Form of Government

CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK

In a constituent State, the issues which come before the Legislature are of purely domestic character. Any error committed in respect of them can only have strictly circumscribed intra-state consequences. Whereas, in contrast, an error of judgment in matters relating to defence, foreign affairs, and the like, would not only have country-wide but also international repercussions. Therefore, whilst there is obvious need for second thought at the composite State level, the need for protracted deliberations at the constituent State level is not so apparent.

Furthermore, under the old Constitution, representation in the Upper Houses of the Regions was more or less on the basis of population, and the elections of members thereto were invariably decisively influenced by the Regional Heads of Government. The position would be likely to remain the same in the future. Besides, the Regional Upper Houses were not intended and had never been used as instruments for correcting any imbalance in representations as between major and minor national groups, or major or minor tribal units within each of the Regions. With the application of the multi-lingual principle, there will no longer be any problem arising from the co-existence of major and minor national groups in one and the same constituent State. But such a problem will continue to exist in the Federation as a whole.

On all counts, therefore, the case for a Second Chamber in a constituent State fails; but that for an Upper House for the composite State succeeds. We are of the considered opinion, however, that the Second Chamber for the composite State should be elective in the same way as the Lower House. Under the old Constitution, the Second Chamber for the Federation could not at all be said to be truly representative of the electorate. The members were the nominees of the Head of Government, or at best, of the ruling Political Party, of the region which they purported to represent. As a result, the old Senate was effete and ineffective, both as a deliberative and a legislative Chamber. It was all too eager to support anything that the House of Representatives did. Consequently, instead of affording the Lower House a chance for second thoughts, the old Senate, by its undisguised sycophancy, encouraged the House of Representatives to indulge in rash and ill-digested’ first thoughts’ on all major Issues.

On the other hand, a Second Chamber whose members are directly elected by the electorate will be more articulate and virile, and will fearlessly serve the three traditional purposes of a Second Chamber in a Federation. It will afford the Parliament as a whole an opportunity for second thoughts on Important issues; it will correct interstate disparity in representation in the Lower House; and it will give protection and succour, whenever necessary, to minority linguistic groups.

As elected representatives of the people, members of the Upper House are ipso facto entitled to be on equal footing, in all respects, with the members of the Lower House. In other words, the Upper House is entitled to exercise all and the same powers and functions as are, and may from time to time be, vested in the Lower House. The only reason why an Upper House only has deliberative but not legislative jurisdiction on money bills and resolutions, and only has delaying power over other bills and measures, is because its members are not, strictly speaking, regarded as the accredited and duly elected representatives of the people. This disability will not attach to an Upper House whose members are directly elected. There should, therefore, be provision in the Constitution conferring equal powers on both the Upper and the Lower Houses. In the event of a deadlock on any matter, the two Houses should resolve it by the majority votes at a joint session, which should be presided over by the President of the Upper House.

We venture to assert that the unanimity, among right-thinking Nigerians, on the thirteenth proposition above, is so complete that it hardly calls for any comment from us. All we would like to, say, therefore, is that much of the dishonesty, venality, bad faith, brazen opportunism, and utter lack of idealism which plagued our public life under the First Republic had their roots in the fact that a parliamentarian could make a trade of his parliamentary membership with impunity. It is in the general interest, therefore, that we must employ the opportunity, which the making of a new Constitution presents, to put an end to this kind of dishonourable and infamous behaviour, by inserting a provision to the effect that any 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 Legislature concerned.

It is a notorious fact that one of the things which precipitated the January – 1966 coup d’etat was the open threat by a major political party that it was going to rule Nigeria forever. This threat was both taken seriously and deeply resented, for very good reasons. The political party in question had a strong, ‘iron-curtained,’ and despotic hold over the Northern Region which, in population, is more than half of the entire Federation. By means of several unedifying manoeuvres, it always had electoral advantages over all other parties in that one Region. Consequently, it dominated the Central Government. Even so, it confined its membership only to people, who derived from the Northern Region. When it eventually decided, to extend its activities to the other Regions, it did so by means of alliances only with political parties based in those Regions.

CONTINUES NEXT WEEK