The Nigerian Presidency (The Executive Branch) and the National Assembly (The Legislature).

 This article is inspired by a published letter in some newspapers including the Vanguard, written to the president of our Senate Ken Nnamani by the Secretary to the Federal Government, Chief Ufot Ekaette on behalf of the Federal Government accusing him (Nnamani) of misdirecting the Senate with his recent utterances.

As a Nigerian patriot, and as one who is concerned about the duties and functions of our various governments from the States to the Central (federal), Chief Ekaette’s letter to the Senate President is being given an analytic procedural examination.  One is also concerned about the processes and the constitutional limitations of our branches of government in performing their obliged functions.  All constitutional duties require informed and honest concern of the functionaries in government who are supposed to understand and do what is appropriate procedurally according to the body of our basic laws, that is, the Nigerian constitution.  Aside from the stated goals and clearly unambiguous language of the constitution, there is always the problem of interpretation of its sections, which oftentimes, could be dichotomous depending upon the bias and interest of the interpreter.  The interpretation of basic laws is the reserved obligation and special function of the judicial branch of governments when democracies find themselves in a situation of dispute and interpretation dilemma of some sections of their constitutions.

The thrust of this article is to correct the conceptual misunderstanding between the executive arm of our government as represented by Chief Ekaette’s letter to our Senate president, who represents the legislature in this instance.  First, Secretary Ekaette should be aware of the equality of status under which the three arms of democratic governments in Presidential systems operate and relate with one another under the tested and acclaimed theory of “checks and balances”. The theory of ‘Separation of Powers’ which goes hand in hand with ‘checks and balances’ are legitimately observed in all meaningful democracies, old or young. The United States of America initiated and virtually invented it in 1789 as a political solution to building a huge democracy from among autonomous states with distinct peculiarities in terms of economic interests, demography, religion, size and other peculiarities and structures.   The Republic of Nigeria thought it expedient and imperative, for the purpose of its survival as a plural national community, after its civil war (1967-71), to copy and consequently adapt the American type of Presidential system, which has not suffered any major disruption or alteration since its inception in 1789. This was essentially the thinking of the fifty wise men as assembled by the Murtala/Obasanjo military regime that forcefully succeeded the Gowon government in 1975.

Often times, wrong interpretations are given to the inbuilt and implied processes and procedure within which the three branches of our Presidential government should operate. It needs to be emphasized that in all Presidential Democracies everywhere, the three branches of government are equal to one another in status. This important fact must be understood and accepted if we have any faith in our own home-grown constitution. The fact that it is called a Presidential System may give the ignorant a false idea about the powers and prerogatives of the Executive President who combines the dual roles of Head of government and Head of State. He can initiate policy and send a bill to the legislature for debate and passage, a function that he cannot perform. When the bill is passed and presented to him for his signature to become law, he can veto it, that is, refuse accent or approval which supposedly brings instant death to the bill. But the bill can still be revived to become law if the legislature feels strongly about it, and can successfully muster two-thirds of its members to over-ride the Presidential veto. If that happens, the bill becomes law without the President’s signature. The main purpose of this kind of balance of interest and power, as implied in the fundamental guideline of the ‘checks and balances’ principle, between the three arms of government, in a democracy is to avoid dictatorship, tyranny and oppression in all their ramifications.  Therefore when any law is being made by the legislature, it is absolutely free of any kind of interference from the two remaining arms of government.  If the executive arm feels strongly about any portion of a bill, either to be considered for retention or to be expunged, the executive arm is not in a position to dictate to the legislature but to produce concrete or hard evidence to convince legislators about its position in terms of the bill in question, and if the legislature could be persuaded to accept the executive’s position, then, some mutual agreement is arrived at and the two branches could promote some amity, if only temporarily.

The interaction or relationship is never a boss or master to a sub-ordinate relationship.  In reverse, the legislature may require the favour of the Executive branch and the possibility of such an Executive favour could be guaranteed by mutual conviction of issues and facts on ground in relation to their benefits to the state or its people. After raising several objections to the content of the Senate president’s speech, Chief Ekaette concluded his letter by writing “I am to request that you present these comments by government to the Senate in the same way and manner as the text of your remarks and with the same level of publicity” The Secretary to the Federal government, Chief Ekaette is probably short of knowledge about the constitutional relationship between the Presidency, which is the Executive branch of our federal government and the office of the President of the Senate as part of our legislative branch which enjoys equality of status with the Presidency. The other one-half of the legislature is the House of Representatives headed by the Speaker. Both the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives share the headship of the legislature, that is, the National Assembly. Creating a bi-cameral legislature for plural Nigeria is informed by the multiplicity of national ethnic groups and other minorities which were pulled together as a single colonial entity by the British agent Lord Lugard in 1914. In our federal system, it is therefore essential to create two legislative chambers, one for the people, that is, all Nigerians in general and the other for the States that depict our regional, cultural, religious and other distinct differences. In other words no state is more relevant than another in the scheme of political importance in the Nigerian Senate. It is a major principle that holds us together as a plural national society even though our Senate  still needs to be modernized in terms of its electoral process and representation..

