The road not taken
THE idea of our returning to the Parliamentary system of government is seriously being mulled. This is as a result of the frustrations the country has been experiencing since 1979 when we embraced the American Presidential system. The Presidential form was brandished before our gaze in 1975 as the veritable tool for unity, more so after the country’s years of hate and bloody hostilities. The system was also aimed at galvanising the citizenry towards development and lofty goals, foremost among which was the emergence of a strong leader with a large heart who would see all the people as his own, gathered under his beckoning wings. The whole country would bend behind the plough to build a strong economy.
I recall the broadcast by the then Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed, the chief protagonist, sharing his lofty dreams of a Presidential system. The President would radiate love and be the Altar Ego of the Nigerian peoples. During the broadcast, he announced a 50- man panel of eminent, knowledgeable and experienced men headed by Chief Rotimi Alade Williams ( FRA Williams) to consider the thinking of his Administration. The committee had placed in its hands terms of reference which did not hide the Administration’s preference for the United States brand of the Presidential System. The Sunday Times called the committee members The 50 Wise Men. By the time the report was ready, General Mohammed who initiated the new thinking had been assassinated. The elective Constituent Assembly that came into being under the succeeding team headed by General Olusegun Obasanjo considered Williams’ report, endorsed the Presidential system as the better option for Nigeria.
The Presidential system arrived at the Nigerian shores quite all right, but not with the vital elements that made it to work in the United States from where it was imported. While the American brand places emphasis on federalism, the Nigerian version squeezes Nigeria into the pigeon hole of the unitary system with all its diversities: differences in ways of life, world views and values the consequences of which have bred unceasing restiveness, conflicts sometimes sailing towards the precipice.
The Nigerian President, for example, is reputed to be the most powerful helmsman in the world. In the nature of man, predictably competition to occupy the office is fierce and bitter. The loser does not surrender and the winner does not give up. All roads lead to the villa as the benefactor- general. Every month governors go cap in hand for their share of revenue allocation. Nearly all state chief executives desire to be in the good reckoning of the President. The defection of gladiators carrying with them their supporters to the party of the man in charge of the treasury and opportunities to share out is not uncommon, even by professors. The new sheriff in town is the dependable dispenser of favours and opulence. The line of separation of power gets easily blurred with the Presidency sucking in weak legislature leaving strict oversight responsibility compromised.
In the United States, on the contrary, the states fend for themselves and contribute only a certain percentage of their revenue to the central Administration for common services. That is the true spirit of federalism. Each federating unit, semi- autonomous, builds its own strength to form the economic pillars on which the American economy and the attendant military power rests. The result is that California with GDP of $ 3.8 trillion has the largest economy in the United States and ranks as the fifth world’s largest. She is followed by Texas, $ 2, 56 trillion. New York State comes third, $ 2.15 trillion. Florida is $ 1.1 trillion. California GDP ranking as the fifth in the whole world, comes after Germany and Japan. The overall United States GDP is $ 20 trillion. There is no state that generates below a billion in GDP. The least is Wyoming, $ 36 billion, coming after South Dakota, Montana each generating $ 50 billion.
In the United States, the Federal Government retains $ 4.44 trillion which 16.5 per cent of the national GDP. The four ‘ golden’ states alone have a combined GDP of $ 9.61 trillion, more than what accrues to the Central government in Washington. In Nigeria, the Federal alone keeps about 51 per cent of distributable revenue and has 68 items on the Exclusive List, areas on which states cannot legislate. This is contrary to aspirations of a majority of Nigerians and the dreams of the founding fathers, hence the incessant clamour for a constitutional review with the major focus on the restructuring of the country to make for equity and justice in the polity, for the states to be free from the stranglehold of the centre and be able to stand firmly on their own feet. The 2014 Jonathan National Conference is the closest to the fulfillment of that longing. It is believed that like individuals, if states have to fend for themselves, they will unfold their creative abilities and their helmsmen would think out of the box. That would trigger healthy national competition among the states. The accruals would be overall national development and progress as well as harmony.
Under the present constitutional arrangement, although governors are the chief security officers of their respective states, they do not have the police under their control. Outside of the routine a police commissioner in the state clears a governor’s instruction first with his boss, the Inspector- General, who may also wish to clear with the President. Thus the sing- song that governors are the chief security officers of their states is a hoax, existing only on paper. The consequences are there for all to see: unbelievably high and choking levels of insecurity featuring terrorism, gangsterism, kidnapping, banditry, arson and killings. This has in turn led to heightened clamour for more tiers in policing architecture such as state and community police. These are features regarded as given in federalism.
The United States as the exemplar not only has state and local police which includes municipal, county, deputy sheriffs and regional, universities each with a student population of 5, 000 are required to have their own police to ensure what Joseph Daodu would call law and order on their campuses. Local police, in addition to maintaining laws, patrol and investigate crimes. There are also State military forces under the control of governors. They are called State Defence Forces. The central government in the United States has the Federal Bureau of Investigations ( FBI), CIA and the American Armed Forces. There are state high courts, state appeal courts and the state Supreme Court.
