Thursday, December 17, 2009

President Yar'adua in a Coma?

Today is Day 24 since our President went for Medical attention in Saudi Arabia.
The President of the West African Bar Association, Mr. Femi Falana, has said that President Umaru Yar’Adua’s failure to formally inform the National Assembly about his medical trip to Saudi Arabia constituted an impeachable offence.
Is it impeachment now or how the man can recover and come back quickly before Nigeria collapsed.
Since Monday 14th December 2009, there has been fuel scarcity in Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria. I was extremely lucky to have bought fuel that monday. I saw cars queuing to purchase fuel in Marina, Lagos and knowing the kind of system we operate where information is heard from the rumour mill and people's reaction, i suspected fuel would not be available in days to come. We jump queue at a point to enter the filling station before the security guard shut the gate.
By the next day, it was confirmed that there was a misunderstanding between the independent marketers who import petroleum products and the Government agencies. The government decided to hold back due to the inability of the importers to pay off what they are owing. Who suffers? The MASSES of course. The masses are the ones queuing from dawn to dusks at filling station to buy fuel and diesel for thier vehicles and their generators. We were told to expect 6,000Megawatt of electricity by December 2009 which would have saved us from putting on generators. But that promise is not fulfilled because today 17th December, everyone around me is using generator. The noise pollution is what i am going to discuss in the next write up shortly. IN fact its deafening but we have to put up with those generators because we cannot stay in darkness. There must be light whichever way.
If you look at all the myriads of problems we have as a nation, then our President should not be sick at all. If he must be sick, then he should not leave without handing over to the Vice President. Now he's been gone for weeks and everything is grinding to a halt. Goodluck Jonathan is not Atiku, the former Vice President who always step in whenever the former President was away from the country which was almost every week.
The civil societies and some lawyers have been protesting the President's absence but that had not yielded any result. Femi Falana had taken the case to court and had on tuesday asked the Federal High Court, Abuja to invalidate decisions taken by the Federal Executive Council in Yar’Adua’s absence. He also asked the court to compel the President to formally inform the Senate president and Speaker of the House of Representatives about his medical trip and empower Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan to function as acting president. Speaking with some journalists later Falana said, “Presdent Umaru Yar’Adua’s failure to write to the National Assembly before his medical trip abroad is a violation of Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution. It is an impeachable offence.” He also lamented the statement credited to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, that Yar’Adua was in charge of the government, wondering how a man who had been admited to hospital for over three weeks could be running the country, “How can the President, who is on medical vacation and has not been able to discharge his functions for the past 23 days, remain in effective charge of this country? The statement is unbecoming of an attorney-general.”
Whatever is the situation, the Vice President should be empowered so that Nigeria can move forward. We are stagnated as it is. The budget for 2010 is another issue. What will happen to that. Electricity is not stable. The militants are getting restless as the promises made to them to surrender are not fulfilled. The econmy is being run by a man with vendetta on his perceived 'enemies' who opposed his being made CBN governor. The roads are bad especially Lagos to Benin highway.
President Yar Adua is not the kind of person that will be alive and not advise his aides to cause a letter to be written empowering his vice to act till he recovers and resumes. Why is the President keeping silence? Is he truly recovering or is he in a coma?
Nigerians need to know. Please AONDOKA, stop playing politics as this involves life. Lets know what is happening to our President.

No comments: