Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has made fresh claims regarding the political tension that took place when late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua became seriously ill during his time in office.
Speaking in an interview with Rainbow Book Club, which gained attention on Saturday, Jonathan said a top aide to Yar’Adua stopped a key letter from reaching the National Assembly—a move that threw the country into a deep constitutional crisis.
According to Jonathan, before leaving Nigeria for medical treatment in 2010, President Yar’Adua had written a letter that was meant to officially allow Jonathan, then vice president, to act in his place.
But the letter, handed over to one of Yar’Adua’s aides, was never delivered to the lawmakers as required by the Constitution. This action, Jonathan noted, created confusion and left Nigeria without a leader who had full authority.
Jonathan explained that although he was still carrying out several duties as vice president—such as leading Federal Executive Council meetings and approving government documents—he didn’t have the power to act as commander-in-chief because the official transfer of authority never took place.
Without the letter being read in the Senate and House of Representatives, the proper handover never happened.
Jonathan said: “There’s always a balancing between North and South, Muslims and Christians. And Yar’Adua was a Northern Muslim, serving as president. He took over from a Southern Christian, Obasanjo, who ruled for eight years.
“Definitely the Northern Muslims wanted Yar’Adua to at least do eight years before power would return to the South, likely to another Christian. But his health issues came up and it was a problem. That’s why even allowing me to act as president became an issue.
“One year that Yar’Adua was going for the medical checkup. Actually, a letter was written. Of course, the constitution says that for the vice president to act, the president would send a letter to the Senate and the House of Rep informing them.
“That letter was written, but the person who the letter was handed over to, I will not mention the name to you now, was one of the aides of Yar’Adua, refused to submit the letter to the National Assembly. And Yar’Adua became so ill that he had no control of issues.
“So we had a country where the president was not available, and there was no acting president. Yes, as a vice president, you can take over the responsibilities of, some responsibilities of the president. You know the president of Nigeria has two main responsibilities.
“First, you are the chief executive of the country, so like a prime minister of a country. That, the vice president can assume, you don’t need any transfer. And I was doing that because we were having an executive council meeting, we were approving memos from ministers, so the government was going on.
