Even in normal times, Nigerians wear religion on their sleeves, paste it on their car bumpers, and post it on their windscreens. In the last four weeks, however, the country has become one huge cathedral, with politician after politician mounting the stage to request special prayers for President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who is now spending his fourth week at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The president needs prayers, no doubt. His latest medical trip to Saudi Arabia on November 23 was his fourth to that country on health grounds since he came to office in 2007. Though Yar’Adua has had a long history of kidney disease, his doctors have linked his current health crisis with pericaditis, an inflammation of the lining of the heart. No further statement on his health has been issued, setting off a firestorm of rumors in the public and infighting in his cabinet.
Politicians have also been exploiting the president’s health crisis, calling for prayers in the daytime and plotting at night—just in case the worst happens.
The Senate president and number three man in the country, David Mark, called for a nine-day prayer, yet a recent press report linked him with moves to edge out the vice president if the president is unable to resume. In a statement that shocked the country, Mark’s deputy, following his master’s voice, said President Yar’Adua could be hospitalized for one year and still be validly in charge: all that was required, he said, was constant prayers.
That’s not what the constitution says, however. The president is required by law to hand over to his deputy, if on grounds of fitness or holiday he cannot effectively discharge the duties of his office. Three weeks ago, a group of 53 prominent politicians, across party lines, issued a statement calling on the president to follow the law by officially handing over to his deputy and stepping down.
And today, a suit filed in a Federal High Court in Abuja by a former member of the House of Representatives requested that judges order Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to assume the nation’s highest office. As of yet, that seems unlikely to happen. As one source told me last week, “those who are now in charge don’t trust the vice president enough.”
Fifteen years ago (though the country was under military rule at the time), what was supposed to have been a “temporary” handover of power from the military president, Ibrahim Babangida, to the most senior officer, Gen. Sani Abacha, marked the beginning of one of the darkest episodes in Nigeria’s history. In a country where the delicate power balance between the largely Muslim north and Christian south remains a sensitive issue, the feeling in some circles is that an abrupt transition from Yar’Adua (a Muslim) to his Christian deputy president—after eight straight years of Olusegun Obasanjo (also Christian)—will once again tip the scales in favor of the south.
Meanwhile, the country is paying the price.
The 2010 appropriation bill cannot be signed into law because that can only be done be a sitting or acting president. The Petroleum Industry Bill—which the government had promised would be signed into law before the end of the year as a major part of the peace offering for the troubled Niger Delta region—may remain a pipe dream if the president is unable to return to office. Rebel groups may once again take up arms in the restive region. Moreover, the bad blood between oil companies and the government over licenses for new fields and project funding will increase tensions.
Worse, the paralysis which now threatens the executive branch could spread to the judiciary. Vacancies to the offices of the president of the Court of Appeal and the chief judge of the Supreme Court cannot be filled without a sitting or acting president. Right now, Nigeria has neither.
And, all of this comes at a time when the country badly needs a shot in the arm, following the banking crisis that devalued capital market assets by over 60 percent in one year.
Looking to God for answers to the country’s predicament is a waste of heaven’s time. The answers are already abundantly provided in history.
In a speech titled, “Critical observations on the state of the nation,” and published recently, a Lagos-based lawyer, Femi Falana, mentioned a number of examples of how other presidents who suffered health crises handled their situations. On June 29, 2002, before he was admitted for a minor colonoscopy surgery, President George Bush wrote the Senate and handed over the reins to his deputy, Dick Cheney. He did the same again on July 21, 2007, when he underwent operation that required sedation. The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, ceded office to Ehud Olmert to complete his term. Likewise, with failing health, Fidel Castro resigned and handed power to his deputy and brother, Raul Castro.
“Those who have said it is ‘un-African,’ for presidents to transfer power to their deputies,” Falana said, “should be reminded that the Zambian president once did so, on health grounds. On June 19, 2008, President Levy Mwanawasa had a mild stroke while attending a meeting of the African Union in Cairo, Egypt. He handed over power to his deputy, Rupiah Buezain Banda…. Our ‘prayer warriors’ may also want to learn a lesson from President Nelson Mandela who once transferred power to his arch rival, Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthulezi.”
Unfortunately, from Guinea (Conakry) to Togo to Ivory Coast, neither the hosts of heaven nor the sundry deities to whom the citizens lifted up their voices proved effective in stemming the monsters unleashed by political leaders who would rather die first than arrange an orderly transfer of power. Guinea has been mired in crisis following the untimely death of Lansana Conte (who, though suffering from diabetes and leukemia, famously told AFP after this party put him forward for re-election, “I am ill. My leg hurts. You have chosen me as your candidate. So, you get on with it”). Togo has barely survived the late Gnassingbe Eyadema’s tenacious hold on power; and Ivory Coast is yet to recover from the ruins of a chaotic transition after the death of Felix Houphet-Boigny.
President Yar’Adua should not only hand over, he should, to borrow Castro’s words, deem it a betrayal of his conscience to continue to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than he is physically and emotionally able to offer.
Azu Ishiekwene, a member of the editorial board of World Policy Journal, has been an investigative reporter, a features writer, a member of the editorial board, and the editor of Punch Titles, Nigeria’s highest selling newspapers. He is currently the executive publications director of Punch and writes a weekly Tuesday column. He is the author of Nuhu Ribadu, a book on Nigeria’s stalled anti-corruption war.