If the Senate president wants to show a high degree of tolerance and restraint, he may reply politely and explain to Chief Ekaette what the relationship between the Executive and the legislature should be. First, the Secretary to the Federal government is not in a position to criticize the utterances of Senate President publicly. Why? Legislators enjoy immunity of whatever they say in their legislative chambers. That is a systemic principle and practice throughout the democratic world and Nigeria is not an exception. Chief Ekaette needs to appreciate that the Senate President is entitled to his right of free speech and added to that is his legislative immunity as a legislator. Chief Ekaette did not stop at his criticism of Senator Nnamami’s speech, he went on to request the President of the Senate to present the comments made by government on the issue of amendment to the EFCC bill to the Senate in the same way and manner as the text of the Senate President’s remarks and with the same level of publicity. What an exhibition of ignorance and lack of adequate knowledge and language about inter branch relationship between the arms of our government; an adopted presidential system. The Senate President may not need to reply to Chief Ekaette’s hollow understanding of the system of government, the Secretary of which he portends to represent. The tone of the Chief’s letter suggests the superiority of the Executive branch of our government to the legislature.  Secondly, the letter should have been written from the president’s political wing office of the Presidency and not by a civil servant whose language betrayed him as short of conceptual understanding of the equalities of the three arms of government and the relevance of the validity of the principle of “checks and balances” among the three branches of government in presidential democracies.

The Obasanjo presidency has always had its conceptual problems with the remaining two arms of the Nigerian government. It had its problems with the legislature when Ghali Na’Abba; was there as the first Speaker of the House between 1999 and 2003. His regular complaint on behalf of the House was that President Obasanjo would not comply with the constitutional demands of executing the budget. The House of Representatives, whose majority were members of the President’s political party often wanted to use the issue of violation of the budget to nail the president, yet he did not change his attitude. With the Judiciary, the Obasanjo presidency also had its problems in terms of not obeying or not complying with court rulings, opinions, and judgments.  Even when it complies, it has its subtle approaches to violating parts of the judiciary’s directives. This unusual situation suggests two meanings. First, the Executive’s attitude of disobeying or not complying with court orders could emanate from some ignorance that the Executive branch of our government is more powerful than any of the other two branches since the salaries and other expenditure of the legislative and the judicial branches come from the national treasury which is under the control of the Executive. But it is important not to lose sight of the fact that every expenditure for the execution of any policy program cannot be accomplished without the approval of the legislative branch. Though on many occasions, the Obasanjo presidency had spent un-approved money without legislative approval. This is illegal. Dr. Ngozi Iweala, on several occasions, had to face the wrath of members of the National Assembly when faced with accusations of Executive lawlessness in terms of spending unapproved money from the treasury. Therefore, executive superiority to the other two branches of our government in a Presidential democracy such as ours is a fallacy.

Whenever there is any constitutional dispute of contentious or ambiguous dimension, requiring legal clarification, between the Executive branch and the legislative branch, it is the Judicial branch that will interpret the issue in dispute and deliver a final ruling which should be binding on both parties. The other suggestive meaning to Executive intransigence or rascality in relation to the other two branches in Nigeria, could be a result of ‘lack of adequate knowledge’ or ‘lack of the technical understanding’ of how the three arms of government compliment one another in a democratic environment as envisaged by inventors of the theories of ‘separation of powers’ and ‘checks and balances’ that is, Baron de Montesquieu and James Madison. It must be emphasized that there is need for our top officials in government and politics to have some composite knowledge of these essential principles upon which our governments are based. We cannot continue to have governments run by semi-literate people, political rascals whose major concern is to make as much money as possible from the government coffers and keep our country in a position of political stagnation. Something has to be done about this alarming situation about people who run our government without having full knowledge of what they are doing and how to do them. A good number of our elected representatives starting from the local governments, states and at the federal level, have no idea of how our system of government functions or how it is supposed to function. They are bankrupt and ignorant of how our presidential system of government works and they could not care less.

Chief Ekaette’s use of the word ‘government’ repeatedly in his letter to the Senate president, Ken Nnamani suggests that he is less aware of the inclusion of our Senate and House of Representatives as part of the government. In a much narrower sense, the Executive arm could be referred to as government but one would not expect that kind of expression or distinct identification of the Executive arm as government from Chief Ekaette’s desk. The content of his letter to the Senate President exposes much about the Chief’s depleted knowledge about the principles upon which our Presidential system is based. Even when one discusses the locus of government in a parliamentary system, a distinguished and much experienced secretary of government as Chief Ekaette is not supposed to commit such an error. In the ensuing circumstances, it is expedient to suggest, with a high sense of responsibility, that the federal government and all the various state governments of our dear country should embark upon consultations to begin planning compulsory but periodic seminars all over the country to impart informed knowledge about Presidential systems including our own type according to our constitution; the major differences between it and other Parliamentary system which is adapted by some popular federalized nations such as India, Canada, Australia and Pakistan  and many other nations’ political systems.

All party leaders should be advised to participate in the seminar, if they really care for this great country which demonstrates massive potentials, if we, as a people, can make them work under responsive and responsible leadership. The various departments of Political Science in our distinguished universities: that is, The Universities of Ibadan, University of Lagos , University of Nigeria , Nsukka, University of Ife , Ahmadu Bello, University of Abuja and all other state and private universities could be assigned to help their state legislators on this very important national need.  Thank you.

Bankole Okuwa Ph. D., Professor of Political Science.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Robot  Villager

# 1 ...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 18.03.2007 10:38