Nigeria Votes to Transfer Power
LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s lawmakers moved Tuesday to end the political stalemate created by an absentee president and hand the job to his second in command, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, who so far has shown no outward sign of wanting to run the troubled oil-rich African nation.
After weeks of what participants say were heated backroom debates, both the Nigerian House and Senate passed resolutions Tuesday to make Mr. Jonathan acting president until ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua returns from treatment abroad and is proven fit enough to resume his duties. The resolutions give Mr. Jonathan, a fish biologist-turned-politician, the authority to pass legislation and command Nigeria’s armed forces, the most forceful move to date to fill a vacuum left by Mr. Yar’Adua’s absence.
Some lawmakers, however, challenged the resolutions, saying they violated the constitution because a transfer of power requires written consent from the president. That opposition has setup a clash that threatens to draw out the country’s political crisis, rather than resolve it.
“It’s a joke; you cannot look for political solutions by going against what the constitution says,” said House of Representatives member Kunle Fasinro, from Lagos State, who voted against the resolution. “We need to know what the actual condition the president is in. I don’t know, nobody knows,” the lawmaker added.