By The Qoheleth
The principle of separation of power as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been abused. The Constitution provides for the separation of power amongst the three arms of government: the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary.
The need for separation of power is to ensure that powers are not vested on a particular sovereign, or exercise such power indiscriminately. If this is done, it will lead to dictatorship and absolute and arbitrary use of power.
The Executive arm of government is responsible for the implementation of laws and policies. It is headed by the President, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The President is assisted by the Vice-President and other Ministers. The Constitution provides for the appointment of Ministers by the President, with the approval of the Senate.
The Legislature is responsible for making laws for the country. It is made up of two chambers; the Senate and the House of Representatives. Members of the National Assembly are elected by the people and they are responsible for representing the interests of their constituencies. The Constitution provides for the independence of the National Assembly, and it also provides for the power of the National Assembly to check the actions of the Executive.
The Judiciary on the other hand is saddled with the duty of interpreting the laws of the country. It is made up of different courts, including the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, and High Courts. Judges are appointed by the President, on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council. The Constitution provides for the independence of the Judiciary, and it also provides for the power of the Judiciary to check the actions of the Executive and the Legislature.
The principle of separation of power is no longer operated as it should in Nigeria. If you consider the situation in the country, you’d notice that both the heads of the executives at the federal and state arms have in one way or the other have directly or indirectly resorted to dictatorship because they have hijacked both the legislative and the judicial arms. This was implemented gradually over the years. It started by interfering in the selection of the candidates during the primary elections at the party level to rigging elections to favour incumbents using state apparatus. When this was not challenged, it became normal practice. Instead of the legislative arm to perform its function of checks and balances, it resorted to “cooperating with the executive” in carrying out state policies.
Secondly, the function of the political parties is not to carry out executive and legislative functions of government. The political party presents candidates for various offices during elections. The successful candidates after the election becomes the property of the state and their constituencies and not the party’s anymore. What this means is that the president, and governors become the president of Nigeria and not APC president while a governor becomes the governor of a state, not PDP governor. The elected members of the legislative arms report to their various constituencies that they represent and not to their political parties. This is because their constituencies are made up of people from different tribes, religion and political parties. So, it is absolutely wrong to refer to a government as a political party’s government. After every election, various political parties can still play advisory roles for their elected candidates but not to control them totally.
In view of this, and for the legislative arm to perform creditably, they must be liberated from the arm strings of the executive. They are expected to be even stronger than the executive arm. The election of their officers (President, Speakers etc.) should not be based on party affiliation but on acceptability, credibility and efficiency of the candidate. Since they represent the interest of their constituencies, the members should elect their leaders from among them despite the political parties they come from. Some offices were created for the major political parties in the houses; Majority and Minority leaders.
The consequence of choosing house leaders from parties with majority legislators is that every policy and law will be tilted towards their political parties instead of their constituencies and country. They will also not challenge the executive arm because they are from the same political party. This has affected the growth of our democracy. For so many years, this has become the order of the day and has never produced any good results because the arms are not checked for excesses leading to lawlessness. The legislative arms have also become powerless and are almost lap dogs of the executive.
For the separation of power to be effective, different arms of government must be committed to upholding the constitution and respect each other’s roles and responsibilities.
