Abuja — The Senate yesterday came out of its shell to publicly declare that President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua could not be compelled to resign from office on condition of ill-health.

Also, a group of lawmakers in the House of Representatives under the aegis of Integrity Group, threw its weight behind the continued stay in office of the President, saying calls for him to resign were not in the national interest.

The Senate said all over the world, no president was compelled to resign on health grounds; therefore Nigeria couldn't be an exception.

Addressing Senate correspondents at his residence yesterday, the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, declared that the mandate of the president of Nigeria is that of 150 million people, that should not be handled on the basis of sentiments.

According to the Deputy Senate President, on arrival from United States of America where he went to attend a conference on foreign policy, the issue surrounding the health of the President was discussed at the forum.

"I did not see anything wrong in that, although he left Nigeria before I left but also the issue of his health came up in the council of foreign relations, they looked forward to a speedy answer from me, but I took my time to explain to them about issues concerning life and death in Africa", he stated.

"For us life is sacrosanct and we deal with life very respectfully but beyond that matter concerning presidential illness is something we must handle with all seriousness all over the world, including America.

"I took turns to explain to them and gave those examples of all the American presidents and how they were managed. "Nigeria will have to be the first country to impeach a president or a president will be asked to vacate his office on account of health.

"The Nigerian president will not resign on account of bad health, it is the same story all over the world and Nigeria should not be an exception." He said, "The constitution didn't make any provision for how long a president would be sick that he can be told to resign saying there is no such provision in constitution.

He also cited examples of other presidents that took ill in office yet were not asked to resign, "In some of the instances that I gave, the president, was away for nearly one year, in fact in the case of the USSR president the government even took a decision that he will only work for 10 minutes a day and when he insisted on working beyond that they called the attention of his wife to do everything possible for him to comply with that decision," he said.

"We are talking about a mandate given to a president and it should not be the issue of someone being ill, anybody can be ill, this is a collective mandate of over 150million people and for somebody to surrender it , it must be something serious".

On its part, the integrity group also confirmed that the Presidency was intact as the vice president has been running the government in line with the constitution and wondered why people are insinuating that business of government was grounded.

Integrity Group, whose membership cuts across political parties is seen as the most influential pressure group in the House, which unseated former speaker, Hon. Patricia Olubunmi Etteh.

Addressing House correspondents yesterday, leader of the group, Hon. Farouk Lawan (PDP, Kano) alongside five of his colleagues said they had found it embarrassing calls by people urging President Yar'Adua to resign insisting that no one should 'stampede' the president out of office. Other members present were Hon. Halims Agoda (PDP, Delta), Hon. Ita Enang (PDP, Akwa Ibom), Hon. Ahmed Aliyu Wadada (PDP, Nasarawa), Hon. Emmanuel Jime (PDP, Benue)

Lawan said, "We find it embarrassing, calls that Mr. President should resign from office. They have labored unsuccessfully to twist the interpretation of Section 144 (1) of the constitution so as to force the President to resign from office. We see these actions as suspicious as to the real intent of these groups and individuals."

"We make bold to state that what the President needs now is our collective prayers and empathy and not undue pressure to resign. What we are witnessing now is that the polity is unduly been overheated, which is not healthy for our corporate existence as a nation".