Before going on the vacation, President Buhari had dispatched a formal notice to Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara, in compliance with Section 145 (1) of the Constitution. It was the first time in the history of Nigeria, that a president voluntarily transmitted power to his deputy.
As at the time Buhari’s short break became public knowledge, the acting president was in Lagos for the ‘Holy Ghost Night’ programme of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), and rather than cut short his trip, Osinbajo, the following day, headed for Jerusalem Mission House International in Makurdi, Benue state, for a wedding ceremony.
On Monday, February 8, Osinbajo fully resumed as acting president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, those who had expected him to move into the President’s Wing of the Aso Rock Presidential Villa were in for a surprise as he chose to operate from the Vice President’s Wing.
Daily Trust reports that his office abruptly turned into a beehive of activity. Buhari’s office was, understandably, virtually deserted.
State governors are regular visitors to the Aso Presidential Rock Villa, ostensibly to brief the president on matters affecting their respective states. Some of them had been severally pilloried for allegedly ‘abandoning’ their states for Abuja. But none of the state chief executives made it to the nation’s seat of power throughout the period Osinbajo held the fort for Buhari.
Majority of the ministers were also not sighted at the State House during Osinbajo’s six-day reign as acting president. They could conveniently claim to be busy with the budget defence at the National Assembly. They could equally hide under the cover of a presidential directive that they be channeling their communications to the Presidency through the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President.
In unambiguous terms, President Buhari had, on November 5, 2015 while hosting his ministers to a ministerial retreat at the old banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, instructed thus: “All communications and appointments from you to the Presidency should be routed through the Office of the Chief of Staff as is normal in this Presidential System.”
So, even if the ministers had, on that ground, chosen to ‘shun’ the acting president last week as insinuated, they could be understood or misunderstood to have simply obeyed their employer’s order.
The Secretary to the government of the Federation, Babachir David Lawal, cannot hide under this cover, for it is his responsibility to ensure effective coordination and monitoring of the implementation of government policies and programmes for the overall development of the country. Little wonder his absence at the Acting President’s Office set tongues wagging.
Even as vice president, Osinbajo has the power to preside over Federal Executive Council (FEC) meetings, in the absence of the president. As acting president last week, he did not convene the meeting.
Daily Trust report that Although FEC meetings had not been held on a weekly basis since the inception of the Buhari presidency, Osinbajo could have cashed in on Buhari’s vacation to demonstrate how real the power of an acting president is in Nigeria’s context.
National Security Council (NSC) meeting, chaired by the president, has almost been a routine owing to the frequency of terrorist attacks on the northeeast. Acting President Osinbajo did not summon the service chiefs for the meeting even when terrorists blasted scores to death at Dikwa Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp in Borno state on Tuesday.
How far then did Osinbajo fare as acting president? He hit the ground running early Monday morning with a closed-door meeting with a delegation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, (EITI), a global body assessing transparency level of nations’ oil, gas and mineral resources. The session afforded him the opportunity to reiterate the administration’s commitment to transparency and good governance.
“It is important that we handle our resources with transparency and good governance. One of the objectives we have set for ourselves is to ensure that we are transparent and able to handle our resources well. If as a nation we had handled our resources better with transparency and good governance, we would not have found ourselves where we are now. We have learnt our lesson,” Osinbajo told his visitors.
The acting president also played host to a delegation of the Nigeria Leadership Initiative (NLI) and reassured of the federal government’s determination to rehabilitate and rebuild the insurgency-riddledNorth-east; with a passionate call on well-to-do Nigerians to partner with the government in that regard.
Osinbajo on Tuesday received a delegation of the Senate which was at the Presidential Villa on a consultation visit over the 2016 budget proposal, the Money Laundering Bill and other bills currently before the National Assembly.
Senate Leader Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, who led the delegation, lauded Buhari for not leaving the country on autopilot. For the leader of the Senate, the transmission of power to Osinbajo was unprecedented in Nigeria.
“This is not the first time we are coming here, but this is the first time we are having the vice president as acting president. That is one of the reasons we are here. This is because we are setting a new example. During the previous governments, the president would just go and leave the place blank.
“But this time around, when our president went (on vacation) for a few days, he transmitted to all Nigerians that the vice president is to act as president.Now, we have the budget as work in progress; we have the new Money Laundering Bill before the Senate; we have many things we are looking at. We have come to consult on these,” Ndume told State House correspondents shortly after meeting with Osinbajo. Acting President Osinbajo also on Tuesday received a delegation of the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), led by its Executive Director, Michel Sidibe. He assured of effective primary healthcare centres across the country.
He rounded off his six-day reign with a directive that security be beefed up at all the internally displaced persons camps in the country. He was, through a statement by his spokesman Laolu Akande, responding to Tuesday’s suicide bombing of Dikwa IDP Camp.
Well, Osinbajo’s directive could have possibly reminded the Armed Forces that an Acting Commander-in-Chief was in charge for six days.
President Buhari resumed work on Thursday; and in compliance with Section 145 (1) of the Nigerian Constitution, sent a formal notice of his resumption to the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, Prof Osinbajo and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami are at loggerhead over $1.3 billion Malabu scandal.
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