UPDATED: National Assembly Empowers VP Jonathan To Step In As Acting President

PHOTO: NIGERIAN ACTING PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN.

San Francisco Feb 09, (THEWILL) - The National Assembly on Tuesday took an unprecedented step by passing a resolution empowering Vice President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to become Acting President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, until Umaru Yar’Adua declares in writing that he is fit to return to work.

The Senate resolution is in conflict with the 1999 Constitution, which makes no provision for the legislature to take such step when the president is incapacitated.

The Senate resolution was backed by a large majority of Senate members. In a second motion of the session, the Senate passed another resolution that would see the vice president cease to be acting president once the president transmits a letter to the National Assembly informing the National Assembly of the end of his vacation.

Senate President David Mark said the Senate based its decision on an interview the president granted the BBC where he admitted he was ill.

"The BBC interview granted by the president is as good as the letter envisaged in the Constitution because if you go onto the internet, you will see a copy of what he said," Mark said.

Addressing senators during the session, Mark said, "The last 78 days have been very challenging to us as a nation… We have examined all the options available to us and rightly concluded it is necessary to take this stand and allow the country to move forward," he said.

A couple of hours after the Senate resolution, the House of Representatives reversed itself from its earlier rigid stand on the president’s absence by passing a similar resolution empowering the vice president to become Acting President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.

But one of the opposition parties, the Action Congress (AC) has said the resolutions only bring the "country closer to the abyss." The party in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed said:

"Section 145 of the Constitution is very clear on how a Vice President can act as President. The Senate cannot empower the VP to act as President by resolution. What has happened today has taken Nigeria closer to the abyss, instead of bringing it back from the brink. All hell has broken loose."

The AC wants the Executive Council of the Federation to invoke the relevant section of the 1999 Constitution and "declare the President incapacitated and inform the National Assembly to set up a medical panel pursuant to that declaration," the statement said.