[size=14pt]Reasons Jonathan rejected Aondoakaa’s letter –Investigation[/size]

By Our correspondent, Published: Saturday, 26 Dec 2009
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Dr. Goodluck Jonathan

Contrary to his denials during the week, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, did write a letter to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, asking him to temporarily act as the President, Saturday Punch has learnt.

The newspaper has also unearthed the reasons why the Vice President rejected the letter when it was delivered to him by a special adviser to President Umaru Yar’Adua.

Yar’Adua, who was flown out of Nigeria on November 23, is spending his 33rd day at the King Faisal Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he is being treated for acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the membrane covering the heart.

[b]Our correspondent gathered authoritatively that Aondoakaa wrote the said letter and it was delivered to Jonathan, but the Vice President refused the AGF’s offer to assume presidential powers in acting capacity because he felt it was a trap by some powerful elements in President Yar’Adua’s kitchen cabinet.

Saturday Punch learnt that the justice minister had earlier sent the letter to members of the kitchen cabinet in Jeddah, where it was cleared and resent to him for delivery to Jonathan.

The source said, “Jonathan decided to ignore the letter because he felt that it was unconstitutional for him to act on a letter that lacked the seal of the presidency and did not follow the stated procedure in the 1999 Constitution.” The source added that Section 5 of the 1999 Constitution on which Aondoakaa based his advice was not strong enough and therefore not applicable in the face of the current constitutional challenge facing the country.

The source said the letter from Saudi Arabia, which the kitchen cabinet claimed to have been vetted by the President, was a faxed document whose original copy was not even shown to Jonathan. “This gave the VP the feeling that a trap was being set for him to commit a blunder ahead of an impending constitutional crisis,” the source added.

It was gathered that Jonathan’s aides were also suspicious of Aondoakaa’s letter, which was written shortly after the AGF had said that the President could rule the country from any part of the world.[/b]

They were said to have wondered why the AGF decided to change his position on the raging constitutional issue a few days after he made the controversial comment.

Our correspondent, however, gathered from a source close to the AGF that he might have written the letter to avert an imminent constitutional crisis.

For instance, the 2009 supplementary budget passed by the National Assembly could not be signed into law because of the absence of Yar’Adua and the inability of the vice president to act for his ailing boss.

The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Idris Kutigi, will retire on December 31, and even though Justice Katsina Alu has been screened and approved by the Senate to succeed him, the vice president cannot administer his oath of office except Yar’Adua writes a letter to the National Assembly stating that his deputy should hold forte for him while he recuperates from illness.

“The conviction among some powerful elements in the government was that the best way out of the power vacuum the country faces was to give power to the Vice President on a temporary basis, and that was at the root of the document the AGF faxed to the Vice President,” Saturday Punch was told.

Absolving Aondoakaa of blame, the source claimed that the AGF wrote a letter to the President last year, asking him to hand over power to his deputy during his treatment abroad, but some powerful elements in Yar’Adua’s kitchen cabinet undermined the President and withheld the letter addressed to the National Assembly for selfish reasons.

“The truth is that Aondoakaa drafted the letter. He was probably concerned about the possibility that the next seven days may witness a constitutional crisis and leave room for reactionary forces in the military to cause crisis.

The source said, “The kitchen cabinet of the President believes that the best way to solve the constitutional crisis is to transfer power to Jonathan in a temporary capacity. He did a letter to the kitchen cabinet in Saudi Arabia; it was approved and faxed back. It was a photocopy of the faxed copy that was given to a top aide of the President who took it to the VP.

“It was a photocopied document and the part of the constitution cited in the letter could empower anybody to act. Even a Special Adviser could be asked by the President to act for him.

  “Based on this, the VP felt it would be unconstitutional to accept the responsibility without a true presidential approval. The VP felt that the provision cited was not strong enough. Also, the letter did not have the signature of the President. It was a photocopied document whose original was not sighted.

“The process was illegal despite the delegative powers of the President because the situation we are facing goes beyond such a whimsical delegation.”

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art200912260152293

For all intents and purposes, the AGF might have acted in good faith but who is Jonathan know that.
He acted wisely or did he act wisely?
Time will tell.

Constituitional crisis revs to full volume from 31 December when a second crucial wing of govt, the judiciary becomes rudderless like the presidency.

The power hunger of our cabals, corruption moguls and oligarchs knows no bounds. Everybody needs to support the consituition in these dangerous times.

let due process follow.

Jonathan is a coward

using your head makes you a coward?

Ok Jonathan must be a yoruba man.

Jonathan Badluck is a dementia suffering slowpoke!
Please someone get rid of that slowpoke in Aso Rock.