Some federal lawmakers, including Northerners, are rooting for President Umaru Yar’Adua’s removal from office, but are divided over the modus operandi.

The odds for the President to survive the plot are tough, with his doctor stating at the weekend that he cannot recover from his heart problem well enough to preside over the affairs of an unwieldy crowd of 150 million Nigerians.

National Assembly (NASS) members in both Chambers had a marathon meeting between Thursday and Friday last week in a highbrow area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

They agreed to see the back of Yar’Adua, just that they could not determine the best route: through Section 143 or Section 144 of the Constitution.

Section 143 deals with the outright impeachment of the President.

Section 144 empowers the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF), with the co-operation of the President of the Senate, to declare the President unable to continue in office after a medical team would have declared him incapacitated.

At the meeting were pro-Acting President Goodluck Jonathan Senators assembled under the aegis of National Interest Group (NIG) and Nigeria First Forum (NFF), their counterparts in the House of Representatives, and a sprinkling of the Northern political elite.

There was no consensus on which Section to activate, but they agreed, it was learnt, that Jonathan must be made substantive President.

The Northerners insisted that the North “can no longer allow Jonathan operate in Aso Rock as a sole administrator,” and tacitly concurred on the need to invoke either Section 143 or 144 so that the North “can get a foot in the Villa, preparatory to taking control in 2011.”

NASS sources recounted that the North is “not willing to trade away” the agreement that “power should rotate between the North and South every eight years.”

The agreeement at the meeting is the removal of Yar’Adua, and the making of Jonathan as substantive President, to ensure the North returns to power through the appointment of a powerful Vice President.

Some lawmakers, however, mulled over the fact that invocation of Section 143 may be difficult and tortuous and may not be “immediately achievable.”

The Section has a long winding requirement for the impeachment of the President or his Deputy, including “a notice of any allegation in writing signed by not less than one-third” of the members of the NASS “presented to the President of the Senate.”

Section 144 is seen as a much shorter route for Yar’Adua’s removal as it would be done on the advice of “a medical panel” appointed by the President of the Senate, comprising “five medical practitioners in Nigeria.”

One of the doctors “shall be the personal physician of the holder of the office concerned; and four other medical practitioners who have, in the opinion of the President of the Senate, attained a high degree of eminence in the field of medicine relative to the nature of the examination to be conducted in accordance with the foregoing provisions.”

http://independentngonline.com/DailyIndependent/Article.aspx?id=11810

There is no need to kill the ant with a hammer. The guy as being take care of by his illness we should just let him be, Please.