By DAN AMOR
In all democratic nations of the world, there are three major arms of government: the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. As an assembly of elected and authentic representatives of the people, the legislature makes the laws that govern the day-to-day operations of government. The executive formulates and implements policies based on the framework of the laws promulgated by the lawmakers; whereas the judiciary, as the safety valve or sole arbiter of the common man, interprets the laws of the land and adjudicates on matters arising from any breach of the law between parties to the common wheel.
What makes the legislature the bastion of democracy in any society, except in a few totalitarian states, is that its functions encapsulate representation of the people, lawmaking and over-sighting the executive. This is the crux of the matter. In a presidential democracy, like the type we practise here in Nigeria, the legislature exists not only to make laws but also to serve as the voice of the people in government and to make government accountable to the people. This makes the legislature the pillar of democracy.
It is this enviable responsibility of the parliament that has made it the target of attacks by all military interventions in our country. This is the more reason why in all military regimes, there always exist an illegitimate executive arm represented by the supreme military council, the judiciary whose powers are largely decimated and the absence of the legislature. The parliament is therefore the organic political institution, the only arm of government that makes the difference as the symbol of democracy.
Therefore, the military or any individual or group with a military mindset would never want to see the parliament flourish. Since 1960, when the bicameral legislature was introduced at the Centre in the Independence Constitution, the parliament has remained a child of events and circumstances. In 1963, following the adoption of a Republican Constitution, Nigeria became a Federal Republic.
Three years later, in 1966, the military intervened and suspended the constitution and the parliament was dissolved. In 1977, eleven years later, a constituent assembly was put together to prepare a draft constitution in anticipation of a return to democratic rule which became manifest in October 1979 with the introduction of the Presidential Constitution modeled after the American system.
Sadly, in December 1983, the military intervened again and suspended the constitution, and the vicious circle continued until the emergence of the Fourth Republic Constitution of 1999 which was the outcome of the Constitution Drafting Committee headed by Justice Niki Tobi. It was an adoption of the 1979 Constitution with some amendments. The return of civil rule in May 1999 only managed to produce a quasi-democracy with a militician, General Olusegun Obasanjo as president.
It was this penchant for command and diktat which is the hallmark of authoritarian rule that Obasanjo exhibited throughout his eight-year two-terms presidency between 1999 and 2007. Anybody who lived in Nigeria during the Obasanjo years saw how dictatorship paraded the length and breadth of the country in its true nakedness. In an attempt by the executive to manipulate the National Assembly and undermine its independence, the legislature witnessed the worst form of instability in the history of democratic practice anywhere in the world.
The leadership of the legislature was being changed like one changes handkerchief. Consequently, the 4th and 5th National Assembly could not achieve anything, not to talk of its oversight function over the executive. The Senate was to find its feet towards the end of the Obasanjo presidency when it truncated his third term bid.
The emergence of the Umaru Musa Yar'Adua presidency in May 2007 heralded the halcyon days of genuine democratic practice in the country since neither President Yar'Adua nor his Vice, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has had military background. In fact, the relative stability the 6th and 7th National Assembly enjoyed and its resultant achievements under the leadership of Senator David Mark was the result of the noninterference in its affairs by the executive under Yar'Adua and Jonathan.
It is against the backdrop of the record set by the 6th and 7th National Assembly that the 8th National Assembly had decided from the onset to assert its independence. But militicians and pseudo democrats who see governance as an enterprise due to the huge returns on investment and who claim parentage to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), would just not give the lawmakers a breather.
The problem today, as clear-headed constitutional law teachers such as Prof. Mike Ikhariale would argue, is that habits formed under preceding regimes tend to unwittingly colour the perception we have for subsequent ones. The apparent lack of sufficient comprehension of the constitutional environment under which we operate has been the bane, as the erudite law scholar and internationally acclaimed teacher would articulate. But the tragedy of our condition is that another erudite constitutional law teacher, Prof. Itse Sagay who taught Ikhariale is now singing a different tune because he is ironically on the other side of the divide.
Hear Prof. Ikhariale: "Those who wrote the constitution of Nigeria and all other constitutions with similar provisions are ardent believers in the teaching of Baron Montesquieu, who had argued that the best way to check tyranny in society is to ensure that no single individual or body is invested with all the powers of the state. Specifically, the three main features of state powers- the legislative, the executive and the judicial - shall be separated among different persons. The principal objective is to prevent abuse of powers, which often reflects badly on the citizenry as tyranny. This principle was fully bought by the revolutionaries, who secured independence for the United States and they promptly canonised and adopted it as one of the fundamental values of their newly-secured sovereignty. The same philosophy strongly animated the French revolutionaries, who boldly proclaimed it in their Declaration of the Rights of Man. Upon the adoption of the tenets of constitutional democracy, Nigeria, as a political entity, followed the footsteps of other civilised democracies and wrote a constitution that clearly separated powers among the three organs of government."
Yet, unfortunately, the current 9th National Assembly headed by Dr. Ahmed Lawan is an adjunct of the Executive arm of government. The National Assembly does everything the Executive asks it to do without let or hindrance. A situation in which the Deputy Senate President even prostrates before the President and head of the Executive arm of government makes it impossible for the NASS to challenge the Executive branch of government.
In 2020, the senate of the Federal Republic declared the immediate past service chiefs as failures who were unfit to dislodge the Boko Haram insurgents in the North East or halt the activities of armed bandits who have taken over the national landscape. It took so much pressure from Nigerians before President Muhammadu Buhari was able to remove them from office. But the president who does whatever he likes quickly converted their appointments to non-career ambassadors and their names forwarded to the Senate for confirmation.
Without much ado, the senate did just that last week. The service chiefs have been confirmed by the senate. What a rubber-stamped senate! Does the 9th Senate have scruple at all? How would an incompetent fellow under whose watch insurgency, banditry and kidnapping reined supreme be fit enough to serve as the country's ambassador to another country? Under Senator Lawan, the National Assembly has capitulated its glory.
Indeed, the concern here is that the independence of the legislature must not only be sacrosanct, it must be seen to be sacrosanct. There is nothing like party supremacy in the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly.
Again, according to Ikhariale, "Once a lawmaker takes his or her oath of office, he or she ceases to be a party tool in parliament. Instead, he or she is transformed into an agent of national purpose and a neutral defender of the national constitution."
It is therefore sacrilegious for anybody to label APC senators as "opposition members" simply because they are performing their oversight function of checking an overbearing executive that has gone so base as to impose appointees with questionable records on the Nigerian society. Now that our legislators have failed to reactivate the democratic process to win back the vehicle of constitutionalism, let Prof. Sagay educate the executive that it is patently dangerous to equate presidentialism with absolutism.
If truth be told, recent actions of a cabal in the executive
tantamount to merely importing a barracks code into a democratic arrangement
that calls for civil rules. Nigeria needs strong institutions, not strong
individuals.
*Dan Amor is an Abuja-based public affairs analyst
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