Home / News / Local /  Managing our diversity  By Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe

 Managing our diversity  By Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe

Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe

Sometimes last year, the President sent to the Senate, a communication proposing Mrs Muheeda Dankaka as Chairman of the Federal Character Commission.

Some of us opposed the nomination on the basis that the Secretary Dr. Mohammed Tukur Bello was from the North and it would be a negation of the Federal Character Principle for both Chairman and Secretary to come from the North.

In the debate that followed, we were prevailed on to allow the nomination to be approved on the basis that the secretary had only six months to go and he would be replaced at the end of his tenure by Southerner. The six months was to end in March, 2021.

It is now May 2021 and the same person, Dr. Mohammed Tukur Bello has been given another term, thus having both Chairman and Secretary today from the North.

A clear breach of Federal Character law and constitution.

There are a litany of executive arbitrariness by the APC led Government of President Buhari that have led to thunderous clamor for restructuring.

Before now Nigerians have argued stridently over discrimination, but the recent upsurge in perceived impunity and bias in federal appointments by the Buhari presidency has sparked concern of a very dangerous slide to a sectional strife.

The nation seems to be on a meltdown. In the wake of unprecedented ravaging insecurity, spreading from North East to North West to North Central to South West to South East and South South, many of the things that hold us together as a nation continue to unravel and the APC led Government seems powerless to stop the slide.

The framers of the 1999 constitution as amended had introduced several safety nets to mitigate against the old charges of mismanagement of Nigeria’s diversity by any government, the principal of which is the Federal Character principle as a key issue in the attempts to deal with the Nigerian question.

Section 14(3) of the 1999 constitution says, “the composition of the government of the federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or sectional groups in that government or any of the agencies”.

The framers of the above were no prophets but, they knew that today would come perhaps not to this magnitude.

The abuse and the willful flouting of this law and others by the current federal government, has reached a crescendo and may have propelled the Awka Bar to couch the topic of today’s discuss in this manner.

Thank you very much for adding your voice to the vexed issue, which has cast a question mark on the plausibility or otherwise of the present structure of Nigeria.

It is very unfortunate, that the present government and the inherent lawlessness have given impetus to the quagmire leading Nigerians to question the system as presently constituted.

The country is in a limbo. There is an obvious feeling of despondency. My fear is that, it should not slide to a total state of anomie. There are agitations for restructuring, and even the extreme demand for secession, all fueled by injustice, and feeling of being left out particularly here in the South East.

It is not uncommon knowledge for people to wave you off when one mentions restructuring. It is also not surprising to be accosted with bombastic echoes of; “No peace without justice” or “if you like restructure million times, without justice, fairness and equity to all, there will still be agitation”.

The truth remains that the current agitation is all triggered by the Executive Lawlessness and none adherence to the rule of law.

RULE OF LAW

Talking about rule of law to lawyers, is like preaching to the choir. Yet one must give a tacit insight to the essence of rule of law in a democracy.

In a true Presidential system of government, rule of law reigns supreme. It is an ideal political tool in contemporary societies, where government conducts its affairs in line with laid down rules and procedure.

It is a government that is under obligation to conduct its affairs within the limits of the law which of course earns her the confidence and respect of not only the people but among the comity of nations.

It is a way of preventing the abuse of discretionary power. The essence of rule of law according to Prof. A.L. Goodhart is that public officers (inclusive of Presidents, Governors, Ministers,Police etc) are all governed by law, and which law limits their powers.

EXECUTIVE LAWLESSNESS

On the contrary, none adherence or respect for the rule of law, is executive lawlessness, which is associated with totalitarian regimes or military dictatorships.

Executive lawlessness simply means a situation where the executive acts or conducts affairs of state by fiat-that is without backing of the law. It also connotes a situation where the executive behaves in an unrestrained manner, thus blatantly disregarding the law in all of its actions and policies.

In the case of this address, permit me to say that perhaps you would want me to dwell specifically on the phenomenon of executive lawlessness under civilian administrations in Nigeria’s pseudo-federalist geo-polity, particularly under the present federal government.

