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Coping With A Mess By Anthony A. Akinola
Mr. Nuhu Ribadu would very much fancy the opportunity of waiting at the airport with handcuffs in hand ready for Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s wrists! Such a scenario would be deemed another success for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in its drive to rid the Nigerian society of corruption. Mr. Atiku is not unaware of his powerlessness once the immunity from prosecution while in office is taken away from him and that is why he would fight hard to keep his job.
Relationship between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar has been anything but cordial. The historic third term debacle brought to public knowledge a feud which had existed for quite a while. The reason the duo were together was because one did not have an easy way of getting rid of the other.
However President Obasanjo and the leadership of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) assume Vice President Atiku has committed political suicide by his adoption as the presidential candidate of Action Congress (AC) for the 2007 election. They hinge their hope of getting rid of Atiku in a section of the constitution which says both the president and his deputy shall be a member of the same political party. The one problem with their position is that the 1999 Constitution fails to say what would happen if either the president or the vice president defected from the party whose platform he or she was elected into office. A couple of governors had changed party loyalty in recent months; the fact that their constitutional and political positions were not adversely affected by this would not have been unnoted by Vice President Atiku Abubakar and his advisers.
One is still consulting political and constitutional law books to see if a situation had occurred in the United States of America, a country whose political arrangement we borrowed from, whereby the president or vice president changed political affiliation before the expiration of tenure. The research is not helped by the fact that the American Constitution does not say anything about the institution of political parties. In theory one does not have to be a member of a political party to be elected into any office including that of the president. The American political system contrasts sharply with the parliamentary system of government which is principally about the strength of political parties.
The PDP leadership arrogates to itself the power to search for a replacement for Vice President Atiku Abubakar should the latter get the ‘sack’. In a well worked out constitution an order of succession should be there for all to see. Were the president and the vice president to be both impeached or dead, would the PDP be asked to present the nation with replacements?
Vice President Atiku seems fortified by the conviction that the constitution is in his side. He has not resigned his position, the state of his health is not in question, he is not dead and he has not been impeached. By declaring the position of the vice president vacant, President Obasanjo has merely assumed a power which does not belong to him. What President Obasanjo can do, if he is desperate of getting rid of his deputy, is to bring the full weight of his influence to bear on loyal supporters in the National Assembly to initiate an impeachment procedure against the ‘erring’ vice president.
Without any doubt the path of honour for Vice President Atiku Abubakar is to resign his position. He is disgruntled with his boss, and he has also become a bitter critic of his erstwhile political party. The only reason why Atiku has not resigned, I assume, is the fear that crude power of the state could be deployed against him. The Obasanjo/Atiku imbroglio is one embarrassment Nigerians have coped with for the greater part of two years and five more months of the same could be endured.
The good thing about the rift between President Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku is that a future constitutional review must re-examine power relations between the president and the deputy with a view to taming the type of ugly "rivalry" we have witnessed in the last two years. Relationship between Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Dr. Alex Ekwuene, erstwhile president and vice president in the Second Republic (1979-1983) was quite good and civilized. The president/vice president arrangement can sometimes bring together individuals of sharply contrasting personalities and backgrounds like the Obasanjo/Atiku one.
Whatever happens to the on-going conflict the issue of corruption allegations both President Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku have gallantly and enthusiastically hauled at each other should not go uninvestigated. The current EFCC might not be the best placed body in this regard, as the commission would seem to lack the political will to ruffle the feathers of its paymaster.
There is also the issue of the forthcoming election. Will the election be free and fair? Assuming that Vice President Atiku is allowed to compete in the presidential elections, having already been adopted as the candidate of the AC, can he also expect to be treated fairly by the current ‘system’? With President Obasanjo already parading a "worthy successor", is 2007 destined for peace or conflict? E-mail: anthonyakinola@yahoo.co.uk
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