JONATHAN NEEDS ALL THE LUCK….AND GRIT

In the thick of electioneering for the United States White House, some two years ago, one critical criteria-question about dark horse Republican running mate, Sarah Palin, was whether she had what it takes to be ‘a heartbeat away from the presidency.’ That is how ‘God’s own country,’ with its long history of presidential democracy from which Nigeria (roguishly though) is borrowing a leaf, sees the office of the vice-president: ‘a heartbeat away from the presidency.’ In effect, the vice-president, in mettle and grit, is a ready-made president in his own right. But he must wait in the wings until necessity warrants that he steps into the substantive office if his principal, the office holder, for whatever reason suddenly becomes indisposed to carry on. In other words, the capacity and readiness to swiftly assume presidential duties are the essential qualifying criteria for anyone who is suitable to occupy the vice-presidential office. Under the American system, that country’s constitution helps keep the vice-president busy while on stand-by from core presidential functions by stipulating a concurrent role for him/her as the Senate president.

By omission or some curious design, the Nigerian constitution stipulates no specific role for the vice-president other than what is delegated to him by the president. Unfortunately, this country isn’t blessed with too many principals who have delegated vital functions to their back-ups without let or hindrance. But worse, for our present democracy, is the warped power equation under the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that has made the vice-president largely ornamental in regard of the executive functions of the presidency. It is widely known, for instance, that a major consideration by PDP goons (many would put this down simply and specifically to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo) in filling the vice-presidential slot for the 2006/2007 electioneering is to get someone who is comfortable with being in the shadows and would stay there for all seasons, no matter what, to pair up with feeble-footed President Umaru Yar’Adua. You couldn’t beat that as a perfect recipe for governance by teleguidance. Poor souls, they didn’t reckon with the huge providential treasury of the candidate whose middle name is Goodluck, and who unwitting circumstances have always conspired to compel his living up to that name.

Until he was declared Acting President last week by a forced resolution of the two National Assembly chambers, uncommonly lucky Goodluck Jonathan had played the spurious role of exercising a delegated presidential office that was, in actual fact, not specifically delegated by his sickly principal before he (Yar’Adua) went AWOL nearly three months ago on medical grounds. Former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice – many have preferred to dub him ‘Minister of Injustice’ – Michael Aondoakaa, spared no breath to make the charade seem genuine with his sleuth of hare-brained arguments: that there was no vacuum in government; that absentee President Yar’Adua was actually and effectively in charge, and could rule the country from Mars if he wanted; that Jonathan was fittingly and sufficiently exercising Yar’Adua’s powers by delegation, even though he had not been formally delegated; that there was no vacancy in the presidency for Jonathan to step into – even in acting capacity; etc.

Ask Aondoakaa why the 2009 Supplementary Appropriation had to be couriered all the way to Yar’Adua on his sick bed in Saudi Arabia for presidential assent; and he could almost tell you that calligraphy has its place in the art of governance, and that ‘Delegate Jonathan’ is less endowed in this area than his principal. There was nothing amiss, he glibly argued, and yet a time-honoured convention of the president swearing-in an incoming Chief Justice of the Federation had to be altered when the current office holder, Justice Katsina-Alu, took oath before outgoing Justice Legbo Kutigi because Jonathan, as supposedly delegated vice-president, didn’t have the power to perform that function. There was no vacuum, ala Aondoakaa, and until late last week, new permanent secretaries who were billed to have taken office a couple of months back were waiting to be inaugurated. And these were just sparse instances in a legion of pending issues that had placed governance in suspended animation and virtually halted the wheel of this country’s progress. Now, if you asked me, I have always feared that even a fully recuperated Yar’Adua stood scant chance of plowing through the sheer volume in his pending tray without being preemptively hustled back to his sick bed for fatigue and exhaustion.

This foregoing reality apparently stared the National Assembly in the face. And since the Federal Executive Council (FEC) didn’t seem capable of rising up to its constitutionally stipulated role in resolving the logjam, last week’s legislative intervention declaring Jonathan acting president was just in the nick of time. I have heard it argued in high places that Jonathan’s role in this whole matter was less than wholesome: that he could all the while have exercised the presidential powers, as presumably delegated by Yar’Adua, in a way that would have left no room for the perception of a vacuum; that if there was genuine need for his being formally declared acting president, he could have led the FEC to give effect to Section 142 of the Constitution rather than leave it to the National Assembly to fall back on the extra-constitutional ‘doctrine of necessity’; that the true effect of last Tuesday’s resolution was to hold him up to the powers that had always been within his reach in the absence of Yar’Adua.

But then, I doubt that there was any way Jonathan could have led the FEC to declare Yar’Adua incapacitated without being suspected of power grab for self-aggrandising purposes. Besides, if he had weighed in with executive sleigh of hand under supposed delegation of presidential powers, he might have appeared simply overreaching; and that is not to mention the hamstringing factor of those ministers and other officials in government who considered themselves the real power blocs for reason of alleged easier access to Yar’Adua on his sick bed. The catch is: those same officials remain now in the government over which Jonathan holds sway as acting president. Even though he reserves the power to fire them, it might just be a tall order to get legislative clearance for new nominees from the Senate that only reluctantly conceded the necessity of declaring him acting president. That might be why he reassigned gaffe-prone Aondoakaa rather than drop him altogether from the government, since that would require legislative clearance for a replacement nominee. And so, this is one acting president who has to run a government with lieutenants, many of whom hardly accepted his superiority. And he may just not be able to replace them. See why he needs all the luck he could get, and grit to steer this ship of state?

                                                                                                      By Kayode Idowu