Second Republic lawmaker, Dr
Junaid Mohammed, has backed President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to reassign
the powers he willingly granted Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
According to him, Prof Osinbajo,
like most Nigerians, is tribalistic and employed members of his church and
tribesmen during the period President Buhari was away in London on a sick
leave.
In an interview with the Sun,
Mohammed said Osinbajo made some mistakes in the discharge of his functions as
the Acting President, adding that on the whole Osinbajo was tribalistic and
focused more on his people.
“You don’t run a country by
assuming that you are entitled to certain powers, certain privileges. You are
not! We have a written constitution, which provides enormous powers to only one
person – the president.
“The president has the right to
delegate some of these powers to anybody, including the vice president. But in
terms of a written authority to exercise certain functions and powers, the vice
president in my reading of the Constitution has basically only two powers.
“One, the vice president is the
Chairman of the National Economic Council and that is an occasional meeting –
not more than once in a quarter – to discuss general economic policies because
we are running a federation.
“Apart from that, the vice
president also is the Chairman of the National Boundaries Commission. Again
that harkens back to the issue of running a federation.
“If you are running a federation,
there must be somebody that advises the president or the vice president on the
issue of legal borders, even for the purposes of taxation.
“Beyond these, every single
responsibility, which is being exercised by the vice president was at the instance
or was the responsibility delegated to him by the president.
“The president had challenges,
and even before he became the president he was not in the best of health, but
people did not pay much attention.
“And so when he became very
seriously sick and the Federal Government mismanaged, not the sickness, but the
flow of information; they were not at the same level with the rest of the
country, they were not telling us the truth, until the man had to stay for 37
days and later again for over 100 days in-between hospitals and the official
residence of the High Commissioner in London.
“Whether he wanted to hand over
some or all of the responsibilities, there was just no way we could have a
country without a president or somebody exercising the powers of the president.
But that doesn’t mean that these powers are or belonged to the vice president
as a birthright.
“No! I believe he (Osinbajo) made
some mistakes (in the discharge of this function), but I also believe that on
the whole his body language and his verbal expressions did not lead us into a
crisis. He didn’t abuse those powers.
“I find that most unfortunate
because if a man says go and do this on his behalf, he has the right to
withdraw and say I have reassigned it to myself or to somebody else as the law
provides. I find the whole attitude from these people rather disgraceful.”
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Hypocritical statement! It's known fact in this country that whenever a member of a tribe is at the elm of affairs in this country, his primary focus would be on his tribe. Can Junaid explain the kid's glove the Fulani herdsmen were being pampered, even, with known and proven atrocities all over the country, simply because they have their tribe's man as the president.
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