Buhari’s London Trip: APC, Presidency Have Relegated 1999 Constitution – PDP
- PDP attacks Buhari for not handing over to before travelling out of the country.
- It says the action is a relegation of Section 145.
The Peoples Democratic Party has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s private trip out of the country without transmitting power, as required by the constitution.
Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP’s National Publicity Secretary in a statement released in Abuja on Monday described this as an act of dereliction, saying it confirms that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Buhari Presidency are not interested in governance but seeks to vacate our constitutional order and foist an authoritarian system on our country.
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PDP further stated that such dereliction of office can only come from leaders, who do not have respect for the people they governed but always muscling their way to power through intimidation, harassment as well as official manipulations, as witnessed in the rigging of the February 23 Presidential election by the APC.
It also said that Buhari leaving the country particularly at this critical time of security and economic challenges signposts the level of impunity and recklessness that will characterize our nation in the next four years, if the stolen Presidential mandate is not retrieved from the APC.
“What else, besides an authoritarian propensity, can explain why the Buhari Presidency relegated our Constitutional Order by declaring the application of Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which directs that the President transmits power whenever he is travelling out of the country on vacation, as a mere “convention”.
“Authoritarian tendencies are usually characterized by absolute lack of trust on other government functionaries, which could likely explain the failure to transmit power to the Vice President. Such proclivity can also lead to a sequestering of institutions of government, if not checked,” PDP noted.
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The opposition party further pointed that this action is a relegation of Section 145, which it said is also a clear absence of a constitutional command structure which leaves our nation at the mercy of the extremely corrupt, vicious and anti-people cabal with whom President Buhari presided over the most corrupt and most incompetent administration, which wrecked Nigeria’s economy, divided the nation and opened her up for escalated insecurity.
