Presidential Power Transition to Goodluck Jonathan, Much Anticipated, Now Underway
Posted by jinn on February 10th, 2010
Photo credit: Pius Utomi Ekpei/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Yesterday marked 78 days since Umaru Yar’Adua left Nigeria for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia without officially transferring his presidential powers.
Yesterday also marked the Nigerian legislature’s official recognition of Mr. Goodluck Jonathan transition from Vice President to Acting President of Nigeria.
Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, 52, who is from the Niger Delta, governed Bayelsa state from December 2005 to May 2007 and is a member of the ruling People’s Democratic Party. In Nigeria, the ruling party alternates leadership between the North and the South, making the transition of power to Mr. Jonathan a moment of promise for the Niger Delta.
However, Mr. Jonathan’s position is far from secure.
Since Mr. Yar’Adua’s departure in December and a federal court’s handing of power to Mr. Jonathan as Acting President in January, some challenged Mr. Jonathan’s authority, arguing that the President had not followed official procedures requiring a formal statement transferring his power. Both houses of Nigeria’s legislature voted yesterday to accept the broadcast of the President’s statement to this effect (in a January 12 interview with the BBC) as sufficient notification to satisfy the constitutional requirement.
Whether Mr. Yar’Adua’s supporters, among others, will accept this statement as legally binding remains in question. As Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka told CNN, the ruling party has acted slowly to address the president’s absence because “certain elements within the ruling party love this hiatus, they love the headlessness of government because they can proceed to loot and create their own little empires while the president is away.”
Watch CNN International’s Christian Amanpour interview with Mr. Soyinka and Nigeria’s Attorney General, followed by a 3-minute video clip from the film Sweet Crude (featuring interviews with Oronto Douglas and Michael Watts):
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