Lead Image The ruling by the Federal High Court appears to have dashed the hope of upholding the constitution over Yar’Adua’s absence Court says Jona

The political crisis that the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua has thrown Nigeria into got messier yesterday when a Federal High Court in Abuja held that the Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan, has been performing the functions of the president as assigned or delegated to him by the president before he left the country.

In a somewhat supersonic judgment that defies all known permutations in the Nigerian court system since the case was filed on Monday, Justice Dan Abutu, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, ruled that the vice president has the right to perform all duties on behalf of the president without any formal transfer of power.

A certain Christopher Onwuekwe filed the suit against the Attorney General of the Federation...