VIDEO: How aide blocked Yar’Adua’s letter seeking to make me acting president — Jonathan

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed that a presidential aide blocked the delivery of a letter from late former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to the National Assembly, which was meant to make him acting president during Yar’Adua’s prolonged illness.

Speaking in a recent interview, Jonathan recounted the political tension and the delicate balance of power between the North and South, and between Muslims and Christians, which was severely tested when Yar’Adua, a Northern Muslim, fell gravely ill while in office.

“There’s always a balancing between North and South, Muslims and Christians. And Yar’Adua was a Northern Muslim who was the president and he took over from a Southern Christian, Obasanjo, who ruled for eight years. So, definitely the Northern Muslims wanted Yar’Adua to at least do eight years before power would come back to the South probably to another Christian to take over. But his health issues came up and it was a problem. That’s why even to allow me to act as president was an issue,” Jonathan said.

He explained that although Yar’Adua had followed constitutional procedure by writing a letter to the National Assembly to enable the transfer of authority, the aide entrusted with delivering the letter refused to do so.

“When Yar’Adua was going for the medical checkup. Actually, a letter was written. Of course, the constitution says that for the vice president to act, the president must send a letter to the Senate and the House of Rep informing them. 

“That letter was written, but the person who the letter was handed over to, I will not mention the name to you now, was one of the aides of Yar’Adua, refused to submit the letter to the National Assembly. And Yar’Adua became so ill that he had no control of issues,” he said.

Jonathan described how he continued to perform certain administrative functions as vice president, including chairing the Executive Council and approving government memos, but lacked constitutional authority as commander-in-chief.

“So we had a country where the president was not available, and there was no acting president. Yes, as a vice president, you can take over the responsibilities of some of the responsibilities of the president. You know the president of Nigeria has two main responsibilities. First, you are the chief executive of the country, so like a prime minister of a country. That, the vice president can assume, you don’t need any transfer. And I was doing that because we were having an executive council meeting, we were approving memos from ministers, so the government was going on. 

“But there was no commander-in-chief. Which is the second responsibility of the president of Nigeria, besides being the executive head of the country. And there’s nothing like acting commander-in-chief. Either you’re a commander-in-chief or not. But when you become an acting president, you are at the same time a commander-in-chief. So that was lacking, and no country allows that gap,” he explained.

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Jonathan pointed out that unlike in more established democracies, Nigeria allowed a dangerous vacuum in leadership to persist.

“A country like America, they don’t allow that gap at all. If an American president wants to, even if it’s a whitlow, that he requires an extension, that he will be off for five minutes, he will hand over to the vice president before that procedure. Immediately he regains consciousness, he takes over. But we stayed for some time,” he said.

He added that it was the intervention of the National Assembly through the invocation of the “doctrine of necessity” that eventually allowed him to assume full presidential powers in the absence of a formal letter from Yar’Adua.

“And that led to what they call the doctrine of necessity. When the National Assembly felt that the country was in a situation where it was not expected, they now have to initiate this doctrine of necessity. And they now made me act as president without a letter from Yar’Adua. So the country was tense.”

See the video below: 

https://x.com/ourfavonlinedoc/status/1938957925835268240?s=46

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