Ayomide Awe
Senate President Godswill Akpabio has rejected calls for President Bola Tinubu to formally transfer presidential powers to Vice-President Kashim Shettima, insisting that there is no vacancy in the presidency and that Tinubu remains in charge of the country.
Akpabio made the position known on Tuesday in Akwa Ibom State amid renewed debate over the constitutional implications of Tinubu’s extended stay outside Nigeria.
Tinubu left Nigeria on August 30 for London before proceeding to Paris on what the Presidency described as a three-week working vacation. The Presidency subsequently announced that his return had been extended by a few days and that he was expected back in Nigeria at the weekend.
The development has triggered calls from some opposition figures for the National Assembly to establish whether the constitutional requirements for the transfer of presidential functions have been met.
But Akpabio dismissed suggestions that the President’s absence had created a vacancy or made him, as Senate President, an acting President.
“I need to correct an impression. I am the Senate President and Chairman of the National Assembly, by your grace, the grace of God and the support of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I am not the acting President of Nigeria because President Tinubu is still in power,” Akpabio said.
According to him, Tinubu’s absence from Nigeria does not amount to an absence from office because the President has continued to direct the affairs of government remotely.
“The President is on a working leave, so there’s no absence in Aso Rock. What he cannot do here, he is doing abroad,” he said.
Akpabio pointed to Tinubu’s diplomatic engagements in France as evidence that the President remained active in the discharge of his responsibilities.
“The other day he was with President Macron on a state visit discussing bilateral to bring things back to Nigeria,” he said.
He also explained that Shettima’s representation of Nigeria at the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York did not amount to a transfer of presidential authority.
“And then because he could not make it to UN General Assembly, his Vice President went. There is no vacancy,” Akpabio said.
“People who are talking are just talking.”
The Senate President further asserted that, as Chairman of the National Assembly, he was competent to state whether there was a vacancy in the presidency.
“I am the only person as Chairman of National Assembly that can speak the voice of National Assembly and say there is vacancy and there will be vacancy. Right now, there is no vacancy,” he said.
“Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is still in power, and he’s still running the affairs of Nigeria.”
Akpabio also dismissed concerns over the President’s ability to govern effectively while outside the country, arguing that modern communications technology allows government directives to be issued remotely.
“The world has become a global village; you can give instructions from the internet. So why are people complaining?” he asked.
His comments came against the backdrop of a demand by African Action Congress presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore that the National Assembly invoke Section 145(2) of the 1999 Constitution.
Sowore argued that Tinubu’s initial three-week absence had elapsed and questioned whether the President had transmitted the written declaration contemplated under Section 145(1) of the Constitution.
He consequently challenged Akpabio and House of Representatives Speaker Tajudeen Abbas to disclose whether they had received such a declaration.
“If they did not, the 21-day threshold has passed, and the National Assembly must begin the process prescribed by Section 145(2) to mandate Vice-President Kashim Shettima to perform the functions of the President as Acting President,” Sowore said.
Sowore also rejected the Presidency’s description of Tinubu’s absence as a “working vacation”, arguing that the Constitution does not expressly create such an exception.
However, the Presidency has maintained that Tinubu remains in control of government despite his absence from Nigeria.
The Presidency said Shettima’s representation of Tinubu at official engagements, including the United Nations General Assembly, was carried out under the President’s mandate rather than through a transfer of presidential powers.
The Federal Government also said Shettima was carrying Tinubu’s full mandate at the UN General Assembly and would deliver Nigeria’s national statement.
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