Former President Goodluck Jonathan has disclosed that his former boss, late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, had intended for him to assume leadership of the country while on a medical trip abroad, but his efforts were thwarted by a close presidential aide who refused to submit the required letter to the National Assembly for ratification.
Jonathan made the revelation during a recent interview with Rainbow Book Club, shedding light on the tense political atmosphere that followed President Yar’Adua’s prolonged absence due to ill health in 2009.
LEADERSHIP reports that Jonathan, who eventually became the President in May, 2010, was the Vice President under President Yar’Adua, and later Acting President.
“When Yar’Adua was going for the medical checkup, a letter was written. Of course, the constitution states that for a Vice President to act, the President must have sent a letter to the Senate and the House of Representatives informing them. That letter was written,” Jonathan explained.
“But the person who the letter was handed over to—I will not mention the name to you now—one of Yar’Adua’s aides refused to submit the letter. And Yar’Adua became ill, that he had no control of the issue.”
The former president added that the failure to transmit the letter left Nigeria in a constitutional limbo.
“So, we had a country where the president was not available, and we had no acting president.”
Jonathan also gave insights into the delicate political balancing of power in Nigeria and how religious and regional dynamics played into the controversy.
“There is always balancing between North and South, Muslim and Christian. Yar’Adua was a northern Muslim who was the president, and he took over from a southern Christian, Obasanjo, who ruled for eight years. So definitely, the northern Muslims wanted Yar’Adua to rule for eight years before it could come back to the South for another eight years,” Jonathan noted. “But then, the health issues came up, and it was a problem. That is why even to allow me to act was an issue.”
Although Jonathan was able to perform some of the executive duties in Yar’Adua’s absence, he emphasised that without the title of Acting President, his powers remained limited.
“Yes, as a Vice President, you can take over some of the responsibilities—not the presidency. You know, the President has many responsibilities. First, you are the Chief Executive of the country, like the Prime Minister. That, the Vice President can assume without any transfer, and I was doing that,” he said.
“We were having executive meetings, we were approving memos from ministers, so the government was going on. But there was no Commander-in-Chief. That was lacking, and no country allows that gap. A country like America does not allow that gap at all. If the American President has as little as a ‘wicklow’ and he needs to take anesthesia, he hands it over to the Vice President. Then once he regains consciousness, he takes over.”
Jonathan credited the National Assembly for ultimately resolving the crisis through what became known as the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’, which enabled him to formally act as President before eventually becoming the substantive President.
“The country was tense. The Muslim-Christian divide caused a lot of tension, and every day I was hearing rumors of a coup,” he recalled. “Most of my people started asking me to come and sleep at their place—that the Villa was no longer safe. But I said no, I will stay in the State House. If anybody wants to kill me, it is better you kill me in the State House so that Nigerians will know I was assassinated there and that I had not committed any offence.”
“If I had decided to go and stay in a guest house, they could have gone to kill me there and Nigerians would now say some Indian girl brought apple to kill me—and I would not want those kinds of stories,” Jonathan added humorously.
