Buhari breached constitution Says Mr. Ubani
Mr. Monday Ubani, Former Vice president of the Nigerian bar association, says president Muhammadu Buhari breached the constitution for failing to hand over to the vice president before embarking on a two week private visit to London.
Ubani also condemned the transport of a bill to London to Mohammadu Buhari to sign.
The lawyer faulted the claim that the President was not mandated to hand over power to the vice president unless he would be away for more than 21 days.
He said those making the claim were misinterpreting section 145(2) to the constitution.
He said the sum total of that subsection is that if the president fails, refuses and or neglects to transmit power to the vice president, the national assembly is mandated after the period of 21 days to pass a resolution empowering the vice president to start to act automatically as the acting president of Nigeria.
That section did not and never provided that it is only when the president will spend more than 21 days outside the premises of the country that he will be needed to hand over power to the vice president.
Ubani recalled that subsection (2) was introduce to section 145 of the constitution in 2010 to forestall a repeat of what happened when the late president Umar Yar’Adua embarked on a foreign medical trip without transmitting power to the vice president.
The 21 days provision is meant to give the maximum period the president will be allowed to be breached of section 145 of the constitution as the national assembly will come in to do what the president ought to have done in the first place by mandating the vice president to act in the place of the travelled president.
His private visit has no place in section 145 of the 1999 constitution in the first place. He is only allowed outside the shores of Nigeria for official visits, medical and or vacation.
The president has breached the 1999 constitution, no doubt, by his inability to transmit power to the vice president of the country for the 19 days or less that he wants to spend for his private visit in the United Kingdom.
Ubani said the signing of a bill by Mohammadu Buhari in London, united kingdom did nit speak well for Nigeria’s sovereignty.
He said more troubling is the signing of offshore bill in the united kingdom, outside the shores of Nigeria. The act of signing the bill outside the country, politically sends a signal to our friends that our sovereignty as a nation is in doubt.
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