Lawlessness is the direct opposite of law and order. It means not guided by rule of law, anarchy, disorder, chaos, reign of terror, mob rule and mobocracy. It is a state in which there is widespread wrongdoing and disregard for rules and authority. It is a state of anarchy and breakdown of law and order, a state of social disorder often resulting from a failure of governance. Other words related to lawlessness are anarchy, commotion, tumult, uproar, chaos, confusion, disarray, disorderliness, disorganization, disorder, disruption, disturbance, havoc, riot, strife, turbulence, turmoil, unrest, upheaval, mutiny, rebellion, uprising, criminality, and outlawry.

We all are very familiar with sections 4,5 and 6 of the 1999 constitution as amended which conferred the legislative, Executive and judicial powers of the Federation on the National Assembly, the Federal Executive Council and the Judiciary respectively. Though they are independent of each other, the three arms of government constitute what is referred to as the Federal government of Nigeria.

The legislative powers of the National Assembly can be exercised by bills passed into law by the two chambers of the National Assembly and assented to by the President, unless the President’s assent is vetoed in accordance with the constitution.

The legislative powers of the National Assembly can also be exercised by resolutions either approving or rejecting a presidential request in the performance of its constitutional oversight functions or power to approve certain presidential nominations. The constitution and some other laws imposed duty on the National Assembly to approve certain presidential appointments, such as Ministers, Service Chiefs of the Armed Forces of the Federation and Heads of other Security Agencies, such as the EFCC.

By virtue of section 5 of the 1999 constitution, the President who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Head of the Executive arm of government is under oath to uphold the constitution. Ironically as we have seen in the present administration, a situation where the same President who is under oath to uphold the constitution will brazenly disregard the federal character principle established in section 14(3) and(4) of the 1999 constitution, and more particularly the compulsory provisions of section 217(3) which mandates the President to observe the federal character principle in the appointment of Service Chiefs of the Armed Forces and Heads of other Security Agencies, by totally excluding the south east of Nigeria since 2015 when he came to power is another good example of brazen display of executive lawlessness.

Where the National Assembly, in exercise of its constitutional powers, by resolution rejects a nomination made by the Executive arms of government and the Head of the Executive arm insists on such rejected nomination, as we embarrassingly witnessed in President Buhari’s choice of Ibrahim Magu, the now ousted Chairman of EFCC, can be described as a classical example of executive lawlessness.

You will recall that on 14th March, 2017 the senate yet again rejected the nomination of Ibrahim Magu as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for the second time, yet the President preferred to allow him illegally occupy the office for more than five years. More worrisome was the fact that even a professor of law and Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on anti-corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN) justified Magu’s illegal stay in office.

Sagay and his committee claimed that according to Section 171(1) of the 1999 Constitution, power to appoint persons to hold or act in the offices to which this section applies and to remove persons so appointed from any such office shall rest in the President. (2)The offices to which this section applies are namely (a) Secretary to the Government of the Federation. (b) Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (c) Ambassadors, High Commissioners or other principal Representatives of Nigeria abroad. (d) Permanent Secretary in any Ministry or Head of any Extra-Ministerial Department of the Government of the Federation howsoever designated; and (e) any office on the personal staff of the President. EFCC was not one of this.

We are also witnesses to how the present administration flouted several court orders granting bail to different persons such as Col. Sambo Dasuki, Nnamdi Kanu, and El-Zakzaky for no justifiable reasons. These are classical examples of lawlessness until reason prevailed.

Notable judicial pronouncements had held that a government that is guided by the principles of rule of law and the doctrine of separation of power will not display such wide irresponsibility by disregarding the resolutions of the legislative arm of government in a manner as we have witnessed under the present administration, over Magu’s rejection which resulted to mutual conflict/suspicion between the Executive and Legislative arms of government. Several resolutions of the National Assembly had been ignored with impunity both under this administration and in the previous administrations since the current democratic dispensation in 1999.

It could be recalled that, on 19th December, 2019, the Department of State Service(DSS)invaded the Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu’s court to rearrest the presidential candidate of African Action Congress– Omoyele Sowore.

