SATURDAY ESSAY BY MOBOLAJI E. ALUKO, PH.D.: 

Now that Goodluck Jonathan is Acting President.....

 
alukome@gmail.com
Burtonsville, MD, 20866
 
February 13, 2010
 
Dear Compatriots:
 
 
Now that Goodluck Jonathan has been un-constitutionally made the Acting President through sleight-of-hand:
 
 
1.  he should not look over his shoulders;  President Umar Musa Yar'Adua is not coming back as President, period.
 
I write this because any information that made ex-President Obasanjo, ex-Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim and his 41-person group, and all those former heads of state, and current state governors  - not a "radical bunch" as Obama would say - to go rushing to the Vice-President's side in droves urging him to become Acting President must be pretty damning.  Yar'Adua must be in no physical or mental shape to return soon, and his condition must be frightening.  So I strongly believe that Jonathan will be Acting President until May 2011 if Yar'Adua lives till then, or will become substantive President in the event that the unfortunate happens, whereupon he will have to carefully choose a Vice-President from the Northern part of Nigeria.
 
 
2.  he should as a matter of urgency write a letter to the Senate President David Mark and Speaker of the House Dimeji Bankole to fulfil Section 145.
 
The resolution by the National Assembly to proclaim Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President based on the local print media publication of Yar'Adua's 2-minute is too disingenuous to enter into Nigeria's political law-making annals.  Furthermore, a resolution does not have a force of law.  However, Jonathan can ATTEMPT to correct this anomaly simply by writing a letter to Senate President David Mark and Speaker of the House Dimeji Bankole granting President Yar'Adua retroactive leave of absence to take care of his health since November 23, 2010, explaining the "uncommon circumstances" which caused the delay, and simply invoke Section 145 thereby without ever referring to the BBC interview. His letter would not require any new or further National Assembly or Federal Executive action.
 
 
3.  he should under no circumstances support the impeachment or move towards the permanent incapacitation certification of President Yar'Adua.
 
Despite pressures, Jonathan should let nature takes its course in terms of President Yar'Adua.  He should not be involved in any move that makes his own acting Presidency position to become permanent, either through presidential impeachment (Section 146) - which would be insensitive - or through medical certification of permanent incapacity (Section 144) which, even if true, would appear to be self-serving.  Decency demands that he refrain from such moves, and he should continue to urge national prayers for the president.
 
 
4.  he should not dissolve the Federal Cabinet just yet, if at all. 
 
Rather he should prepare to re-shuffle the ministers as follows:
 
(a).  he should ask each minister to submit to him by the end of a time certain:
 
     (i)  what he or she has achieved in his or her ministry within the past six months; and any impediments
     (ii) what he intends to achieve within the next six months, and the financial and personnel material needed to do so
    (iii) what BRIEF ideas he or she has so for ONE OTHER MINISTRY other than his or her own;
    (iv) name (without details) a third ministry that he might wish to serve in in addition to the present one he is in and the one in (iii) above.
    (v) name one ministry that he or she definitely does NOT wish to serve in in case there is a re-shufflement.
 
(b).  since Jonathan has had more time to study the ministers, even more than the episodically absent - and now virtually permanently absent - Yar'Adua, he actually knows their capabilities more.  He can move them around the three ministries that they identified - or among others as he sees fit, within the limitation that he should not put a minister in a post he or she identifies as not wising to serve in.
 
(c).  he should choose one of the Northern ministers as a frequent sounding board.  Whether that person becomes considered  as Ag. Vice-President or not is the speculator's business.  Obviously, that person should not be a do-or-die UMYA loyalist, but need not be regarded as an UMYA opponent either.  That list of possible top confidants clearly excludes Special Duties Aondoakaa, Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Abba Sayyadi Ruma and the Chief Economic Adviser Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi, but may include Minister of Works Hassan Lawal; the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Adamu Aliero; and even the perennial Minister of Petroleum, Dr Rilwanu Lukman.
 
 
5.  he should abandon some of PDP's/Yar'Adua's 7-point agenda items.
 
He should pare down Yar'Adua's 7 Point Agenda  [Power & Energy, Food Security and Agriculture; Wealth Creation and Employment; Mass Transportation;  Land Reform; Security, Qualitative and Functional Education] and Two Special Interests [Niger-Delta and Disadvantaged Groups] and concentrate on Five Areas - Electoral Reform, Security, Power & Fuel,  Major-Roads Infrastructure (East-West, North-South routes) and the Niger-Delta.  Electoral Reform should really be TOP on his agenda, with a focus on the Uwais Report and he should abandon constitutional reform not related to electoral reform for later.  With regard to security, he could choose investigations into the Dipo Dina murder in Ogun State, and the recent Jos riot in Plateau State as templates for future action.  The Amnesty program of the Niger-Delta in all its ramifications would be a welcome focus point.
 
 
6.  he should return to weekly Wednesday Cabinet meetings, discontinue the weekly post-meeting ministerial briefings, and institute weekly addresses to the nation
 
When Yar'Adua began his presidential tenure, he changed Obasanjo's weekly Wednesday cabinet meetings to biweekly meetings, signalling some now infamous "slowing-down" right from the beginning.  But there is now much work to do, and Jonathan might want to return to weekly meetings.  However nothing showed more the profligacy of the Obasanjo regime - or its continuation in the Yar'Adua regime - than the weekly cataloguing by ministerial briefings immediately following these weekly meetings of billions and billions of naira contracts awarded for roads, dams, electricity, etc., contracts that nobody in the country saw their impacts.  One wondered whether that was all that was discussed at these meetings - sharing of money. 
 
Instead of the weekly ministerial briefings, Jonathan should give brief weekly "national updates" on one or more of his new Five-Point Agenda, in addition to any national or international updates that he might wish to give to the nation.
 
 
 
7. he should give an early indication whether he is running for President in 2011 or not.
 
This will be his trickiest challenge - politico-ethnic balancing within his own party.  Between October and December 2010, the dynamics will become clearer, but by July or August, Jonathan should telegraph his political ambitions to the nation.
 
 
8.  he continues to need God's guidance, more goodluck and patience.
 
Jonathan's move from university lecturer to deputy governor to governor to Vice-President to Acting President appears charmed, with a dose of God's favor, goodluck (no pun intended) and patience.  He needs Prayers and Patience more now than ever - and he has the latter in his Acting First Lady.
 
 
And there you have it.