The governorship candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in 2019 election in Lagos State, Owolabi Salis, yesterday, said it is impossible for the courts, including the Supreme Court, to remove any sitting President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in Nigeria after he might have been sworn into office.
Salis said Nigerians should know that under the presidential system of government, the President has two offices, which are the President and Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Armed Forces.
According to him, “these are two but separate offices combined in one. In many jurisdictions, practising the presidential system of government, while you have to go through some written procedures to acquire the power of the President, there is no effective written procedure for acquiring the power of the Commander in Chief.
“When the President travels, he can only hand over and or delegate power of the President to his vice but not that of the Commander-in-Chief, otherwise he could be overthrown easily. The guards can be changed before he returns.”
Salis said apart from the fact that it is abnormal for any Acting President to sit on the seat of the Commander-in-Chief or use his office while the President is not around, no Nigerian leader, either under the military or democratic system, has ever handed over the power of Commander-in-Chief to his deputy of vice when he is not around.
“A sitting President needs to have effective control of the service chiefs and be truly a Commander-in-Chief. Some sitting Presidents don’t understand this and make some military commanders act for them as Commander-in-Chief. Such sitting presidents end up being overthrown.”
“We are all respecting the decisions of the judges and other bodies because of the transferred enforcement powers of the Commander-in-Chief.
“When the judge swears in a Commander-in-Chief, it will be difficult for the same judge to remove him. We are all respecting the judges because of the transferred enforcement powers of the Commander-in-Chief.”
