PERSPECTIVES ON PRESIDENTIAL POWER
Chris Ngwodo
 
The escalation of hostilities between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar which has featured a media war between the opposing camps of their loyalists may be a good enough reason to rethink the constitutional design of the Nigerian presidency.  A politically divided presidency surely cannot be of benefit to the workings of governance or to the country’s image.

The relationship between political chief executives and their deputies has been one of the flashpoints of the fourth republic. Although it would be wrong to say that, this malaise is of recent origin. During the second republic, Governor Michael Ajasin and his deputy, Akin Omoboriowo squared off in Ondo State while in Oyo, Bola Ige clashed with Sunday Afolabi. In the current dispensation, such conflicts have been of a marked intensity and frequency. Since 1999, tensions between governors and their deputies have flared in Lagos, Abia, and Oyo among other states.

Part of the problem is the nature of our government, which is a clone of the American presidential system. Accordingly, the presidency consists of a senior partner and a junior partner. Moreover, although full executive powers are vested in the president as chief executive and commander in chief of the armed forces of the federal republic, he is nonetheless elected on a joint ticket with his Vice-president as running mate. Although the running mate invests his own political capital in this presidential joint venture, he understands that his is a subsidiary role; he is an auxiliary executive with the ability to function silently and effectively, conceding the spotlight to his boss and only stepping into it when his principal is absent. In the US model, the vice president is also the chair of the senate and may break tie votes in that chamber. In Nigeria, the roles of the vice president and the deputy governors are as defined by the principal executives.  Their roles have been unflatteringly likened to that of a spare tyre. He is scarcely little more than his principal’s sidekick.

The task of the political deputy is delicate. If he plays the part well enough he or she will be rewarded with ascension to the throne upon the expiration of the principal’s tenure. In Nigeria, a sitting vice-president or deputy governor that aspires to occupy the throne has to his advantage what is called “the power of incumbency.” This political capital accruing from their positions ostensibly makes their ascension a virtual fait accompli.

However, our clone of the US presidential system demands a level of sophistication that is still largely lacking in our political class. Few of our political chieftains have the humility to function as unassuming deputies to their principals. Few of our politicians have the grace and the largeness of heart to regard their deputies as truly junior partners. Tensions between governors and their deputies have largely arisen from personality clashes_ the inevitable explosive friction of between inflated egos trying to occupy the same political space at the same time. The notion of an executive partnership implied by our system is perhaps at variance with our leadership culture, which is hierarchical, authoritarian and centered around the primacy of a singular authority figure. Given this critical attribute, the South African presidential model in which the Deputy President is an appointee of the president is perhaps better suited to our politics. It was for this reason that President Thabo Mbeki was able to fire Deputy President Jacob Zuma over charges of corruption and impropriety. A situation in which the governors and the president could fire their deputies would save our system the stress and tension occasioned by executive infighting and the attempts to stage-manage impeachments.  

The current presidential duel also raises questions about the nature of a post-Obasanjo presidency. In 1999, Obasanjo had picked Atiku, then governor elect of Adamawa State, as his deputy despite the objections of elements of the northern political establishment who favoured more established conservative champions. The design of Obasanjo’s first term governance was similar to the style adopted by Nelson Mandela after his election as South Africa’s president in 1994. Mandela had ceded responsibility for general administration to his deputy, Mbeki, while he played the role of elder statesman and moral symbol of the country’s post-apartheid renaissance. In the same vein, Obasanjo handed over the reins of domestic policy administration to Atiku in a measure that made him probably the most powerful political deputy in our nation’s history. Obasanjo defined his role as that of the nation’s foreign policy czar, elder statesman and the international symbol of Nigeria’s post military recovery. In theory, while Atiku would supervise a massive privatization and economic reform program, Obasanjo was to scour foreign capitals as Nigeria’s premier statesman-ambassador leveraging his international connections to revoke the country’s pariah status.  In practice, the design failed, derailed by a combination of executive larceny, egomania and political treachery, all of which have led to the current situation. The vice-president is now fighting for his political life following his indictment for corruption and his trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. As things stand, his indictment on corruption charges virtually bars him from contesting the 2007 presidential elections.

As we begin to contemplate the architecture of a post Obasanjo presidency, one of the key challenges that should occupy observers and theorists is how best we can avoid the sort of executive infighting that has been an all too frequent occurrence over the last seven years.  The shape of the post-2007 political terrain is already manifest in some of the signs of the times. One of them is the fact that President Obasanjo represents the last of his kind_ a breed forged in the crucible of political and military authoritarianism. Obasanjo is the last big man that will bestride Nigerian governance. None of the contenders or potential successors have the stature to wield the presidency in the same way as the retired general from Abeokuta (with the sole exception of Ibrahim Babangida who will fail in his attempts to return to Aso Rock for reasons that I have addressed elsewhere). None of the contenders and pretenders has the same expansive brand image afforded by many years in governance, active participation in the defining moments of our national history and years in the public and international consciousness.

For this reason, I believe that the shape of the next presidency will be defined by strategic partnerships rather than by the singular authoritarian model. In other words, Nigerians will vote for partnerships that have pooled their personal brand equity, intellectual resources and political capital together. After Obasanjo, it will require a partnership to shoulder the onerous burdens of the Nigerian presidency. Any other individual would find himself dwarfed by the office and weighed down by the demands made on it by the various interests that constitute the Nigerian federation. The idea of a presidential partnership_ a combination of the best and brightest of the present generation of politicians is an attractive proposition. There are a number of possible joint ventures, perhaps, of the most effective governors, (for instance Adamu Muazu of Bauchi and Donald Duke of Cross River). However, as this present dispensation has shown, there is more to the viability of a candidacy than just political calculations or its attractiveness on paper. In the end, it comes down to the personal chemistry between both partners, and their ability to manage each other’s egos with respect and intelligence. After all, we are talking about power and power has a way of affecting people, even the best of them that come with truckloads of good intentions.  
 

Robot  # 1 | 28.10.2006 07:49

For this reason, I believe that the shape of the next presidency will be defined by strategic pa...Read the full article.