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Purported Indictment Of Vice-President Atiku Abubakar: Options Before The National Assembly By Maigari Danlami Sabo Psychologists have found out that, a person may attack another person for any four motives namely, vengeance, power, money or purpose of deriving joy in inflicting injury to the other person. In the case of President Obasanjo, it is quite glaring that all the above four motives apply to him which he dovetailed into one pursuit, to stop his Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar or any Presidential aspirant from contesting the forthcoming presidential elections and thus, enable him to remain in power after 2007.Recent disclosures of his involvement in Transcorp and consolidated hold on Nigeria’s oil industry suffice to prove his quest for power and money. The motive for vengeance is evidenced by the series of attacks, both publicly and privately on VP, his family members, political and business associates and even his childhood friends, culminating in the purported report of the so called Administrative Panel of inquiry indicting him of fraud. These assaults started immediately after President Obasanjo declared him self winner of the 2003 Presidential elections. Without necessarily going into the details, President Obasanjo has either through his proxies or by himself directly subjected Vice-President Atiku to series of harassments, innuendos and intimidation, both in his office and home state, Adamawa, ridiculed him before members of the National Assembly, often feigned ignorance of the presence of the VP at gatherings and recently, humiliated him, by marching him out of EXCO meeting. Lastly, he went on to present a report indicting Abubakar Atiku based on the most bizarre and unproven charges of corruption. It is therefore necessary that members of the National Assembly should examine the following issues, if ever they would act on the report. WHO IS THE GOVERNMENT Starting from Section 137 of the Constitution on persons disqualified from seeking election, it states that a person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if- Under (i) ‘ he has been indicted for embezzlement or fraud by a Judicial Commission of Inquiry or an Administrative Panel of Inquiry or a Tribunal set up under the Tribunal Inquiry Act, a Tribunal of Inquiry Law or any other law by the Federal or State Government which indictment has been accepted by the Federal or State Government, respectively’. There are two issues to observe here for clarity. First, under sub-section (i) there are recognized five bodies of inquiry as follows: 1) Judicial Commission of Inquiry, 2) Administrative Panel of Inquiry, 3) Tribunal set up under Tribunal Inquiry Act, 4) Tribunal of Inquiry Law and 5) any other law by the Federal or State Government respectively. The findings of such a body so constituted have to be accepted by either Federal or State government before the indictment stands The form of these bodies clearly shows that no one individual has the power to constitute any of them without due process of law or putting representatives of other arms of government on them. Incidentally, President Obasanjo in his eagerness to nail his deputy and unaware of the dictum that, the strength of the law is akin to that of a chain; it is in its weakest link. He mistakenly assumed the Administrative Panel as the quickest means of nailing his VP. He then went on to constitute a body made up solely of members of the Federal EXCO and one representative member of his factional PDP, who is also known to be a blind advocate of the ill fated third term project. Indeed, the panel members, including of course knavish Nuhu Ribadu, EFCC Chairman who always lurks in the dark, all besides being answerable to him cannot be the Administrative Panel envisaged by law. Such a body must be at par with all the other four bodies in terms of independence and widespread in composition .President Obasanjo knows fully well that it will be impossible for him to constitute any of the other four bodies and make them dependent on in him. Thus, it is a gross abuse of office to have constituted the Administrative Panel as it were, without membership from either the other arms of the government or outside his kitchen cabinet. The next issue is, who is the government being referred to in the Constitution? Certainly it cannot be the federal or state Executive alone, for, as by the 1999 Constitution; the Government is made up from the followings three Chapters: CHAPTERV- the Legislature: Sections A-E; CHAPTER- VI, the Executive: Part I, Federal Executive, specified in Sections A-D and Part II, State Executive, Sections A-D. CHAPTER VII- the Judicature: Part I-Federal Courts, Sections A-F and Part II- State Courts, sections A-C. Thus, even if there is a report submitted by a properly constituted panel, its findings cannot be accepted either by the Federal or State Executive as sufficient requirement by law. It must involve representatives of all arms in government. Another flaw with the President Obasanjo’s approach was the manner the report was presented by ambushing the EXCO meeting without allowing members to deliberate on it extensively despite its dire consequences if implemented. If the proper approach had been adopted, the EXCO would certainly have requested for an authentic Administrative Panel of inquiry to be set up not just a hand picked body involving members of the federal EXCO. Also, the members of such an investigative body would not have been sitting at the EXCO meeting to accept or reject the report they produced. The whole episode therefore portrays the President’s perfidious behavior and as someone ignorant of basic tenets of law with disdain for principles of fair hearing particularly, in handling investigative mattes. Based on the observations above, members of the NA are strongly advised not to lend credence to the Administrative Panel report as it was ill conceived and drawn up by a hurly-burly President who is bent on perpetuating himself in office beyond the term allowed him by the Constitution. This indeed, is the second horrendous act by President Obasanjo, following the ignominious third term plot. Indeed such acts would set a dangerous precedence that may destabilize the polity now and thereafter. It is however gratifying that the National Assembly saw the inherent dangers in the first plot and aborted the plan. We pray that members of NA would see this one also as one of such acts and quickly put him in check. Certainly, there would be more of such desperate attempts by the President to cause chaos to enable his continuation in office beyond May 2007.
TWO OPTIONS BEFORE THE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY The members of the NA have only two options in dealing with the situation deliberately created by President Obasanjo. The first option is, to ignore the report and tell him that NA members would not like to be used towards the furtherance of his ill plans of perpetuating himself in office just as they dealt with the third term plot. The second option is to wade into the politics of the whole episode and summon all those involved in precipitating crisis in the ruling party PDP and try to broker peace since the Ahmadu Ali led faction of the party has publicly declared his inability to be an unbiased umpire. Once more, members of the NA are on the threshold of making history and they should be braced up for more of such antics by a desperate president.
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