The Presidency, The Constitution and the Public

By

Anthony A. Akinola

anthonyakinola@yahoo.co.uk

 


 

Not so long ago a Nigerian dignitary was on television lamenting the limitation of presidential tenure by law. This dignitary, said to have been chairman of a committee in the recently-concluded National Political Reform Conference, was of the opinion that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria should continue to serve in office for as long as the electorate wanted him or her in that position. There was nothing particularly wrong with him assert ing a position until he started buttressing his opinion by making a reference to Mr Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain, who is in his “third term” of office.

 

Vague references by ill-informed privileged individuals can only do harm to our Constitution. The British Prime Minister, if our friend must now be told, does not enjoy a constitutionally-defined tenure like the President of Nigeria or that of the United States of America. Mr Blair is first and foremost a Member of Parliament representing the small constituency of Sedgeley. He is Prime Minister because he is the leader of a political party that controls the majority of seats in the House of Commons. He could lose that position in a matter of seconds if his Labour Party ceases to control the majority of seats in the legislature, or his colleagues conspire to dump him as their po litical leader. Remember how a seemingly perrenial prime-ministerial smile was suddenly wiped off the face of Margaret Thatcher , and the iron lady was made to sob all the way out of No. 10 Downing street!
 

Great Britain is unique, unique in the sense that it is the only democratic nation of the world that is governed without a written constitution. It is not that Britain has got no constitution, but the fact remains that there is no single document that can be referred to as the British constitution. The British history books are littered with stories of “skirmishes” that culminated in the establishment of the rights of the individual and the supremacy of parliament over privileged institutions. Such stories include the beheading of a king in 1649. One only needs to watch the opening of parliament by the Queen to appreciate the enormity of his tory in the evolution of the British Political System. Such is the stability of the British polity today that most people are more likely to argue over a penalty awarded by a frivolous football referee than fight each other over who their Prime Minister is!
 

This cannot be said of Nigeria, a nation cobbled together by British imperial magicians in order to foster their own economic interests and imperial designs. The series of crises since independence in 1960, including the civil War of 1967-70 which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, could have been avoided but for leadership disagreements. The single most important institution that can hold Nigeria together, or tear it apart, is that of the presidency. It is principally because of this that the overall interest of the Nigerian nation cannot be made secondary to any individual’s ambition to continue to monopolise power to the detriment of others’ aspirations. In fact in a society as severely divided as ours, the ambition of former rulers to return to the helm of power cannot be held superior to the aspiration of a group of people to have a member of their own in that position for the first time ever.

 

The so-called oil wealth will not translate our nation into a great and enviable society if we lack the talent and collective discipline to harness our resources together. We may style our nation as the “giant of Africa”, but the real giant is already emerging in the southern flank of Africa where leadership sanity has been the hallmark since Nelson Mandela became the first president of post-apartheid South Africa. The class and grace with which Mandela vacated office after serving just a single term is o nly comparable to the legacy which George Washington gave to the American democratic system by refusing to be elevated to the status of a King. What else can one say about Thebo Mbeki, Mandela’s successor, who in the footsteps of his great and peerless predecessor has promptly nipped in the bud any possible debates over the extension of his tenure as President.

 

Nigeria’s diversity is not necessarily responsible for its relative backwardness. The reason ours is a “crippled giant”, to borrow from the title of Professor Eghosa Osaghae’s book , is because we have consistently had small men with oversize boots at the helm of our national affairs. The Nigerian Constitution imposed on all of us by some self-assumed omniscient soldiers needs to be amended and improved upon. The American Constitution is the first document of in tent at democratic governance; it has been able to withstand stormy weather for over 200 years because it was one document which tool a pragmatic look at society and provided practical solutions. It would help if our lawmakers can take a look, for instance, at the issues that led the American constitutionalists to decide upon having a bi-cameral legislature and see how the institution of the presidency can be made to unite Nigeria into a responsible and peaceful society.

 

Is ethnic rivalry over leadership real, and is it a rivalry that is likely to persist? These are important questions our legislators must seek to answer inn the quest of designing an appropriate political arrangements for Nigeria. If rivalry is real and likely to persist with distrubing consequences, then the idea of a rotational presidency should be serio usly considered. The tenure of the President, in this context, cannot be anything other than a single term. The zones would then have to be accorded a constitutional recognition for the purpose of rotation and power sharing. If ethnic or regional agitation for leadership does not subside with the conclusion of the ongoing review, then the entire exercise itself would have amounted to a monumental failure in the art of constitution making and political engineering.

 

Of course we are a religious people, but the public cannot fold its arms and hope for a miracle to happen. Our people must show an active interest in matters on which our collective existence hinges. The way forward is for us to stand for principle and ideals at all times. Our politicians may be greedy and self-centred as most politicians worldwide are, but th e public will win in the end if it is one that has the capability and courage to define its own agenda and standards.


 

email: anthonyakinola@yahoo.co.uk