By: Ad\u00e9m\u00f3l\u00e1 \u00d2r\u00fanbon<\/p>\n
It is almost 22 years of democratic rule in Nigeria. There is no better
\ntime than now to assess the suitability of the 1999 constitution. It is
\neven more compelling in the light of recent happenings in the country,
\nespecially the wanton killings by the Boko Haram, kidnapping of innocent
\npeople by the bandits, and insecurity of lives and property that has
\nbecomes norms and part of the people, indeed, Nigerians are now living
\nin fears, many Nigerians are now scampering for safety instead of
\nsearching for the means of livelihood, which a lot of people expected to
\ncement democracy proved clearly that we are not yet in civility.
\nUnexpectedly, the 2021 budget is more on recurrent expenditure than
\ncapital projects. The recurrent expenditure is to maintain political
\noffice holders and their numerous aides. In fact, since the advent into
\ncivil rule the cost of running government has been on the high side.
\nThese amongst others shows that there is a need to implement the 2014
\nconference report and do away with the 1999 constitution which is the
\nguardian angel of this republic, or better still, we should go back to
\nthe parliamentary system of government.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the 1999 constitution was full of abnormalities and biases,
\nwhich caused major havoc to the living conditions of common man in this
\ncountry. The model of government under the 1999 constitution is called
\nthe presidential system of government. The presidential system of
\ngovernment is a system of government where the President has strong
\npowers to function as head of government independent of the legislature.
\nHere, the President has executive powers which he can exercise directly
\nor indirectly through his ministers. Section 5 of the 1999 constitution
\nprovides as follows: \u201cSubject to the provisions of this constitution,
\nthe executive powers of the Federation shall be vested in the President
\nand may subject as aforesaid and to the provisions of any law made by
\nthe National Assembly, be exercised by him either directly or through
\nthe Vice-President and Minister of the Government of the Federation; and
\n(b) shall extend to execution and maintenance of this constitution, all
\nlaws made by the National Assembly and to all matters with respect to
\nwhich the National Assembly has, for the time being, power to make
\nlaws.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sweeping powers of the President is limited by section
\n5(4)(a)&(b).The President by the aforesaid sections cannot declare a
\nstate of war between the federation and another country except by the
\nsanction of a resolution of both houses of the National assembly or
\ndeploy any member of the Armed Forces of the federation for combat duty
\noutside Nigeria without the sanction of the National Assembly in the
\nform of a resolution. The President is also the Commander-in \u2013Chief of
\nthe armed forces of the federation .By section 218 of the 1999
\nconstitution ,he is to determine the operational use of the armed forces
\nof the federation .These are sweeping powers indeed! Although section
\n218 (4) provides that the national assembly shall have power to make
\nlaws for the regulation of the powers exercisable by the president as
\ncommander-in-chief of the armed forces of the federation.<\/p>\n
This is not enough to limit the enormous powers conferred on the
\npresident by the said section. Acts or laws can not envisage every human
\nscenario that might crop up so effective regulation of that power is
\nreally out of it. In principle, though, the 1999 constitution has checks
\nand balances. This can be gleamed from some of the sections cited above.
\nAn active National Assembly can check the enormous powers of the
\npresident but there is a limit to what the national assembly can do in
\nthe face of these enormous powers. Our experience has brought this
\nquestion to the front-burner, can we afford to give enormous powers to
\none man \u2018The framers of the 1979 constitution which introduced the
\npresidential system of government for the first time in our political
\nhistory which later changed to the 1999 constitution did not anticipate
\na president that could transform into a civilian dictator.<\/p>\n
We and them have since been woken up from that ignorance! The proponents
\nof strong powers for the president, a main feature of the presidential
\nsystem of government, believes that such powers is needed for strong and
\nunited leadership especially in times of crisis and because of the
\ndiverse ethnic composition of the country .These are good reasons to
\ngive strong powers for the president but it is the reverse that we have
\nseen as a people .We are living witnesses to what transpired in the last
\nadministration. We had a President that was surreptitiously removing
\ngovernors, senate presidents through the instrumentality of state, a
\nPresident that was disobeying court orders and a President that rigged a
\nlot of his party-men into office. Obviously these are the dangers
\ninherent in a presidential system of government or better still points
\nto the fact that the presidential system of government might not be
\ncompatible with our clime as a people.<\/p>\n
Every constitution however good it might be is premised on one fact that
\nthe operators would be gentlemen, men of honour.\u00a0 Our experience has
\nshown that we might not always have men of honour in office and we
\nshould not wait till another autocratic leader springs up before we
\nrealize our mistake .We need to switch gears. A country where political
\npatronage is the major source of livelihood and a President that
\ncontrols the disbursement of funds and all governmental structures,
\nextremes that should not exist side by side, there is no way everybody
\nwill not be at the beck and call of the President. We need to go back to
\nthe parliamentary system of government that we operated in the first
\nrepublic under the 1960 and 1963 constitutions.<\/p>\n
The parliamentary system of government that we practiced then offers
\nsome bright lessons for a time such as this. In this write-up, I will
\nenumerate the good side of the 1960 and 1963 constitutions and the
\nprovisions that need not be adopted again as it relates to the model of
\ngovernment. The parliamentary system of government under the 1960 and
\n1963 constitutions was characterized by four main features. (1) The
\nseparation of the Head of State and Head of Government. (2) The
\nplurality of the executive. (3) Parliamentary character of the
\nexecutive. (4) The responsibility of the ministers to the legislature.
