LOOKING at the draft constitution, power is vested in four clear institutions and this was deliberate, having regard to our experience of the last 17 to 20 years. The first institution is the People of this country. The second is the President. The third is the Legislature, and fourth is the Judiciary. …All are evenly balanced and that one serves as a check on the other.
This is why I feel rather sceptical when a member said somebody can turn himself into a dictator. Although one must concede that there is no absolute insurance against dictatorship under any system of government, but as far as I know, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a dictator to emerge under the draft as it stands.
Another important feature of the draft is the fact that in the balance of power, we deliberately make it centripetal instead of being centrifugal. In the last Constitution, you will find that the trend of power was backwards, towards the states, but if you look at the draft carefully, it is now towards the centre. It gravitates towards the centre, and not backwards. This is what I mean by centripetal instead of being centrifugal. We did that deliberately in the light of our experience in the past.
The third feature of the draft constitution is that we have no state constitution again. If you look at the 1963 Constitution, you will find that each Region or each State had its own Constitution, but that method has been abolished. If you look at the draft constitution, from Clause 1 to Clause 212, there is no separate provision for states or for the Federation. You have to read through the whole thing to know which governs which. Again, this is deliberate. So, you have a single document to run 20 governments, both the Federal Government and the 19 state governments.
If you create more states, that is the thing that is going to happen because in the past the tendency was for one to read, if one liked, the Constitution of the Federation and that of his state. Then he needs not bother about the constitution of the other states. This was divisive, but now if you want to know about the Constitution of this country you have got to read the whole document and be a Nigerian.
Now, the fourth feature of the new draft which is peculiar is the Legislative List. In the past there had always been two Legislative Lists – the Exclusive List and the Concurrent List. We have deliberately abolished these two lists and we now have one Legislative List. I know this has been criticised but the reasons are many. If you look at the report, we did give our reasons why we did that.
A second list is a nuisance. It leads to a lot of clashes between the State and the Federal governments and it leads to a lot of litigation. If you have one Exclusive List, you would know that these are the powers of the Federal Government and the rest are the powers of the States and there is no dispute.
The Federal Government will tell you this is the Concurrent List. It has already entered the list. So, you should not legislate on that particular item. That will not arise. Then you will not have the dichotomy and the clash of interests between the State and the Federal governments. When we come to the Committee Stage I hope I would be able to give more reasons and try to persuade our colleagues who are sceptical about having only one list.
In other words, Mr. Chairman, the constitution we are producing is meant to be a referee in the game of soccer among politicians from 1979 upwards and I hope that it will be a good referee.
I now go to specific subjects and the first I would like to touch within this short time is what is called chieftaincy. I come from an area where chieftaincy is very sacred. Mr. Chairman, I would at the Committee Stage propose that wherever we have the word ‘Chief’ in the draft, we should insert traditional rulers because they are not really chiefs but traditional rulers.
Mr. Chairman, the importance of this institution cannot be overstated. Lugard found them so important that the pivot of his Indirect Rule was based on traditional rulers. To make a Constitution without definite and adequate provisions for this institution, to my mind, is like making tea without sugar.
At the appropriate time I would propose that each state should have a House of Traditional Rulers which should either be deliberative or legislative and it should be made voluntary or permissive so that those states which do not want it, need not have it. I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that we of Oyo State definitely would like to have a second chamber which will be called House of Traditional Rulers.
I also think that traditional rulers should have a place in the Senate. The mechanics of how they get there is a matter of details and this should be evolved. Under Section 137, I think we should create a body to be called National Council of Traditional Rulers or whatever we may call it which will be a platform for traditional of a particular grade throughout the country whether from Onitsha, Sokoto, Ibadan or Calabar. They will be able to meet and discuss formally and informally. This is all I have to say on traditional rulers.
I will now move to the next subject which is the Presidency. There has been a lot of debate and a lot of contribution on this point. So, I do not think I can really improve seriously on the argument advanced. However, Mr. Chairman, I am a convinced believer in the Presidential system. There are definite reasons for this and I will try to give some of them.
One of the causes of instability in Africa is what I would like to call bifurcation of authority at the crucial point, that is at executive level where you have Prime Minister and the President. A distinguished member of this Assembly a few days ago proposed the French system.
May I say that that will not be advisable for a number of reasons. I give an instance of where bifurcation of authority had never worked. It has not worked in this country. It has led us to crisis. It did not work in Senegal. We remember the problem between Prime Minister Dia and Senghor. It was because of bifurcation of authority at the crucial point. In Congo it did not work between Lumumba and Kasavubu.
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