Dayo Sobowale
The presidential system of government is based on the principle of separation of powers between the executive, the judiciary and the legislature in such a way and to ensure that a democracy does not become a dictatorship and an abuse of the rule of law and respect for human rights, freedom and justice.
Democracy thrives on respect for human rights and public opinion and elections are the litmus test of the popularity, acceptance or rejection of the policies and programmes of elected governments in any democracy.
Nevertheless it is the duty of government to provide and promote the security of life and property of its citizenry, which put it in power in periodic elections in democracies.
There are many claims to the practice of global democracy stemming from various ideologies but the right of dissent and its scope and manner, separate each from the other.
For now ideologies have been bastardised by a disrespectful pandemic which has led to democracies and their leaders running for shelter in the defence or rejection of time honoured policies for which they have been known hitherto, in order to protect the security of life and property of their citizens.
It is such political and ideological dissemblance in the pursuit of the claim of democracy as the working tool and policy of governance that we examine in the topic of today.
We shall proceed with a comparative analysis of the governments of Nigeria, the US , UK and China at this point in time of a global pandemic and the state of their democracies consequently.
In Nigeria the Senate has asked the President to fire the military security service chiefs for providing inadequate security for the nation and for poor leadership resulting in pervasive insecurity and the president has refused to do so.
In the US and Britain where the Republicans and Conservatives are in power they have pumped immense funds into their economies as stimulus and comfort for their citizenry in this pandemic.
These were ideologues of minimal government and laissez faire capitalism notorious in the recent past for stringent economic austerity which they exported through the World Bank and IMF as conditionalities for much needed bank loans to developing nations.
The repayment terms of these loans crippled the economies of these poor nations and raised their misery and poverty level astronomically.
China which is ruled by the powerful Communist Party of China recently got entangled with the US over it 5G telecoms technology development on security grounds and the US has used its economic and technological muscle and strength to make EU nations at least Britain to desist from going ahead with Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant on the development and deployment of the 5G technology.
Let us look at these nations in the context of their democracies and style of governance starting with Nigeria, Africa’s largest democracy.
The call this week by the Senate to the President to fire the security service chiefs breaches the principle of separation of powers as it is a usurpation of the function of security which rests squarely on the table of responsibility of the President of Nigeria as the Commander In Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces led by his service chiefs responsible to him and not the Nigeria senate.
But the call showed the Nigerian senate at its best in getting more Catholic than the Pope which now is the Nigerian government, in looking after the interests and security of not only Nigerians but the Nigerian Army, which is being deserted by some of its soldiers on the grounds of inferior facilities to fight not only Boko Haram but the murderous insurgents raiding and killing Nigerians in the North East and North West, right up to the President’s home state of Katsina.
The call by the senate is however a responsible, patriotic call of dissent with the president on the issue of its handling of security of Nigerians and Nigeria by the Nigerian president.
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It is an important call for the fact that the president and the senate president belong to the same party and that party has the majority in the Nigerian senate.
It is in the interest of the presidency to heed the call one way or the other such that the security of Nigerians and Nigeria is guaranteed and not at the mercy of insurgents and terrorists like Boko Haram.
I wonder if the presidential spokesman who berated the critical media and columnists recently, of airing the views of the opposition, would categorise the senate for its dissent on security with the president.
Is the senate airing the views of the opposition on the call to sack or change the military service chiefs? This certainly is the president’s senate where his party has a comfortable majority.
A democracy is based on elections and the majority having its way while the minority must have its say. In this case the Nigerian senate is having its say even though it seems not to be having its way with the president on whose table the buck stops on Nigeria’s security. I doff my hat all the same to the senate on this security issue.
Similarly the concern of the US President Donald Trump and the action of the UK government to scuttle any deal with Huawei on 5G technology development on security grounds is well founded and well informed.
The rationale or explanation for the American and British hostility to Huawei lie in the structure of the political system in China which is a one party state which just made its president, a president for life.
In China there is no separation of powers but a monopoly of it by a political party, The Communist Party in China has a membership of around 1m but it runs China, the biggest nation in the world in terms of population of 1.5 bn people.
That is a powerful minority running the majority without periodic elections but for five yearly meetings to discuss and approve five year Development Plans for China.
It is difficult to separate state firms from private firms in China which is involved in a technological rat race to beat both the US and small Britain in terms of nuclear, technological and scientific development, globally.
China is very much ahead in terms of using Artificial Intelligence, Computer Learning and Robotics in policing its vast territory and massive population.
So what stops it from using Huawei to spy on its technological rivals like the US and Britain? There is no room for criticism of government in China and dissent is zero.
The US through its President is playing safe on security in taking action against Huawei on 5G aside from its trade wars with China.
This is because China has proved elusive, recalcitrant and aggressive on many international engagements and commitments including its muscling of the World Health Organisation –WHO – on how and when the present pandemic started in Wuhan, China, which the Chinese government first concealed before revealing its existence and murderous damage.
China can not claim that it knows nothing about Huawei, as its founder has claimed, when the whole world knows that Huawei cannot exist in a vacuum in China but for the grace, goodwill and tacit, if not open support of the Communist Party of China, the political institution driving the fastest growing and largest population economy in the world.
Certainly, on the claim of lack of control of Huawei with regard to China’s security outlook and plans, the Chinese government is behaving like the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand. Once again – From the fury of this raging pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.
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