\nThe plurality of the executive: The executive is plural in the sense
\nthat the Prime Minister is the Head of the Council of Ministers. It is
\nplural in the sense that the Prime Minister has more than one vote in
\ncouncil meetings deliberations.<\/p>\n
In the cabinet, all other members stand on equal footing \u2013 one man,
\none vote. It is the Prime Minister that is primus interpares. The
\ncouncil of Ministers derives its authority from the Prime Minister
\nbecause they leave office when his tenure ceases. He chooses his
\nMinisters from among his colleagues in the parliament. The separation of
\nHead of State from Head of Government: The head of state was the
\nGovernor-General which later turned into the President (under the 1963
\nconstitution) while the head of government was the Prime Minister. It is
\nthe Prime Minister with his cabinet members that coordinate the
\ngovernment while the Governor-General plays a titular role.
\nParliamentary character of the executive: Members of the executive are
\nalso members of parliament. It is the political party that has the
\nlargest number of votes that forms the cabinet.<\/p>\n
The responsibility of the Executive to the legislature; Here, the
\nlegislature has greater control of the cabinet. They are actually fused.
\nThe legislature could pass a vote of no confidence on any of the
\nministers including the Prime Minister. Now, let us go to the relevance
\nof the above features of 1960 and 1963 constitutions to our present
\nsituation. One complaint that has been recurring from the National
\nAssembly in this present Republic is the non-implementation of the
\nbudget which has led to infrastructural decay and the absence of the
\ndividends of democracy. This cannot happen in a Parliamentary system of
\ngovernment where the legislature has greater control of the executive.
\nThe executive of the First Republic was described thus: \u201dthe major
\ntask of the cabinet is not to lead the party, to manage the parliament
\nor think out policy, but to coordinate administration, ensure that
\nlegislative proposals are acceptable to the departments concerned, to
\nkeep senior minister in touch with the various lines of activity and to
\ngive the work of government a measure of unity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Proponents of the presidential system of government might argue that
\nunder the 1999 constitution the legislature has the power to investigate
\ngovernment ministries and parastatals (section 88 of the 1999
\nconstitution). That it is, because the National Assembly has not been up
\nto its responsibility that is why we have had that ugly experience. The
\npower to investigate is curative in nature but the parliamentary system
\nof government will bequeath to us a proactive approach to the issue, it
\nwill prevent it from happening. The point is well summed up in this
\naphorism \u201cPrevention is better than cure.\u201d Also, the collective
\nresponsibility under the parliamentary system of government will make
\nlong term planning easier and will effectively check any slide to
\ncivilian autocracy or dictatorship. Section 83 of the 1960 constitution
\nprovides as follows: \u201dthe cabinet shall be collectively responsible
\nfor any advice given to the Governor-General by or under the general
\nauthority of any minister of the government of the federation in the
\nexecution of his office.\u201d This no doubt will ensure for careful
\nreasoning on the part of the cabinet. It will make for well thought-out
\npolicies that can stand the test of time.<\/p>\n
Mind you, no member of cabinet will be railroad into adopting a policy
\nhe clearly believes to be wrong. He can resign because he knows the
\npublic will hold him accountable for any wrong policy he supports. It
\nmakes for more ethics in governance unlike a Presidential system of
\ngovernment where the Minister feels he is obligated to the President
\nbecause he put him in office. He cannot fully exercise his moral
\nconvictions. The Prime Minister cannot act arbitrarily because he knows
\nhe is in a position of power as a result of the collective effort of an
\norganized party in which there would be many other acknowledged leaders
\n.This means he cannot exercise his power in complete disregard of these
\nother interests within his party. If he did, he would risk the break-up
\nof his cabinet but also his own downfall. This will make for careful and
\nconscientious leadership.<\/p>\n
What we have presently is immediately the President is elected, he
\nbecomes the Leader of the party whether it is contained in the party\u2019s
\nconstitution or not. Everybody gravitates towards the President
\nincluding the Chairman of the party, in fact; he owes his being in
\noffice to the support of the President. Lastly, the parliamentary system
\nof government is cheaper to run. The cost of election is relatively
\ncheaper because candidates are limited within their confined
\nconstituencies. Also, it is cheaper to maintain political office-holders
\nbecause members of cabinet are chosen from the parliament unlike in the
\npresidential system of government where Ministers can be chosen from
\nanywhere. This will reduce over-head cost on government officials.<\/p>\n
At the moment, we hold elections into 774 Local Governments, 36
\nGovernorship Seats, 109 Senatorial Seats, 360 House of Representative
\nSeats, thousands of Houses of Assembly, which cut across the 36 States
\nof the Federation and the office of the President and the National
\nAssembly which contains four hundred and sixty nine members. If we hold
\nelections based on the number of constituencies, it will not be that
\nexpensive even if we increase the number of constituencies. However,
\nthere is a rider, if we go back to the parliamentary system of
\ngovernment, we must jettison the state structure we currently have. It
\ncannot be fully practiced at the lower tiers of government because of
\ntheir small nature. We need to go back to the regional arrangement we
\nhad in the first republic.<\/p>\n
We presently have six geo-political zones. We should have regions along
\nthat line. The six regions will be namely: SOUTH-SOUTH region,
\nSOUTH-EAST region, SOUTH-WEST region, NORTH-WEST region, NORTH-EAST
\nregion, NORTH-CENTRAL region. The six regional arrangements is a better
\nresponse to agitations for more States than amending the constitution to
\ncreate more States which is even hard to do under the present
\nconstitution. Again, all the demands for more States can never be
\nsatisfied and actually it will address the structural imbalance we
\npresently have in the polity where the South has 17 States while the
\nNorth has 19 States.<\/p>\n
The operation of the 1960 constitution was marred by a constitutional
\nprovision which in actual fact was intended to enforce the collective
\nresponsibility of the executive. Section 33 (10) (constitution of
\nwestern region) provides that the Governor could dismiss the Premier if
\nit appeared to him that the Premier no longer enjoyed the support of the
\nmajority in the parliament. The problem created by it was actually due
\nto bad drafting. The question left unanswered by the provision was how
\nthe Governor should determine when the Premier no longer enjoyed the
\nsupport of the Parliament. This led to a crisis in the western region
\nand gave rise to the case of Adegbenro vs Akintola. The lacuna was
\neffectively resolved by the Constitution of Western Nigeria (Amendment
\nLaw) 1963 where it was clearly stated that the Governor could remove the
\nPremier in consequence of a vote of no confidence by the House of
\nAssembly.<\/p>\n
The personality clash that we saw in the first republic between the
\npresident and the Prime Minister was due to the lack of knowledge of the
\nworkings of the parliamentary system of government. Nigerians are more
\nknowledgeable and exposed that they were in the First Republic. Also, we
\nhave elder statesmen that could conveniently fill the fatherly role of
\nthe President. There should be a clear demarcation of powers of both the
\nPresident and the Prime Minister. Another omission in the 1960 and 1963
\nconstitutions is on the structure and organization of political parties
\nwhich allowed political parties to develop along regional lines. We had
\nno national party then. This would have been averted if there was a
\nclear provision for political parties. Section 222 (e) of the 1999
\nconstitution which provides that the symbol or logo of a political party
\nshould not have any religious or ethnic connotation or that its
\nactivities be limited to a particular geographical area would have been
\nbeneficial in the first republic.<\/p>\n
National spread should be the basis of the existence of political
\nparties. This should be made a criterion at the point of registration
\nand after registration. Despite all the shortcomings, the parliamentary
\nsystem of government represents our best hope for careful and
\nconscientious leadership. The system is more democratic as we will see
\nmore people-oriented policies. Most of the policies will emanate from
\nthe legislature who are elected representatives of the
\npeople-legislators who are in touch with their constituencies. It will
\ngive the people greater participation in governance.<\/p>\n
\u00d2r\u00fanbon, an opinion writer, poet, journalist and public affairs
\nanalyst, writes in from Federal Housing Estate, Olomore, Abeokuta, Ogun
\nState.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Ad\u00e9m\u00f3l\u00e1 \u00d2r\u00fanbon It is almost 22 years of democratic rule in Nigeria. There is no better time than now to assess the suitability of the 1999 constitution. It is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n