Imams’ visit: CNPP wants Yar’Adua removed
From JACOB EDI, Abuja
Monday, April 05, 2010


Yar’Adua
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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Last week’s visit by Chief Imam of Abuja, Ustaz Moahmmed, has opened fresh demands by the opposition for urgently invoke Section 144 of the nation’s constitution. By the provisions of the section, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) is empowered to declare vacant the office of the president of the country if he is incapacitated.

The demand for the invocation of the section became intense since the return of President Yar’Adua into the country and yet he has not been seen in public. The Tunde Bakare-led Save Nigeria Group (SNG) has been at the forefront of the agitation even before the cabinet was dissolved.
But on Sunday, in Abuja, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) renewed the call for the invocation of Section 144 of the constitution by the Federal Executive Council.
CNPP’s statement, signed by Osita Okechukwu, it National Publicity Secretary, said the need for President Yar’Adua to be declared incapacitated was based on the statement credited to the Chief Imam of Abuja.

“The visit of the Chief Imam of Abuja National Mosque, Ustaz Mohammed, and three other Muslim clerics to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, has once more brought to the front burner the imperativeness of the new Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF) to invoke Section 144 to avail Nigerians of the true state of his health,” the statement said. CNPP said Nigerians were eager to know the state of President Yar’Adua’s health and whether he is capable of discharging his responsibilities as president .

“The invocation of Section 144 is imperative, for going by the statement of the Chief Imam, the capacity of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to discharge the functions of his high office is questionable; more so when the visit was not made public nor either the acting president or the president of the Senate and speaker of the House of Representatives were offered the golden opportunity accorded the Imams.

“In the absence of doubting the veracity of the sImams’ visit, the state of the health, and indeed the permanent capacity of the president to discharge the functions of his office, cannot be measured or determined by any other scale except the one clearly stipulated in the 1999 Constitution – Section 144.

“Consequently, CNPP challenges the new EXCOF to, as a matter of urgent national importance to invoke Section 144 and break the gridlock and the paralysis of a divided-presidency,” the statement insisted. However the question on many lips at the weekend was whether the new FEC is in a better position to declare Yar’Adua incapacitated or the FEC which had been dissolved.




http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2010/apr/05/national-05-04-2010-002.htm

Yaradua should resign honourably and attend to his health.