Much ado about Buhari’s speech and rodents invasion of office (2)

Seemingly, ignorance is responsible for the irritating dispositions particularly, the distinction between a Vice President standing in for the President when on official trip outside the country and the Vice President operating as the Acting President; thus, leading to the pandemonium over the medical vacation.

Clearly, the two scenarios are not the same. When a Vice President is representing the President by informal arrangements albeit on official matters, he cannot perform the key functions of the President such as signing or endorsing documents requiring presidential assents.

He can only act as any other government officials mandated by the President to represent him. However, where the Vice President stepped into the office of the Acting President in compliance to Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, the Acting President, has unfettered powers to perform all the functions of the President.

By implication, no vacuum existed in the office of the President throughout the period of Buhari’s vacation. The Constitution consciously and proactively paired the duo in view of such developments. Thus, the Vice President serving the nation for 3 months as Acting President is constitutionally no strange development. Thumbs-up to the federal government for introducing Civic Education in Basic Education Curriculum lately.

The dramatis personae even failed to call to mind that the President already presented economic blueprints at the beginning of the year which the administration is tenaciously working with, and will on October 1 still address the nation in commemoration of the Independence Day celebration about a month away. In other words, the brief address presented by the President was not only apt but unique.

If after the handover and briefing by Professor Osinbajo, the President alongside the Federal Executive Council, FEC, after evaluating developments, have cause to modify some policies, certainly, the nation will be abreast of them. The greater but bitter truth is that anyone that has not come to terms with the present administration’s determinedly laudable efforts in fixing the rotten system is either naïve or biased irrespective of prominence.

With the mammoth crowds that jubilated uncontrollably during Buhari’s return, it is logically clear that overwhelming majority of citizens are not deceived by the detractors.

Or perhaps, the clique naively misconstrued medical vacation as vocational trip that provides new strategies and know-hows. Should that be the case, literally note, that President Buhari travelled for medication, ill-health and therefore couldn’t have learnt new economic policies from his physicians.

Sadly, all in the ranting gangs were part or beneficiaries of the previous administrations’ excesses that never thought of the future of the country except to divert public funds as no-man’s land taking advantage of the lacunas and poor legal justice system to maneuver. Simply, the commotion is borne out of antagonism, pessimism and witlessness. To have a strong opposition is, apart from being a democratic norm, a desideratum but where it is misconstrued as nuisance, loquacity or farcicality, it abysmally becomes a gargantuan problem.