What these different authorities have demonstrated is the recognition of diversities which have been brought about by varied levels of inner development and the unfolding of cognitive faculties of all earthmen. As they develop, they are separated and grouped together by the Law of Homogenous Species, putting likes with likes in its outworking. All human beings have the same point of origin, and that is the Spiritual Realm more referred to as Paradise. Human beings left there as unconscious spirit germs unconscious to partake of the joyful activities, beauty and splendour prevailing there. They were led out in
answer to their supplications, for conscious existence, down to this vale of matter where through friction, currents and influences, assailing them they would come to an awakening, and led step by step to the recognition of the Laws of Nature bearing the Will of the Almighty Creator. It is the Laws expressing His Will that are the mechanisms the Almighty Father uses to govern His Creation, the entire Creation. They are the tools for rewards and punishment. It is this Will that Prophets after Prophets and Teachers after Teachers came to teach mankind and lead them to its recognition. Like our earthly school system, a Teacher or Prophet appeared had reached a new level; call it class to lead them to the next higher class. But the teachings are meant to be spread to other parts of the world where people have reached a similar level. However, people with authority, out of ignorance, put people of disparate levels together, most times at gunpoint, to form a nation.
The question thus arises, which system suits Nigeria better— Presidential or Parliamentary? Is the problem the system, quality of state actors, their recruitment process or the political culture of Nigerians in general or just as a result of two, three factors or a combination of all. If the Presidential system is defective from its very foundation of its structure, how do we expect it to work and give the nation satisfactory results? What makes better sense, curing the defects or abandoning it?
Keats says in his Ode to A Nightingale, of Ancient Marina fame, that the solution to life’s problems is not escapism. You don’t solve a problem by running away from it. The Patriots chaired by Chief Rotimi Williams with Professor Ben Nwabueze as secretary and Chief Ayo Adebanjo as a member of the association of eminent leaders, in fact, described the unitary constitution being brandished in the toga of federalism as a fraud! It is in recognition of the defects and Keats’ truism that there has been ceaseless pressure for restructuring. Olusegun Obasanjo has now added his weighty voice to the clamour.
The Parliamentary, it is argued, makes for transparency and open accountability on the part of the Prime Minister and his ministers. Ministers are drawn from among Members of Parliament. The government is taken on openly in the same Hall on its failings. In the Presidential, the meeting of the executive council is not open to press coverage. In the Parliamentary system, debates are robust. A dull and incompetent Prime Minister or minister who does not do his homework well is soon exposed, especially during Question Time. The Prime Minister even as head of government must defer to the Speaker who is in control of the House when it sits. It is the majority party that forms government. Where it does not have a clear majority, it can form government with a coalition of fringe parties or Independent Members of Parliament. Geographical spread is not required. A government can win on the votes of pockets of areas with huge population. There can be a change of government at short notice even before the tenure of a government ends. All that is required is for a vote of no confidence to be passed on the Prime Minister.
The drawback of the Parliamentary is the political culture of the Africans. Because of immaturity of a majority of Africans which shows itself in lack of principles, blurred ideological bent, the system has the proclivity to lend itself to dictatorship. Defection and crosscarpeting for lack of moral scruples prevalent among most African politicians soon get the system drifting into a one- party system. The Opposition is muzzled paving the way for the party in power to sit tight. The leader that emerges at the Party convention becomes the Prime Minister if the party wins in the national election; the leader in the state becomes the premier. A Prime Minister has no tenure; he remains in office for as long as he is the leader of the party and the party wins at elections. When not in power, he is Leader of Opposition. Mrs. Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party in the UK was in power for 16 years. So was Mrs. Angela Merkel as German chancellor— also for 16 years.
In Africa the constitution is soon altered and the leader is kept in power interminably. Paul Biya of neighbouring Cameroon has been in power for 42 years, since November, 1982; Dennis Sassou Nguesso for 40 years. In Angola, Jose Eduardo dos Santos governed for 38 years; Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo ruled for 38 years. His tenure was terminated only by death. Mobutu Sese Seko of the Democratic Republic of Congo ruled for 32 years. Yoweri Museveni has been in the saddle in Uganda for 38 years. Paul Kagame has been President of Rwanda for 23 years and he does not look in the mood to quit soon. As Nigeria is a country of defectors, most politicians only after bread and butter, and not public service; access to the treasury for booty, our situation will be worse.
To avoid Nigeria’s fateful journey into perpectual instability and an endless orgy of political violence, underscored by heightened and stormy waves of insurgency, banditry and gangsterism, any arrangement that would create room and loopholes for manipulation should be quickly jettisoned. A return to parliamentary system is such an arrangement. Chief Awolowo did state in 1986: “As long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels, are exorcised.”
The Presidential system with tenure to permit a change of baton, gives hope of a better morrow. It calms restiveness. If cleaned up particularly in the fiscal economy realm by way of restructuring, and security architecture, the Presidential system will serve Nigeria better, and will fulfill the dreams of the initiators and the aspirations of Nigeria for a stable, harmonious and prosperous country.
The Presidential system with tenure to permit a change of baton, gives hope of a better morrow. It calms restiveness. If cleaned up particularly in the fiscal economy realm by way of restructuring, and security architecture, the Presidential system will serve Nigeria better, and will fulfill the dreams of the initiators and the aspirations of Nigeria for a stable, harmonious and prosperous country.