- by africanheraldexpress, with reports from Taiwo Amodu-
In the wake of the Supreme Court abrupt sackingvof 5 Govs last Friday and the looming constitutional crisis in Kogi State where Capt Idris Wada was sworn in as Gov on the strength his recent Guber election victory, and the Speaker was also sworn in on the instructions of AGF Adoke, former Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Kanu Agabi, yesterday described the handover of power to Speakers of state Houses of Assembly as illegal.
Following the judgment, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke had issued a statement directing Speakers in the five states affected by the judgment of the apex court to take over and preside in acting capacity. But addressing newsmen yesterday in Abuja, Agabi declared that the Speakers in the affected states could not act as governors, as the 1999 constitution only give them powers to do so, when elections are annulled, or invalidated. Although he applauded the judgment, Agabi was of the opinion that Section 180 (1) (a) of the 1999 Constitution did not confer on the Speakers such powers.
He submitted that apart from Kogi State, where election had been conducted and Captain Idris Wada had emerged winner and therefore eligible to take over, the governors in the other four states should remain in office till an other election is conducted and a successor emerges. The former AGF said: “Section 180 subsection (1) of the Constitution says, subject to the provision of this Constitution, a person shall hold the office of a governor of a state until when a successor in office take the oath of that office. He holds that office until his successor takes over the office.
“The Speaker of a state is not the successor of the governor under the constitution, except when the election is invalidated or something like that happened. As a consequence of the judgment, the terms of office of those governors has expired, but they cannot just leave the office because the Constitution says when their term of office has expired you hold on to that office until somebody succeeds you.”
“It is not a matter of what makes sense or what does not make sense; it’s what the Constitution provides; if the Constitution says that he remains in the office until somebody succeeds him, whether in 30 minutes or a year time he is out, but if nobody succeeds him for another one year he has to remain there, because you can’t leave the state without a successor”, he concluded.
