The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has asked the Federal Executive Council to invoke Section 144 of the 1999 Constitution by declaring President Muhammadu Buhari incapable of continuing in office.
The governor claimed that the All Progressives Congress and the Presidency cabal were in a state of dilemma as to whether to bring President Buhari back to the country with his present state or leave him in London.
Fayose, in a statement issued on Monday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, insisted that Nigerians must be told the truth about the President’s state of health.
He said, “For a President who has spent 113 days abroad taking care of his health out of the 191 days in 2017, it is time for Section 144 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to be invoked.
“President Buhari left Nigeria for London on May 7, 2017 and today is July 10, 2017, 64 clears days since Nigerians saw their President or heard anything from him. Even the President’s handlers are keeping Nigerians in the dark.
“Even though the number of days that a President can spend outside the country is not specified in the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the makers of the laws of Nigeria envisaged this kind of situation and made provisions for how to resolve it in Section 144.
“It has therefore become pertinent that the Federal Executive Council must invoke Section 144 of the 1999 Constitution by passing a resolution declaring that President Buhari is incapable of discharging the functions of his office.”
However, a former Senate Majority Leader, Mohammed Ndume, has assured Nigerians that Buhari is not incapacitated.
Speaking to journalists in Maiduguri on Sunday evening, Ndume who was recently suspended from the Senate, said the call to have the President’s health status made public was not right “as it is a security issue.”
He said the only thing missing in the Presidency was Buhari as a person but the country had not ceased from moving forward.
PUNCH
