After President Muhammadu Buhari’s “private trip” to the United Kingdom (UK) without transmitting power to his deputy, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised an alarm to protest the alleged suspension of the 1999 constitution by both the President and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Daily Post reports that the party’s stand was revealed in a statement signed by Kola Ologbondiyan, the National Publicity Secretary of the Party.
In the statement, the PDP claim the President and the ruling party were uninterested in governance and are instead trying to impose an oppressive system on Nigeria. They claim Buhari’s “deleriction of office” was because he had no respect for Nigerians which is also evident in the “official manipulation as witnessed in the rigging of the February 23, Presidential election by the APC.”
The statement reads in full:
The Peoples Democratic Party, says President Muhammadu Buhari’s private voyage out of the country without transmitting power, as required by the Constitution, is an act of dereliction, which confirms that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Buhari Presidency, are not interested in governance, but seek to vacate our constitutional order, and foist an authoritarian system on our country. Such dereliction of office can only come from Leaders, who do not have respect for the people they govern, but always muscling their way to power through intimidation, harassment, as well as official manipulations, as witnessed in the rigging of the February 23, Presidential election by the APC.
Moreover, Mr. President’s abandoning of governance, particularly at this critical time when our nation is facing grave security and economic challenges, signposts the level of impunity and recklessness that will characterize our nation in the next four years, if the stolen Presidential mandate is not retrieved from the APC. What else, beside an authoritarian propensity, can explain why the Buhari Presidency relegated our Constitutional Order, by declaring the application of section 145 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which directs that the President transmits power whenever he is travelling out of the country on vacation, as a mere “convention”.
Authoritarian tendencies are usually characterised by absolute lack of trust on other government functionaries, which could likely explain the failure to transmit power to the Vice President. Such proclivity can also lead to a sequestering of institutions of government, if not checked. The import of this relegation of section 145, is also a clear absence of a constitutional command structure, which leaves our nation at the mercy of the extremely corrupt, vicious, and anti-people cabal, with whom President Buhari presided over the most corrupt and most incompetent administration, which wrecked our economy, divided our nation, and opened her up for escalated insecurity.
Such dereliction at the high levels emboldens bandits, bolsters insurgents, and fuels cruel acts, such as extra-judicial killing, illegal arrests, detention of innocent citizens, constitutional violations, attack on institutions of democracy, as well as reckless looting of our national treasury by members of the cabal, because they know that “nothing will happen”.
The PDP therefore, urges Nigerians to unite in condemning this act of impunity in the interest of our nation, even as they earnestly await the retrieval of the stolen Presidential mandate at the Tribunal. Our nation, is in dire need of a legitimate, people-oriented, responsible and responsive government, that will foster respect for rule of law, as well as due regard to other arms and institutions of government, particularly the Judiciary and the Legislature, in ensuring the general wellbeing and security of all Nigerians.
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