Form of Government

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK

(6) Electoral franchise throughout the Federation should be based on universal adult suffrage.

(7) There should be one Common Roll or Register of Voters for all elections in all parts of the Federation.

(8) The Federal Parliament should be bi-cameral; whilst the Regional Legislatures should be uni-cameral.

(9) General elections to the Federal and Regional Legislatures as well as the elections of the Heads of the Central and Regional Governments should be held every FIVE YEARS ON THE SAME DAY throughout the Federation.

(10) Political parties should be registered with the Federal Electoral Commission; but only a political party which is country-wide or region-wide both in character and operation and whose membership is open to all Nigerian citizens should be so registered.

(11) Every candidate for election into the Federal Parliament, Regional Legislature, or Local Government Council, whether or not he is opposed by any other candidate or candidates at such election, shall be voted for, and shall be declared duly elected only if he scores an absolute majority of the votes cast at the first or subsequent ballot.

(12) Every member of the Federal or Regional Legislature should be directly elected by the electors in the constituency which he represents.

(13) A member of any Legislature who resigns his membership of, or is expelled from, the political party on whose platform he was elected into the Legislature shall automatically lose his seat in the said Legislature.

(14) Every Nigerian citizen should be deemed to be qualified to stand for election in any part of the Federation.

(15) All Federal and Regional Legislatures should stand automatically dissolved THIRTY DAYS before the expiration of five years from the date on which the immediately preceding General Elections were held into the said Legislatures. No Legislature should be dissolved otherwise.

(16) The two Houses of Federal Parliament should have equal legislative powers.

(17) The-Federal Parliament or Central Government should not have the power to suspend or perform the -functions of a Regional Legislature or Government in any circumstance, save when the Federation is at war.

(18) The Regional Legislature or Government should not have the power to suspend or dissolve a Local Government Council in any circumstance, during the council’s statutory term of office.

(19) Elections to Local Government Councils should be conducted every three years, and at least three-fourths of the members of any such Council should be directly elected by the registered voters in the area of the Counci 1.

(20) An Electoral Act, containing all the provisions relating to the conduct of all elections in the Federation, and based largely on the principles contained in the Appendix, should be a Schedule to the Constitution.

There is scarcely anyone in Nigeria who will dissent from the above propositions. All the same, we are making comments on them, firstly in order to make sure that any possibility of misunderstanding is removed, and secondly in order to show that there is a rational basis for formulating them.

The limitation of franchise to adult males in the Northern Region of Nigeria has been justified in the sacred name of Islam. But both in theory and in practice, Islam itself proclaims the claim made in its name to be false. In the first place, we are authoritatively informed that there is nothing in the teachings of Islam which forbids women from voting or being voted for at elections. On the contrary, Islam positively and categorically upholds the equality of the sexes in the home and in public life. In the second place, in most of the countries which are declared by constitution to be Moslem States or which are predominantly Moslem in population, like Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan, for instance, the practice which prevails gives the lie to the Nigerian claim and practice.

It is conceded that it is the vogue among a good many well-to-do Moslems, all over the world, to keep their wives in purdah; and that it is improper for such women to be compelled to go into queues at polling stations to be seen and stared at by-other men. But apart from the fact that the fashion of keeping women in purdah is fast dying out in many leading Moslem countries, there is nothing in our Constitution or electoral law which makes it obligatory for any adult male or female to exercise his or her voting right. And we feel sure that there is no one in this country who would wish the Australian system of compulsory voting incorporated, at this stage, into our Constitution. The demand has been made in some quarters that there should be another census enumeration” on the grounds that the last one was deliberately falsified and inflated. This is a point which has our sympathy, but on which, for electoral purposes, we do not feel very strongly. However, whether or not a new population count is done, there should be no difficulty in compiling a new accurate register of voters for the whole country on the basis of universal adult suffrage. Once this is properly done to exhibit ward units and Local Government areas, there should be no necessity whatsoever of continuing the pernicious practice, which prevails in some parts of the country, of compiling a new electoral register for every election other than federal. This practice, it must be stressed, has created room for all kinds of electoral frauds; it should be terminated by making provision in the Constitution that only the Electoral Roll compiled and revised from time to time by the Electoral Commission shall be used in all elections in all parts of the Federation.

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