18th December, 2019
By Akinboro Olukayode Muheez
A curious event was enacted by the presidency on November 4, 2019 when a bill relating to the most important sector of Nigeria’s economy, Oil, was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari while in a foreign land.
Called the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract (DOIBPSC), the bill (as amended) was delivered to the State House, Abuja by Clerk of the National Assembly. Regarded by the presidency as a milestone, the Chief of Staff to the President issued a statement emphasizing the importance of the bill which he claimed would save the country $1.4 billion annually.
The presidency failed to realize the impropriety of signing such an important bill thousands of miles away from the shores of the country by going to the extent of disseminating photographs of the ceremony taken in England where the President was on a two-week private visit.
Expectedly, this strange development engendered heated debates among Nigerians as to whether it was lawful or not for the President to have done that. Though, it is not stated in the constitution whether or not the President could sign bill into law in a foreign land, but the morality of the exercise and its implication for national sovereignty call the action to question.
However, the presidency argued that the president could sign into law any bill from anywhere in the world. This is reminiscent of the unhealthy event during the administration of former President Umaru Yar’Adua, who was ruling Nigeria from his sick bed in Saudi Arabia with his Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Michael Andoakaa, declaring that the President could run the country from any location. In other words, the whole world is the presidential administrative space.
That was also the unpopular line toed by Chairman of the ruling party in his attempt to defend the President’s action when he said, “I think by signing the bill into law at the Nigerian House in London, it shows that where the President is, he is presiding over Nigeria and with the benefit of modern technology. We have passed the Mongo Park era…So, signing it in London for me has also made several statements. Namely, that wherever national interest is involved, the President is on duty and wherever he is he is presiding.”
It was also argued in some quarters that if the President was abroad and signed a document in so far as it was performed in the embassy’s precinct, it would have the force of law or some validity.
Legal experts have, however, controverted such argument. They reason that it was wrong to append signature to any Nigerian law outside the country and wonder if while gazetting such law, it would bear “signed into law on this day… in London”. The argument went further that even agreements that government agents enter into routinely outside the country are expected to be given effect of domestication and ratification by the national parliament.
However, whatever the merit of these arguments, it is pertinent to state without ambiguity that the concept of a state in terms of territoriality, population, and sovereignty is handy here.
The importance of sovereignty of a nation cannot be overemphasized. This is why countries struggle to optimise their sovereignty. It is only a banana republic that acts to undermine its own sovereignty. This is the implication of the indiscretion of Mr. President.
It’s like the country is simply witnessing moral impunity. Morality has to do with principles relating to right or wrong. They are articulated in systems espoused by private and public agencies, and it guides the whole gamut of human transactions. Let it be known that public office is the repository of moral authority. Public officials’ ability to know what is proper or odious to public sensibility is important. What is wrong is wrong.
Furthermore, why was it difficult to delegate the power of signing a bill into law to the Vice President who was supposed to be acting at the time? Indeed, signing such a legal instrument outside the shores of our country is wrong and the whole act ridicules us in the eyes of the international community.
Another argument that the United States (U.S.) does it is not only irrational but sheer sophistry. No one has produced any evidence in this regard. Nigeria is not U.S., anyway. The act was immoral and it portrayed the country as a feudal estate at the mercy of a lord.
It is important to remind public officials of the transient nature of power and for them to be mindful of acts that could undermine our image as the Giant of Africa. The behaviour undermined the president’s Chatham House pledge in the run-up to the 2015 election that he would “dream and work for a Nigeria that will be respected again in the comity of nations that all Nigerians will be proud of.’’
Therefore, if a wrong thing had been done in the United Kingdom, the president’s men should swallow their pride and get Mr. President to sign a proper bill into law inside Nigeria.
*Akinboro Olukayode Muheez is a 400 level student of Mass Communication at Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State.