Rotational Presidency Can Stabilise Nigeria – Memo To The National Assembly By Dr. Anthony Akinola
When the children of different mothers quarrel over their patrimony, it is only an idiot who says that peace in the family is not what matters most. Nigeria is one larger “polygamous” setting whose fratricidal feuds over the years provide useful lessons for those who care to learn from history.
The major feuds in the Nigerian polity since independence in 1960 have been mainly over leadership. Be it the Civil War of 1967-70 or the Gideon Orkar-led attempted coup of April 1990, or the crisis we now simply refer to as “June 12”, it has been demonstrated in the course of our existence as an independent nation that the leadership question is indeed the national question.
To the credit of Nigerians, the enormity of the leadership question appears to have been understood. The arrangement by the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to rotate the presidency between the South and North is an acknowledgement of the existence of a most disturbing national problem and an effort to provide a practical solution to it. The PDP approach would appear to have reasonably stabilised Nigeria in the last 10 years, as the fear of “ethnic hegemony” would appear not to have been as pronounced as it once was.
However, we do not have “rotational presidency” yet. The principle is yet to be accommodated in the national Constitution where its “nitty gritty” can be spelt out. The confusion generated by the health of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, if anything, amplifies the need to do so without any further delay. Of course, the “anger” in the land cannot be fully explained outside the leadership question.
A Constitution or political arrangement must accommodate the emotions and sentiments of those it is designed to serve if its usefulness is to survive the test of time. One has said it before and one is repeating it here, that the success of the American constitution is the acknowledgement by America’s founding fathers that the problem of cleavage can only be resolved by addressing it. Their pragmatic decision to introduce a bicameral legislature was one “scientific” approach to addressing the fears of smaller states about the dominance of larger ones. Hence the American states, irrespective of their sizes and populations, were accorded equal representation in the Senate. Today, the State of Wyoming with a population barely over 1 million people enjoys equal representation as California whose population is well over 30 million. However, representation in the House was based on population. We in Nigeria have merely devalued the essence of a bicameral legislature by creating states that are more or less of equal size.
Cleavages, be they those of ethnicity and religion, do not disappear as we naively assume they will. The sad prediction here is that our cleavages may eventually destroy our aspirations of one Nigerian nation if we do not learn how to manage them effectively. We sadly do not appear to be an innovative people. Hence our inability to provide “homegrown” solutions to problems that are uniquely ours. Had the Americans been confronted with our type of ethnological realities and chose to have rotational presidency, all of us would today have been singing the praises of the idea. The Americans, by the Constitution of 1787, introduced into the world of politics the concepts of bicameralism, federalism, presidential/congressional system and limited government. They charted a course for democracy.
Critics of rotational presidency talk of having the “best candidate” for the job, even when they know that such a so-called best candidate always comes from a dominant regional grouping. There are “best candidates” in every region of the Nigerian federation, seeking an opportunity to bring their leadership qualities to bear on all of us. The good thing about our society today, as opposed to those says of omniscient military rule, is that we have come to accept democracy as irreplaceable and individuals have the opportunity to demonstrate their preparedness for upward mobility through their performances at other tiers of political governance.
Rotational presidency should be entrenched in our Constitution, not least because of its potential to stabilise our otherwise severely divided society.
This writer submitted a detailed memorandum of this subject to the Political Bureau instituted by the government of General Ibrahim Babangida in 1986. Interestingly, a committee of intelligent, experienced and well-meaning Nigerians – The Patriots – articulated a similar proposal in the year 2000. The fact that we have ever since remained loyal to our viewpoint suggests honesty and conviction on our part.
We sadly have too many so-called opinion leaders in our society who say one thing today and another tomorrow. Sadly, because these so-called opinion leaders have been “former this” or “former that”, they get the attention they hardly deserve. Some pretend to be speaking for all of us, even when what they seek to protect is their selfish or group interests.
Rotational presidency is not “undemocratic”. A nation is qualified to be called a democracy if it respects agreed rules and procedures. Switzerland, a small nation though it is, has cleavage problems quite similar to ours. It operates a system of “collective presidency” in which leadership is rotated annually. Switzerland is one of the world’s most democratic and stable nations.
The country enjoys such stability that our corrupt politicians find it the safest place for their stolen monies! Rotational presidency, one argues, will regulate the party system beyond our wildest imaginations. The reason we have so many purposeless political parties is because of “noise makers” who require platforms for their indulgences. One strongly believes we could actually have principled political parties once their “ethnic hobs” have been removed. Given the realities of our society, only a system of rotational presidency will bring this about.
Rotational presidency, in this writer’s view, complements and enhances the principle of federalism. Those who say it would divide Nigeria might as well call for a unitary system of government as well as the scrapping of the states!
Akinola, author of Rotational Presidency, 1996, lives in Oxford, England.
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