Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0263/02636.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 31KB | 496 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02636}
$Pretitle{357}
$Title{Nigeria
Chapter 4A.   Government and Politics}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{government
state
federal
national
president
constitution
states
assembly
executive
military}
$Date{1981}
$Log{Brass Statue of an Oni*0263601.scf
National Secretariat Buildings*0263602.scf
}
Country:     Nigeria
Book:        Nigeria, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 4A.   Government and Politics

[See Brass Statue of an Oni: An Ife king of the early fourteenth or fifteenth
century]

     Nigeria entered a second phase of its quest for democratic rule in
1979-a venture that holds profound implications for the future of
Western-style institutions of representative multiparty government in an
African setting. The political system's initial test of civilian government,
which spanned the first five years after independence in 1960, saw regionally
dominant groups pitted against each other in increasingly destructive
competition for political power, patronage jobs, influence, and financial
gains. With each group unprepared to accept the consequences of political
defeat, the results were a breakdown of civil order, violations of the
constitution, coups d'etat, civil war, and more than thirteen years of
military rule.

     Government under an authoritarian military regime followed a common
African pattern. What was unusual was the conscious planning during the
latter stages of military rule under General Murtala Muhammed and Lieutenant
General Olusegun Obasanjo (1975-79) to lay the groundwork for a revival of
civilian authority on conditions that would surmount the bitter regional
rivalries of the past. In this they were supported by a popular consensus
that a solution to the deficiencies that had brought down the first republic
lay in moving toward policies of reconciling group interests without bitter
confrontations.

     The military government called upon fifty well-qualified civilians to
draft a constitution based on a strong executive presidency, the transfer of
many functions from state to national jurisdiction (many such functions had
already been arrogated to the military regime by decree), and the dismantling
of ethnically based political divisions by creating nineteen states cutting
across geographic strongholds of the major ethnic groups. Political parties
were tightly regulated by an independent federal electoral commission and
pressed to abandon their regional ties. Local government was reorganized, and
local elections were held as a prelude to a partly elective constituent
assembly whose review of the draft constitution was completed in mid-1978.
This was followed by the lifting of the ban on political party activity in
September 1978.

     The national and state elections in the summer of 1979 brought a narrow
victory to the conservative National Party of Nigeria, a party with a northern
base, but having broader ethnic and inter-regional acceptance as was intended
by the new election rules. While all five legally acknowledged parties sought
nationwide popularity, most of them retained the image of regional allegiances
of the past, a warning sign of the potential for future polarization should
Nigerian politics revert to mobilization of sectional interests.

     The government of President Alhaji Shehu Shagari, which took office in
October 1979, needed cooperation of the third-ranked party, the Nigerian
People's Party under the veteran Ibo political leader, Nnamdi Azikiwe.
Opposition forces centered on the Unity Party of Nigeria under the energetic
but contentious leadership of another longtime political figure, Obafemi
Awolowo, a Yoruba. Shagari's quiet, consensus-building approach carried the
government over the shoals of the first year of testing the allocation of
powers among the separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches. But
Shagari's skills were less successful in relations with the governors and
assemblies of the twelve states not controlled by the NPN, as the sharing of
the public purse-including vast oil revenues-emerged as a prime source of
conflict.

The Constitutional System

     The Nigerian independence constitution of 1960 and the republican
constitution of 1963 embodied many British parliamentary concepts. But the
adaptations to the Westminster model of government incorporated the regional
orientation of Nigerian politics, and unrestrained competition among the
regionally based parties thwarted the spirit of compromise indispensable to
the effective functioning of parliamentary democracy.

     When the military government assumed power on January 15, 1966, the
constitutional system was put in abeyance. The military leaders suspended the
offices of the president, the prime minister, and the Council of Ministers,
and they closed the parliament, vesting all legislative and executive powers
in the Federal Military Government (FMG). The FMG replaced the executive and
legislative branches of the four regional governments with military governors
responsible directly to the FMG. At the federal level, executive and
legislative powers were concentrated in the Supreme Military Council (SMC),
composed of various military and police commanders. The SMC determined policy
on major national issues and matters of national security, appointed the head
of the FMG and other top officers, and had authority to declare war or a
national emergency. The SMC met at least every three months-or whenever
summoned by the head of the FMG-usually for two to three days. While
legislative proposals were fully discussed by the council, decisions were not
taken by vote but by the judgment of the head of the FMG as to the council's
position. The paramount role of the head of the FMG in council activities and
the fact that any decree (law) came into force simply by being signed by the
head of the FMG meant that in reality both executive and legislative powers
were centered in him. The states' military governors exercised their functions
only as delegates of the head of the FMG; thus the Nigerian system was unitary
rather than federal during the military regime.

     After the civil war a Federal Executive Council was formed to serve as
the cabinet. Both military and civilian members, called commissioners, headed
the various ministries. The head of the FMG also served as president of the
Federal Executive Council. Similar bodies were formed at the state level after
1971, although all state commissioners under the military governors were
civilians.

     In spite of the abrogation of major portions of the 1963 constitution by
the military regime, other provisions incorporated in various decrees, e.g.,
those relating to the judiciary, fundamental rights, citizenship, and
federal-state distribution of powers, were renewed with or without
modification. The FMG had the power to revoke or change by ordinary decree any
provisions adopted from the 1963 constitution. Accordingly the human rights
provisions were at any time subject to modification by the military
authorities.

     After the ouster of Major General Yakubu "Jack" Gowon in 1975, the
military regimes of Muhammed and Obasanjo adopted a staged program for the
return to civil government by October 1979. The framework was to be the newly
drafted constitution, which had been approved by a Constituent Assembly
composed predominantly of members elected by local authorities, many of whom
had been prominent in civilian politics of the 1960s. The assembly, which sat
from October 1977 until June 1978, based its deliberations on the work of a
constitutional drafting committee whose results were published as a draft for
public discussion and review in October 1976.

     Although the FMG did not participate in the preparations, it did instruct
the drafting committee to base its efforts on a federal structure that
emphasized national unity rather than regional interests. The committee was
called up