Nigerian Senate votes to empower vice president

[February 09, 2010]  ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- The Nigerian Senate voted Tuesday to empower the vice president to take over for the nation's ill and absent president, potentially ending a constitutional crisis that has engulfed Africa's most populous nation.

The Senate voted to authorize Goodluck Jonathan to take over as president and commander in chief while President Umaru Yar'Adua remains hospitalized in Saudi Arabia. A similar motion sat Tuesday before the Nigerian House of Representatives. If the House passes the measure, Jonathan could be immediately sworn in as president.

The motion would allow Yar'Adua to reassume the presidency if he returns to the country healthy enough to lead the nation of 150 million people. However, many have worried the president may be too seriously ill to serve again, throwing into question who will lead the ruling party in the 2011 presidential election.

Yar'Adua, who long has suffered from kidney ailments, traveled out of the country several times for what his advisers said were medical checkups before he left Nigeria for Saudi Arabia on Nov. 23. He was admitted to a hospital the next day.

As questions mounted, his physician released a statement saying Yar'Adua had acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart.

Since Yar'Adua left Nigeria, a major kidnapping and a pipeline attack have occurred in the oil-rich Niger Delta despite an amnesty program for militants led by Yar'Adua. Religious violence between Christians and Muslims in central Nigeria also left more than 300 dead and thousands displaced.

And a young Nigerian attempted to bring down a trans-Atlantic flight bound for Detroit, sparking new security regulations for travelers from the West African nation.

While Nigerian law allows for a smooth transition of power from Yar'Adua to the vice president, the 58-year-old president left without following any of those procedures.

While the federal government says Jonathan has been acting in Yar'Adua's place without the constitutional procedures, protesters have taken to the street warning the country will remain rudderless until something changes.

Jonathan taking power also would disrupt an unwritten power-sharing agreement between Nigeria's Christian south and the Muslim north. Jonathan, a Christian, would be taking over for Yar'Adua, a Muslim, before his appointed time was up.

Yar'Adua has given one interview since being out of the country. In January, he told the BBC that he hoped to recover and return to power.

Senate President David Mark said that telephone interview served as all the notification needed to allow Jonathan to take power.

"The BBC interview is as good as the letter envisioned by the constitution," Mark said.

[Associated Press; By BASHIR ADIGUN]

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