Josef Omorotionmwan
8 July 2009
analysis
Lagos — Depending on where you come from, there are a number of beliefs built around the circumstances of the birth of twins. In my part of the world, the first to arrive is called Odion, which signifies that he is the elder one, while the last is called Ovbokhan, meaning the younger one. There are places, though, where the last to arrive is regarded as Odion while the first is called Ovbokhan.
The belief here is that seniority is ordered from heaven and that the first to arrive, being the younger, is normally dispatched by the elder brother on a sort the of recognizance survey to go and find out how the world is out there. At the highest levels of governance in this land - the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Governor of a State and the Chairman of a Local Government, there is a marriage of convenience in which the people are forced by the Constitution into a Siamese twin's birth type of situation. As an instance, section 142(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 stipulates, ". . . a candidate for an election to the office of President shall not be deemed to be validly nominated unless he nominates another candidate as his associate from the same political party for his running for the office of President, who is to occupy the office of Vice-President and that candidate shall be deemed to have been duly elected to the office of Vice-President if the candidate for an election to the office of President who nominated him as such associate is duly elected as President"
This provision applies mutatis mutandis to States and Local Governments.
Essentially, there is a fantastic relationship between the duo from the very beginning. In the first place, no one would invite an enemy to come and chop with him. At the heat of the campaigns, they are virtually together twenty-four seven. As it were, their relationship is one of swimming or drowning together. As the campaigns progress, they visit churches and mosques together; they visit schools and all campaign arena together; and they fast and eat together. Like the Siamese twins that they really are, their hearts beat together, at least politically. The relationship remains sweet for as long as the campaigns last and they need each other to fight and win the war. But in some cases, as soon as the victory celebrations are over and the job of governance sets in, this sweet wine could gradually begin to turn vinegar. This lends credence to the popular belief that it is not the same eye with which you eat the pounded yam that the meat is shared. Enter Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State and his Deputy, Alhaji Garba Gadi.
During courtship, they were both of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) but the point of departure soon arrived when Governor Isa Yuguda moved over to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), soon after the consummation of the wedlock between him and President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's daughter.
Ordinarily, one would expect the Principal to cross over with his Deputy but Alhaji Gadi would none of it. We hear they have appealed to him; they have cajoled him; and made all entreaties, all to no avail. The man is adamant on remaining in the ANPP. He must now be coerced! We hear that for some time now, the Governor has been subjecting this Deputy to harassment and intimidation of all sorts and the man is not moved. As a follow-up, we hear the Governor has moved to the House of Assembly of the State to request the legislators to set the impeachment procedure in motion to get Gadi out of the way.
Could anyone call Yuguda to order and at least remind him of the inalienable right of Gadi to free association as amply expressed in section 40 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999?
And so soon, we seem to have lost our sense of history. This is yet another case of a Principal and his Deputy belonging to different political parties. Do we need to remind ourselves of the historical parallel between this case and that of President Obasanjo and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar? At the peak of it all, Vice-President Atiku Abubakar went his separate way when he defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Action Congress (AC) and, indeed, went ahead to pick the presidential ticket of the latter political party. It was at that point that President Obasanjo declared the Vice-President's office vacant. The Vice-President then rushed to court to seek the necessary interpretation and the protection of the law.
On Tuesday, February 20 2007, the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja and presided over by the President of the Court of Appeal, Hon. Justice Umaru Abdulahi ruled that Atiku Abubakar remains the Vice-President of Nigeria. The Court held that the loyalty of Atiku Abubakar was to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, not to the President or to the PDP because Atiku Abubakar was not their employee. The court maintained that before election, the presidential candidate who nominated the running mate was perfectly entitled to drop that running mate but "After the election, and they were jointly declared elected upon one becoming President and the other Vice-President, the former loses his discretion to remove the latter at will". That explains why the entire sections 143 and 144 of the 1999 Constitution have been devoted to setting out the conditions for separately removing the President and the Vice-President from office, once elected.
In the words of the respected Appeal Court Justices, "The bond of companionship which compelled them, particularly the vice-presidential candidate, to remain together during the election loosens and would swim to certain extent, separately. On his election, he ceased to be vice-presidential candidate of the sponsoring party and becomes the Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by the grace of the electorate and no longer of the President who nominates him as the running mate and the party which sponsored both of them".
The PDP is certainly treading on familiar grounds but we think somebody should point them to order. Back home in Bauchi, they are doing everything to cow Alhaji Gadi into submitting to their scheme. If Gadi does not accept their offer to cross over to the PDP, he must be pushed out of office. Meanwhile, in Abuja , President Musa Yar'Adua is standing on the rooftops, shouting about his electoral reforms, including the fact that cross carpeting by elected political leaders must be totally banned. As a matter of fact, he has forwarded a bill to the National Assembly to this effect. In this double-speak, who really is deceiving whom? Is it that we are not serious about the much touted electoral reform or that the President is working at cross purposes with his party? In either case, PDP is home and dry but unfortunately, their antics would normally rob off on the rest of society.
A Governor might think that in jumping from one political party to another at will, he is not breaking any law. Fine! But must such a Governor drag his deputy along in his flirtation and coquetry? We all have our principles and such principles should be respected. In our selective stance, when it favours the ruling party, they will be quick to point out that a Governor who defects from the party that sponsored his election cannot lose his seat.
Elsewhere, judges and other experts in constitutional engineering will quickly tell you that it is practically impossible to put everything down in a constitution. They are also quick to speak of the minds of the framers of the constitution at the time of its making. If we were to look hard enough, we would find that the much talked about freedom of Governors to jump from one political party to another may have been abhorred, after all. A reading of the minds of the framers of our 1999 Constitution soon drives us to the region of section 192(4), which stipulates, "No person shall be appointed as a Commissioner of a State unless he is qualified for election as a member of the House of Assembly of that State". This also means that if a Commissioner commits an act for which he would have lost his seat in the House were he a legislator, such a Commissioner stands automatically disqualified from the commissionership job. Essentially, the provisions of section 109(1) (g) of our 1999 Constitution, which prohibit a legislator from leaving the party that sponsored his election also apply to a commissioner.
We are still reading the minds of the framers of the constitution. To the extent that the commissioner is appointed by the governor, would the framers of the constitution who felt that the offence of cross carpeting is so serious that it should remove a commissioner from his job be at the same time encouraging the governor who appoints the commissioner to be jumping from one party to another during his tenure? Evidently, the minds of the framers of the constitution at the time of providing the anti-cross carpet clause was to abhor cross carpeting by elected leaders, including the chief executives and their deputies.
It is our submission, therefore, that by moving from the ANPP to the PDP, Governor Isa Yuguda has offended our constitution and he must go! Let him stop pulling his deputy into his iniquities. This is the area that the Bauchi State House of Assembly should be looking at instead of leaving the substance and pursuing the shadow. By implication, too, it is already becoming clear that President Yar'Adua's bill on this subject is superfluous. He must begin to look somewhere else for the real reforms.
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