state. There are many reasons for this development, one of which may well be the transformation of civil society itself along class lines. But this is not the place for this.

    In the event, everybody is behaving badly. The judiciary is clutching at straw and resorting to empty legal technicalities. The legislature, having threatened fire and brimstone, simply fled to its rat hole. They have not been missed by anybody.

    The executive is in execrable haste to nail its perceived judicial adversary and has resorted to self-help and political desperation reeking of authoritarian distemper. If he is returned to office, General Buhari must be persuaded by his handlers to tone down his self-righteous truculence and obstinate inflexibility particularly when they do not conduce to national cohesion.

    Let us begin to pick our way through the legal and judicial landmines. Given the enormity of the allegations against him, the weighty severity of the indictment and his own scandalous self-indictment obtained without duress or arm twisting, it is hard to see how Justice Walter Onnoghen can remain or reclaim his seat as the judicial helmsman of the nation.

    But given the shady circumstances of Justice Tanko Mohammed’s ascension to the judicial throne, the government obvious resort to self –help and murky highhandedness, it is also hard to see how the learned jurist can garner enough legitimacy and authority to function unimpaired and unimpeded by legal hostilities as well political disapproval from many quarters.

    Power pragmatists may argue that this does not really matter since occupancy is seventy per cent possession. But they will soon realize that in a fractious multi-ethnic nation, mere occupancy of the seat of Chief Justice does not confer automatic legitimacy or the sacred aura of righteousness and rectitude required for secular authority.

    An example of the combustive religious framing of the judicial crisis is the statement credited to a Christian  forum led by the normally taciturn and reticent General  T.Y Danjuma which alleged that the Onnoghen saga is a manifestation of religious  warfare perpetrated against Christians by Islamic adherents. The statement has attracted an equally strong response from appropriate quarters.

    As it is at the moment, the nation is saddled with two critically impaired judicial juggernauts, the one a mortally wounded suspended Chief Justice on life support at the emergency ward, the other a fundamentally hobbled acting Chief Justice battling for life in the incubator reserved for premature babies. Neither has a fighting chance of survival except we want to further complicate the National Question.

    Justice Walter Onnoghen has become a judicial corpse openly decomposing before a dazed and disturbed nation. Having spurned all quiet attempts to make him throw in the towel in a honourable manner and with the last shred of his tattered integrity, he has resorted to an outlandish abuse of the judicial process and an abasement of the very profession that he owes so much.

    This is the story of the contemporary Nigerian elite. But if a corpse is not buried as a gesture of goodwill to its relations, it will have to be disposed of as a precautionary measure against further public health hazards.

    Once Walter Onnoghen goes, so must his putative successor, Tanko Mohammed, who has allowed himself to be sworn in in controversial circumstances and in a manner that is an affront to the constitutional integrity of the nation. There must be no equivocation or quibbling about this if the nation is to avoid an ethnic and religious maelstrom in the coming months.

    This may well be a case of honourable misjudgement and as a sweetener, Justice Tanko Mohammed must be allowed to retain the privileges and perquisites of office as a former Chief Justice of Nigeria. Whether by presidential fiat or executive diktat, there can be no denying that he has served as the Chief helmsman of the nation’s judiciary. These are the indignities that a society in the process of transiting from authoritarian rule to viable democracy has to put up with.

    In searching for the next substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria, the authorities must cast their net far and wide and well beyond the confines of the current Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, as currently constituted, is too traumatized and enfeebled by internal contradictions and sundry shenanigans to provide judicial leadership for the nation. It should be spared further indignities and humiliation. The situation is so terrible that any attempt to propose any of its current leading lights as Chief Justice is likely to provoke a rash of petitions in a matter of days.

    These trying times should be seen as a period of emergency for the Nigerian judiciary. But as we have noted in the opening paragraph, there is opportunity in every crisis. This is the time to push for the kind of radical innovation which led to the emergence of the distinguished jurist and outstanding legal scholar, Teslim Olawale Elias, as the Chief Justice of Nigeria after the retirement of the incumbent in 1972.

    It is possible to ride roughshod over the feelings of an injured and traumatized people in the short run but not in the long run. This is not the time for presidential obstinacy and truculence which affront national cohesion and ethnic harmony. The judicial imbroglio is merely the tip of the iceberg of a profound crisis of the post-colonial state and the nation-state itself. The subsisting impasse is not about to go away.

     

     

  • No constitutional crisis over Buhari’s absence, says Presidency

    No constitutional crisis over Buhari’s absence, says Presidency

    The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, has dismissed an article by a Nigerian historian,  Max Siollun, entitled “The Gentleman’s Agreement that Could Break Apart Nigeria,” published in the  United States-based Foreign Policy magazine.

    The piece speculated that Nigeria faces imminent political and constitutional crisis on account of President Buhari’s absence to attend to his health in London.

    Reacting to what he called “needlessly sensational and exaggerated speculations by conspiracy theorists”, the Presidential aide explained that it is misleading to compare President Buhari’s case to that of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, adding that the circumstances are completely different.

    According to Shehu, unlike President Yar’Adua, President Buhari has duly complied with the constitutional requirements by formally notifying the National Assembly of his intention to go for medical treatment  and handing over to Professor Yemi Osinbajo as Acting President.

    In a statement by Deputy Director (Information) State House, Abuja, Attah Esa, Shehu said: “While Yar’Adua was too severely ill to transmit a letter formally to the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, President Buhari is not in such medical state, and therefore, the country is not currently facing any complications on account of his absence.”

    The media aide  noted that under President Yar’Adua, there was uncertainty about the role of the Vice President because the late President was not in a position to formally transfer power to his deputy, which necessitated the resort to the doctrine of necessity to enable Dr. Goodluck Jonathan act in his absence.

    Malam Shehu explained that, currently, none of these circumstances prevail in Nigeria on account of President Buhari’s absence for medical treatment.

    According to him, having transferred power formally to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, President Muhammadu Buhari did not leave  Nigeria with any power vacuum, adding, therefore, that any suggestions of uncertainty or constitutional crisis are imaginary and exaggerated.

    He explained that with the Acting President Professor Osinbajo already running the affairs of the country in the absence of President Buhari, people should stop creating artificial fears of crisis or uncertainty, noting that governance has not ground to a halt because President Buhari has duly complied with the constitution.

    Shehu appealed to conspiracy theorists not to pollute the polity by needlessly seeking to create an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and suspicions in the country.

    The media aide said  the President publicly admitted he was sick and taking treatment and that he never pretended about his health condition.