The Akwa Ibom State Government on Tuesday referred to Senate President Godswill Akpabio as the “Acting President of Nigeria” in a social media post during the official reception of a new Airbus A220-300 aircraft acquired by Ibom Air.
The description, which appeared on the state government’s official Facebook livestream of the event at the Victor Attah International Airport, Uyo, was later edited out.
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The post initially read: “Arrival of the Acting President of Nigeria, Sen. Dr. Godswill Akpabio, GCON, President of the Senate, Chairman of the National Assembly, at the Official Reception and Water Cannon Ceremony for the brand-new Airbus A220-300, as part of the activities commemorating the 39th Anniversary Celebration of Akwa Ibom State.”
President Bola Tinubu is currently outside Nigeria on a three-week vacation in Europe. At the same time, Vice President Kashim Shettima had also travelled abroad to represent Mr Tinubu at an African Union summit in Angola.
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The Presidency announced on 30 August that Mr Tinubu had departed Abuja for Europe for his annual leave, with London as his first destination. It said he was expected to return after the vacation to participate in activities ahead of the 2027 elections.
Mr Shettima, meanwhile, left Abuja on 29 August for Luanda, Angola, to represent the president at the 21st Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union. He returned to Abuja on Monday, 31 August, after concluding his engagements in Angola.
Many Akwa Ibom people on Facebook, without explaining how they obtained such information, have been “celebrating” Mr Akpabio as Nigeria’s “acting president”.
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“Thank God our Senator Godswill Akpabio is the acting president…let’s build Ibom Deep Seaport,” one Facebook user, Ima Utip, wrote on the social media site on Monday.
What the Constitution says
Section 145 of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution, as amended, provides that whenever the president proceeds on vacation or is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office, he is to transmit a written declaration to the Senate president and Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The presidency has not publicly announced that Mr Tinubu transmitted such a declaration to the National Assembly before leaving the country for his vacation.
Mr Shettima’s brief absence, however, creates a separate constitutional question because Section 145 specifically identifies the vice president, rather than the Senate president, as the person who performs the president’s functions during the president’s temporary absence.
The Constitution does not ordinarily designate the Senate president as acting president merely because both the president and vice president are outside the country.
Section 146 of the Constitution provides that the Senate president may assume office as president only when the office of the president becomes vacant, and the office of the vice president is also vacant. That provision concerns a vacancy in office, rather than a temporary absence from the country.
On this backdrop, the Akwa Ibom government’s description of Mr Akpabio as acting president appears to go beyond the constitutional arrangement for temporary presidential absence.
How the post came about
Mr Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom State, was in Uyo on Tuesday for the reception of Ibom Air’s latest Airbus A220-300 as part of activities marking the state’s 39th anniversary.
The state government’s anniversary programme includes commissioning 39 projects across the state in September, with President Tinubu scheduled to visit and commission some of them.
The new aircraft, registered as 5N-CDC, was formally handed over to Ibom Air at the Airbus A220 final assembly facility in Mirabel, Canada, before arriving in Uyo. It is among the 10 aircraft ordered by the administration of former Governor Udom Emmanuel.
Mr Akpabio was a central political figure in Akwa Ibom before becoming Senate president. He served as governor of the state from 2007 to 2015 and later became a senator representing Akwa Ibom North-West District.
The state government’s Facebook post was later edited to remove the reference to Mr Akpabio as “Acting President of Nigeria”.
The alteration has raised the question of whether the original description was an error in the preparation of the social media material or reflected an assumption within the state government about who was exercising presidential authority while Mr Tinubu is outside the country.
As of Tuesday evening, there was no public statement from the Presidency explaining whether Mr Tinubu had formally transmitted a letter to the National Assembly before commencing his vacation.
Akwa Ibom govt speaks
When contacted on Tuesday night, the Commissioner for Information, Aniekan Umanah, initially denied the controversial Facebook post, stressing that such had never happened.
READ ALSO: Akpabio’s longtime supporter alleges neglect, exclusion from political appointments
But when our reporter informed him that we have a screenshot of the post before it was edited, Mr Umanah claimed what happened must have been an error by the social media handler.
“I don’t know. Maybe somebody made a mistake. There’s nothing like that (acting president) in the country,” he said.
When pressed further, the commissioner said: “Nobody authorised that (reference) here. Maybe the people typing may have made a mistake, but that cannot be the position of the state government.”
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