You may have wondered at some point, who has more power: Mr President or Mr Governor? Mr President, of course; you would have also concluded. After all, the president is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and has thousands of civil service staff at his beck and call. Apart from the fact that he has at least ten jets packed on the tarmac with flight-ready crews waiting for the august passenger to climb on board at any time of the day or night. And, going by the constitution, Mr President has more column inches espousing his powers over all and sundry. Full stop, end of story! Or is it not? Well, it all very much depends on your view and definition of “power.” Going by the text of the constitution, yes, Mr President supposedly wields more power. Also, going by the raw possession of coercive forces, you would say the president has more power. If, however, power is defined as the ability to get someone to do one’s bidding or to comply with one’s on-the-spot order irrespective of their personal preference, then the picture changes dramatically.
How many times have you heard it said that the US President is the most powerful office on the planet? Then, imagine, just imagine, the most powerful Commander-in-Chief in the world, with the most sophisticated weaponry in the world, tried to disarm and disperse the ‘bandits,’ called Taliban, in Afghanistan for twenty years to no avail. The US belatedly invited them to the negotiating table to agree to the terms of what appeared to many as the surrender of the superior, “most potent” US army to that of the Taliban’s rag-tag foot soldiers late last year. Even at home, with its awesome might, the US is unable to maintain its border to keep out unwanted guests from its closest neighbours, Mexico et al. The analogy with Nigeria and the Boko Haram situation is germane. The president has at his command a sophisticated array of weapons and thousands of troops at the ready. Boko Haram is a group of “bandits” who has been “technically defeated” (Buhari’s own words), since 2015. Yet, they remain as brazen as they are deadly, rampaging villages and towns in the North at random. They even had the gall to carry out a dawn raid on the heavily fortified Nigerian Defence Academy in August, last year, apparently with impunity! Why not pursue a negotiated settlement with them as the US did with the Taliban? Well, that would not be possible, for it would mean the fulfilment of Boko Haram’s central tenet: the introduction of an Islamic Caliphate from the North to the South of the country, effectively turning out the lights of civilisation on Nigerians.
So much for being powerful, then. Having raw power is one thing, having the ability to exercise effective control over people is quite another. Both the president and governor derive their powers from constitutional provisions: Chapter VI, Part I, 130 (2) of the 1999 constitution says, “The President shall be the Head of State, the Chief Executive of the Federation and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation.” Part II, 176 (2) says, “The Governor of a state shall be the Chief Executive of that state.” It is clear as daylight that the governor is akin in status to a Principal Senior Civil Servant (albeit) in charge of a territory. No armed personnel at his beck and call. Of late, governors have been referenced in the media as the “Chief Security Officer” of their state. This is patently wrong. Nowhere does it say anything of such in the constitution. “Chief Executive” is all the constitution designates a governor. This explains why there is a clamour for state police from many quarters. The governors do not only want to be seen as glorified civil servants; they want to wield raw power as well, a little bit like Mr President does at the federal level. In other words, they want to be mini-Mr President in their own political fiefdom. A feat that can only be rendered possible with direct authority over some aspect of the nation’s coercive armouries: the police. In an ideal world, that would be fine. In the UK, police powers are devolved across regional, district and local levels. Police Commissioners are responsible for the strategic direction of policing in their communities while operational responsibilities remain with the force. In the US, states not only have their own police, they also have territorial armies and a host of local militia and vigilante groups. This is on top of the constitutional right of the citizen to “keep and bear arms” as per the Second Amendment. Flowing from this, therefore, there are more than 400 million firearms floating around in private hands in the US, a country of just over 300 million people. No one, be it at the federal, state, district or community level, has a monopoly on violence. This is hardly a good example to emulate in our own febrile political situation here.
That said, a situation where only the Federal Government has access to and exercises authority over lethal weapons is pretty unsatisfactory either. If anything, it poses a unique threat to liberty. Nonetheless, the extensive powers already at the behest of governors in Nigeria make their argument for state police difficult to digest. It is unconvincing, as it is pretty unnerving. For a start, the checks and balances that exist over presidential powers at the federal level, hardly exist at the state level, where state assemblies are treated as appendages of the executive and mere rubber-stamps for the convenience of the governor. In normal times, it is anomalous for a Nigerian governor to lose a vote in the state assembly. On the rare occasion that happens, the errant member(s) who dared oppose the ‘constituted authority’ in the state would not be in post for much longer. Governors more or less appoint who stands for election to the assembly, and local councils. They determine, de-rob and de-pose local emirs, chiefs and kings at will. They are the leaders of their political parties in the state. They funnel money into the party structure from the state to the centre. They exert considerable influence on party policy and personnel. They exercise powers of patronage by nominating candidates for federal appointments, including ambassadorial postings and national honours. They recommend favoured candidates for jobs in private companies and universities on their turf, among others.
Above all, Nigerian governors have unique access to a pot of gold no other governor anywhere on earth enjoys—the so-called security vote. “Security vote” is a ready-made, uncounted and unaccountable ward of cash under the table for the governor to dip into at will, no questions asked. It is completely legal and it is all in furtherance of the cause of ‘security’ in their domain. Once in office, the citizens pick up the tab for a governor’s personal expenses including feeding for their entire family and friends, accommodation, clothing, household expenditures, a coterie of servants, etc. Once out of office, the state bears responsibility for their livelihood and emolument until death. Perhaps the real potency of a governor’s power lies in the immediacy of their decisions. If, for instance, a governor decides on erecting a structure in remembrance of his favoured hero, he can watch that accomplished there and then, without much funfair. Unlike Mr President, the governor does not have a huge federal bureaucracy or cantankerous legislature to contend with. A governor’s policy pronouncement can and does have a real impact, in real-time, on real people. Now, does any of this make you feel sympathy for Nigerian governors for being deprived of uniformed personnel directly under their command? Answer please to the editor.
drtayooke@gmail.com
END
Be the first to comment