In the early hours of Wednesday 24th February, the capital city of Nigeria, Abuja was placed under siege by the deployment of massive troops of the Nigerian army at the presidential wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport. This was in preparation to welcome our ailing President Yar'Adua back to the country after a three-month medical tourism in Saudi Arabia. This deployment was supposedly at the instance of yet to be known authorities either from the defence headquarters or from the presidency. We wonder what the deployment was meant for in a time of peace as now.
The heavily armed military in conjunction with the police virtually held Abuja hostage while our returning ailing president was airborne, on arrival and until he got to the presidential villa in a N1.2 billion Ford intensive-care ambulance. While the exercise lasted, Abuja residents held their hearts in their mouths as they were fear-stricken and could not comprehend the reason for the huge military and police presence.
The thickening secrecy about the president's health is increasingly heating up the polity as more confusions spring forth from both constitutional and institutional logjams. While trying to surmount the tremor of the military siege, Nigerians both resident in Abuja and elsewhere in the country have in the last 48 hours been asking questions. The questions which are in legions include: who ordered the troop deployment? What were they expected to do? Was there enough threats to the safety of the returning ailing president that warranted such massive troop deployment? Was Acting President Goodluck Jonathan aware of the deployment as the acting commander-in-chief of Nigeria's armed forces? Could the directive have come from the cabal holding Nigeria hostage whom many Nigerians believe is being led by the wife of our sick president? If indeed she made this military arrangement, is she now the commander-in-chief and does the constitution give her such powers? Can any military officer without the approval of the acting president simply deploy troops to the streets for whatever reasons?
It is with a sense of relief that we learned that President Yar'Adua landed in Abuja early Wednesday. This is cause for celebration. This is a man we haven't seen or heard from in over three months. Now we can finally see him and have a sense of how sick or well he is. It goes without saying that we wish him well and hope he will be in a position to resume his duties in not too distant future.
But meanwhile a number of disturbing questions persist. Good enough, now that he is on Nigeria's soil, we can finally start to get answers to pending questions. From all available information, the Acting President was not aware of the troop arrangement and this draws our condemnation. What does this imply on constitutional governance? That is the critical question. Who is really in charge? Why the secrecy?
The Nigerian people have a right to know the actual state of the president's health. If there is doubt or uncertainty, why not set up a medical team as stipulated by the constitution to determine whether the man is fit to govern or ought to step aside? The presidency is not a private fiefdom belonging to some region, family or person. Anyone who actually disregards decency, or the opinion of the people, or the constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, has no business talking about rule of law.
Source: Troop deployment for a president's welcome (http://www.businessdayonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8820:troop-deployment-for-a-presidents-welcome&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=18)