Tag: Akande

THE debate over which is the better system of government between presidentialism and parliamentarianism is really yet to take off. It is subsumed under a far more fractious and cantankerous debate over the country’s structure. Since there is no agreement yet over structure, it appears there can be no lasting agreement over systems. The restructuring debate is unfortunately so bad-tempered that it is mediated through cracked ethnic prisms. At the press conference to mark his 79th birthday, former Interim Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bisi Akande, last Tuesday exhumed the debate over both restructuring and systems of government. He easily voted for parliamentarianism for its inclusiveness, transparency and accountability; dismissed presidentialism for being too costly and complicated; and assumed that restructuring the country was ineluctable.

Whether they call restructuring by the name of true federalism or devolution of power, as the ruling party describes it in its manifesto to the amnestic convenience of its leaders, or restructuring, as most patriots would prefer to see it, it is inevitable that the country must one day come to terms with its misshapen structure and take concrete steps to remake it along the visionary postulations of the country’s founding fathers. Regardless of the country’s preoccupation with the politics of re-election, which is set to heighten in the coming months, Chief Akande is right to draw attention to the system of government he thinks is most appropriate for Nigeria. His view deserves more than a cursory glance, for it is really difficult to separate structure from system. Let the debate be taken together, as indeed quite a number of debaters have done in the past few months.

In Chief Akande’s words: “President Buhari is my friend and I want him to succeed but he is running a difficult system of government. Nigeria’s democracy is a military democracy of sharing and if we continue like this, there is no how we can succeed. Up to this present age, evidence based analyses has proven parliamentary democracy to be the most accountable transparent form of government in the whole world…It has made the United Kingdom prosperous, and Israel stable, and is also transforming India from acute poverty and hunger into self sufficiency and reliability virtually in all fields. Apart from being transparent and accountable, parliamentary democracy is absolutely inclusive. It appears to be the best form of governmental structure for Nigeria now. In Nigeria’s presidential system of government, lawmakers are elected on party platforms, but as soon as they get to the parliament, the party on which platform they get the opportunity, becomes less important.”

The former APC chairman is actually right about the evidence-based analysis he referenced. He is also right to conclude, as his party has shown at state and national levels, that lawmakers diminish their parties the moment they take their seats. He knows, as everyone else does, that the APC as a party has exercised little or no influence on both the polity and government since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office. Worse, the party’s lawmakers have acted as if both the party and the executive are aliens. Chief Akande was not just interim chairman of the ruling party, he was also governor of Osun State, making him to experience politics at both party and executive levels. His views and arguments deserve to be examined with seriousness and candour. At least he has shown that since vacating office, he has ruminated on why he had trouble with the Osun legislature, and why the country has appeared not to make tangible progress both in the practice of democracy and in the pursuit of economic development. More importantly, he is willing to engage in debate in order to see whether a common ground could not be found to engender development and stability.

But in his New Year’s Day address to the nation, President Muhammadu Buhari was characteristically dismissive of the quest for both a new national structure, aka restructuring, and a more workable and less acrimonious system of government, especially the calls for a return to parliamentarianism. Said the president, first with his customary paternalistic airs, then irritably: ” In respect of political developments, I have kept a close watch on the on-going debate about “Restructuring”. No human law or edifice is perfect. Whatever structure we develop must periodically be perfected according to changing circumstances and the country’s socio-economic developments. We Nigerians can be very impatient and want to improve our conditions faster than may be possible considering our resources and capabilities. When all the aggregates of nationwide opinions are considered, my firm view is that our problems are more to do with process than structure. We tried the Parliamentary system: we jettisoned it. Now there are shrill cries for a return to the Parliamentary structure. In older democracies, these systems took centuries to evolve so we cannot expect a copied system to fit neatly our purposes. We must give a long period of trial and improvement before the system we have adopted is anywhere near fit for purpose.”