Perhaps, the highpoint of brute show of executive lawlessness was the illegal removal of former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onoghen. Note that office of the CJN is not a ministerial or extra-ministerial position. It is a creation of sections 230(1)(a) and 23(1)and(2) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).

The President cannot appoint or remove the CJN unilaterally as stated in the procedure for the appointment and removal of the CJN and no court, tribunal, President or other authority or person in Nigeria can derogate from, override or alter the said procedure. Section 231 (1)and (2)of the constitution, states that the appointment of the CJN requires the compulsory involvement of the three arms of government. “The President appoints the CJN on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council (NJC) subject to the approval of the Senate.

Our system of government and our Constitutional structure entrenches the exercise of separation of constitutional powers among the three equal and separate departments of the Constitution. The exercise by usurpation of one of the constitutional functions of the other is very likely to result in conflicts and create a constitutional crisis.

SHOULD WE RESTRUCTURE?

While we all accept that it is necessary to tinker with the structure of our country, we must agree that the immediate cause of our woes is injustice and an inability to manage our diversity by the present government.

I think that an inability to undertake some critical thinking may have led some of us to see the term restructuring as a silver bullet that will solve all of Nigeria’s problems.

Can we say that it is the structure of our polity that has made different arms of government to abdicate their constitutional responsibilities? For examples, as stated earlier, discipline, recruitment and promotion of the judicial arm is vested in the NJC. Where another arm of government, the Executive took it upon itself to remove the head of the judiciary against the stated procedures laid out in the constitution thus breaching the law, would we argue that it is the fault of the structure?

Where the legislatures in virtually all the states and the National Assembly have ceded their constitutional responsibilities to the Executive, would we still blame the constitution?

It now seems to us that we have been put in a catch-22 situation. We seem to be going round in circles. Government says to anyone that wants restructuring–Go to the National Assembly as the body empowered to amend the constitution.

Those who want to restructure feel that the National Assembly represents what they also want restructured and therefore, do not trust that the National Assembly would restructure itself and the nation.

However, the National Assembly at a critical point in 2010 did the “Doctrine of Necessity” when the nation was also at a cross roads. I believe that the same National Assembly would at this critical juncture of our nationhood, undertake the task of restructuring the current constitutional document.

One of the arguments used by those opposed to restructuring is to ask sarcastically what restructuring means. They go further to ask if it means the dismemberment of Nigeria. With all due respect those who ask those types of questions do not mean well for Nigeria. We cannot afford to be limping along as we are doing today that is leading us to the precipice.

Something must be done constitutionally and that is to amend the constitution to resolve the issues of today.

We have to instill confidence in the polity by reflecting such things as State police, Devolution of powers, Fiscal federalism in the amendments. Essentially it means to amend parts1&II to move certain items from the Exclusive to the Concurrent list to give more legislative powers to the states.

JUSTICE AND EQUITY

A nation that does not respect its laws simply provides the breeding ground for mutual suspicion, ethnic agitations and insurgencies as we see bedeviling Nigeria today.

Alhaji Maitama, Sule when he led a group of northern elders to the then newly elected President Muhamadu Buhari advised him that to rule well and engender a sense of patriotism and loyalty, only one thing is needed–JUSTICE. He advised the President to do justice to all irrespective of religion, tribe and even political inclinations. Sadly, we have not seen an adherence to this advice by the APC led Government of President Buhari.

With the trials and tribulations that Nigeria is going through, we are tempted to ask:

Where is the justice of Shehu Shagari?

Where is the justice of OlusegunObasanjo?

Where is the justice of Musa Yar’Adua?

Where is the justice of Goodluck Jonathan?

All these former Presidents were conscious of our diversity and tried very much to manage it to everyone’s benefit.

Can we say that of the present administration?

Your guess is as good as mine.

* Senator Abaribe, former Deputy Governor of Abia State, is Nigeria’s Senate Minority Leader

About Global Patriot Staff

Check Also

Paving the way to a green economy in Nigeria By Victor I. Fagorite and Ifeoma Malo

A green economy is an economy that aims to reduce environmental risks and ecological scarcities …

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *