OUR DEAR ATTORNEY GENERAL
(By Omololu Elegbe)

I decided to write this article because I am tired of feeling insulted anytime I read or hear any statement by my learned colleague, Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr Michael Aondoakaa (SAN).
During a Federal Executive Council meeting last week, the Attorney General pointed out that only the President can declare himself incapacitated and that no one else has the right to do so. To strengthen his point, he used the US Constitution as an example, specifically, the 25th Amendment, which bears certain similarities to sections 144 and 145 of Nigeria’s Constitution. He stated that in US history, the 25th Amendment has been invoked on 3 occasions and that in all 3 cases, the Presidents were the ones who declared themselves incapacitated, prompting them to sign a letter to the Speaker of the House of Reps and Senate President Pro-Tempore and hand over power to their Vice Presidents. He then went on to name the 3 instances where the 25th amendment had been invoked. According to Mr Aondoakaa (SAN), this shows that it is only the President who can declare himself incapacitated.
For the avoidance of doubt, the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified in 1967. The reason for its introduction was to deal with Presidential succession and Presidential incapacity. The two main reasons this amendment was introduced were:
1. To clarify the ambiguities in Article 2, section 1, clause 6 of the US Constitution, which dealt mainly with Presidential succession as a result of incapacity or otherwise;
2. To avoid a repeat of the uncertainty and confusion caused by the stroke suffered by President Woodrow Wilson.
The 25th amendment has 4 sections, but while sections 3 and 4 deal specifically with Presidential incapacity, only section 3 deals with the President voluntarily declaring himself incapacitated.
It was section 3 that was invoked once by President Ronald Reagan and twice by President George W Bush.
Now, the Attorney General has stated that these 3 cases prove that only President Yar’Adua can declare himself incapacitated and as such the calls for him to hand over power to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan are without merit. Mr Aondoakaa (SAN) repeatedly twists Nigeria’s constitution to fit into his arguments. Now, he’s twisting the US Constitution.
First of all, if the Attorney General had bothered to do his research properly, instead of reading off Wikipedia, he would have found out about the conversations Ronald Reagan had with the Attorney General Edwin Meese and White House counsel, Fred Fielding. He would also have found out what George W Bush said to his Chief of Staff, Andrew Card and Vice President D. Cheney. But then again, the Attorney General probably knew and still twisted the facts anyway.
According to published reports, when President Reagan found out that he would need to undergo surgery in 1985, he called the Attorney-General and asked whether he should invoke section 3 of the 25th Amendment and temporarily hand over power to Vice President Bush (President Reagan did not plan to invoke it because he felt he would only be in surgery for a few hours). The Attorney General responded that a million things could prolong and/or complicate a surgery and so “to avoid the embarrassment of the cabinet having to invoke section 4 of the 25th Amendment, or even worse, face possible impeachment if the public ever found out that he went under anaesthetic without transferring power, the wise thing to do would be to invoke section 3 before going under”.
President Reagan then called White House Counsel Fred Fielding and White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan, relayed the opinion of the Attorney General and asked Mr Fielding and Mr Regan for their opinions. They both responded that they completely agreed with the Attorney General.
President Reagan signed the letter invoking section 3 and Vice President George H Bush became Acting President for just under 8hours.
When President Bush was to undergo surgery in 2002, he decided to invoke section 3 of the 25th Amendment and temporarily hand over power to Vice President D. Cheney. Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card, did not think it was necessary, as the procedure was a minor one, which was not expected to last even an hour. George Bush’s response was, “We’re at war. If something comes up while I’m under, I’d want to know that manliness’s hands are not tied”.
He signed the letter invoking section 3 and as it turned out his surgery only lasted for 20mins! Vice President D. Cheney was acting President for just over 2hours.
The second time President Bush invoked section 3, was also when he was due to undergo surgery. This time, there was no debate as to the invocation. Again, Vice President D. Cheney was acting President for just over 2hours.

Mr Aondoakaa was right when he said that the Presidents in his analogy declared themselves incapable. What he failed to mention was why they made those declarations. What he failed to mention was that the 25th Amendment was based on the presumption that a sitting President would put the country first and transfer power if he felt there was any impediment to his discharge of his duties. What he failed to mention was that if the President is incapacitated and either can not or will not invoke section 3, the Vice President and cabinet have the option of invoking section 4 of the same 25th Amendment.
In truth, self-declared incapacity of these US Presidents is not the point. The point is what their self-declared incapacity shows. They were going to be incapacitated for a few hours and transferred power. Even Ronald Reagan, who did not think it was necessary, still did it. Talk about constitutional supremacy! They were going to be incapacitated for a few hours and transferred power. President Yar’Adua has been in hospital for 73days and transferring power is like pulling teeth! Something that really should be a simple matter of a TEMPORARY transfer of power to Vice President Jonathan while President Yar’Adua concentrates on his recuperation, has become a constitutional crisis. The word, incapacity is being defined and re-defined by “experts”. I am not an English major, but I think being in hospital for almost 3months signifies incapacity in most languages. Unless of course, we are dealing with a monarchy, which to the best of my knowledge, Nigeria is not. But come to think of it, even with monarchs, the King would authorize the Crown Prince to act if he is unwell. And to make matters worse, our dear Attorney General continues to twist and distort logic and reason just to drive his points home. He and the ruling party keep pointing out that there is no vacancy in Aso Rock. Well, there might not be a vacancy, but there is a vacuum, which is a lot more serious than if there was a vacancy.
Mr Attorney General, please stop insulting us. You do it almost every time you make a public statement. We are educated people and even the uneducated among us are smart enough to know when our intelligence is being insulted.

A suit would be welcome. Good!

Everytime the idiot of an AGF opens his trap to speak I naturally switch off as his comments generate nothing but a foul and offensive aura. Thanks to The Punch and other media houses giving the public a consistent count of Yar'adua's days in absentia, the fool may just decide to address a joint press confrence stating the president has only been away for 2 days 'according to the constitution'. I wonder how his relatives feel sharing the same acursed surname with the slowpoke. Anyone i meet by chance 'would seriously recommend a name change for the fellow.

In other countries citizens consider the interest of the country before themselves .

In Naija we consider our selves, our pockets, our positions and our family before any other thing. It is really a pity

There's an urgent and pressing need for the legislator to amend section 145 as the inherent lapses and loopholes are obvious as such allowed fools like oando'ka take advantage of it for personal and selfish gains at the expense of National interest & unity.

Why was he mentioning the U.S constitution? Are Nigerians governed by the U.S constitution? When will Nigerians stop copying everything the U.S do? Why can't we do things in our own way that will better suit us?