The president spoke inaccurately of the impatience of critics, which he summed up as a national attitude. Yet, the parliamentary system was in operation after independence for essentially less than six years, when it had hardly been subjected to adequate stress tests. Meanwhile the presidential system has been in operation for about 19 years since the beginning of the Fourth Republic without any indication that it would get better. So, whether parliamentary or presidential, the country has passed through the whole gamut of patience and impatience. What is more crucial, as Chief Akande says, but which the president apparently fails to understand, is that the country must determine whether holistically the presidential system is not more opaque, more costly, and less responsive than the parliamentary system. Entwined in both is the indispensable factor of the country’s superstructure, its national question. What is obvious is that Chief Akande has had time to reflect; and President Buhari has hardly found the time.

It is even clearer that judging from the president’s January 1 address he has not found time to study the parliamentary system of government, nor, it seems, can he convince anyone that he has patiently examined the weaknesses of the presidential system. Like anyone else, he is of course entitled to reason and maintain a position, but that position must be informed by knowledge, experience and brilliance, all far above the national average. In his speech, he did not mention one great virtue of presidentialism, nor one great vice of parliamentarianism. Beyond coming down hard on critics, it is important that he must argue his position persuasively, much more than just holding it tamely and inflexibly. Indeed, it must be clear to the president what the definitions of both systems are, and what great political principles distinguish and undergird them.

It is not the country that is impatient, as the president surmised; he is in fact the one who is condescending. Even if he did not take a position as president and a reformed democrat, as he described himself, it was expected of him to invite rather than stifle discussions on those pertinent subjects. That is what Chief Akande has done. The former Osun State governor did not imperiously advocate one position over another; instead he simply put his observations and convictions before the public, asking them to consider whether the country should not make a recourse to the past. On the other hand, the president, without substance and foundation, called for an end to the discourse on systems and restructuring, when he should have invited more debate. The country needs the debate, only that it must be held civilly. Nigerians must be living in denial to conclude that the current system works and only needs tinkering. Even if there is no agreement on the prognosis, there can be little doubt that the current structure is not working. What will make it work is not patience.

The president has no reason to stifle the debate on systems of government and restructuring. He should encourage it. In fact, he should join it from an informed perspective. He must not only update his knowledge on systems and structures, as these are crucially vital and indispensable, he has a responsibility, as president, to inspire and lead the debate at a level that is both productive and regenerative. It is not enough for the president to get bogged down with policies and politics, he must find quiet moments to renew himself through the aspiration and eventual application of knowledge. Had he engaged in that refining task of knowledge acquisition as president, he would definitely have anticipated the herdsmen/farmers clashes, developed alternative models, harnessed the debates on the changing structures of the Nigerian economy with reference to dairy farming, and helped the country avoid the needless bloodletting in which it is immersed.

It is apposite to draw the attention of the president to an entry in Encyclopaedia.com by Maxwell A. Cameron, a scholar who attempts to differentiate the two systems of government. Said he: “A constitution is presidential if the executive and legislative branches of government are elected separately for fixed terms. In parliamentary systems, the executive (typically led by a prime minister) is selected from among the members of the legislature and may be removed through a vote of no confidence. The difference between these types of democratic constitutions hinges, therefore, on two distinctions. First, in a presidential system, candidates compete for seats in the legislature or for executive office by running in separate elections. In a parliamentary system, candidates run for seats in the legislature, and then form a government based on the ability of a party or coalition to win the confidence of a majority of the members of parliament. Second, presidential systems follow fixed electoral calendars. Once elected, the president and the congress typically hold office for a specified term. In parliamentary systems, the government’s term can be brought to an end at any time by a vote of no confidence or an act of dissolution.”

The president will find that these systems are not as forbidden or unapproachable as he thinks, nor as abominable as those who have taken positions one way or the other imagine. Let the president enrich his understanding by patiently studying these systems, asking for debates and contributions on whether the systems cannot be adapted to meet local needs, as the French and many other nations have done, and seeing whether instead of being constantly and discourteously reactive and offended, he can’t find the good grace and open-mindedness to champion Nigeria into the future. Chief Akande has belled the cat; let the president imitate his courage and learning.