Sequel to my rejoinder to Christopher Akor’s article of 24th September last week, he replied by calling my attention to “science”. He faulted my response on two grounds: it is at variance with the focus of his piece which argued that the parliamentary system of government is better at building strong institutions of restraints and delivering good governance than presidentialism, and its lack of “empirical evidence” on the assertions I made. Consequently, my response will be on these specifics.
While I cannot discountenance the findings of Gerring’s research and his colleagues, given that the focus is on Nigeria, my contention is that the result does not support its reality. Rather, it is in contradistinction to Nigeria’s phenomenological reality. Yes, the relationship “may” exist between parliamentarism and good governance in other climes as the research of Gerring et al has shown, but such was a rarity as Nigeria’s experiment with parliamentarism has shown. Of course, Akor knows empirical scholarship abounds on this issue in Nigeria. To be sure Nigeria is not an isolated case in this regard, the empirical research of Arthur Lewis – Politics in West Africa – showed that the inherited Westminster parliamentary democracy in British West Africa was responsible for the emergence of authoritarian rule after independence in that region.
What happened to the “strong institutions of restraints and delivering good governance”? This, as Lewis posits, was a consequence of the majoritarian electoral systems (otherwise known as winner-takes-all) the Brits bequeathed to their erstwhile colonies in the region. Again, the research of Fukuyama et al on four East Asian countries has shown that presidentialism survived in those countries as a result of institutions of restraint that contained personalist rule.
Two things are worth noting from the foregoing: scientifically speaking, the result of Gerring’s research and his colleagues’ generalisability matrix. Secondly, parliamentarism failed on Akor’s matrix of developing and sustaining strong institutions in the West African case, and I dare say, delivering good governance.
Nigeria has fared better under the subsisting presidential system in the Second and Fourth Republics in the area of developing institutions of restraint, even though good governance remains elusive. This brings me to the “political engineering” embarked upon by the “49 Wise Men” which I noted was remarkably impressive and ingenious in modern history, but Akor faulted this submission for lack of evidence, even though it was not conjectural. Since Akor is a political scientist himself, an erudite one for that matter, I felt rehearsing this point was unnecessary. But since he has broached the issue in his response, I will oblige him by elaborating on three salient ingenious institutional designs of that era.
The most heated and controversial issue that confronted the framers of the 1979 Constitution was the politics of religion, which amply reflected in the Sharia legal system debate. How to resolve the conflict between the interface of Islamic law with Western jurisprudence in a society with plural jurisprudence was a difficult task, especially bearing in mind this could be the source of blood-bath, which already, the embers of religious fanaticism were being fanned (at the Conference and in the larger Nigerian society) while the debate was ongoing. The impasse between the pro and anti-factions of Sharia was resolved with a provision that appeals from State Sharia Courts should go to the Federal Court of Appeal and be heard by three judges versed in Islamic jurisprudence.
To address the incompatibility of the majoritarian electoral systems that engender cut-throat politics as well as steer the country away from regional politics characterised by ethnic rivalry, the “49 Wise Men” did the following: political parties were expected to have national outlook, as against the regionally based parties of the First Republic. Since the parliamentary system allows room for more parties which engendered the proliferation of ethnic parties, this provision drastically curtailed it. Aside from making provision for a presidential system which merged the power of the Head of State and that of the Head of Government – the president – in one person, s/he was required to secure 25 percent votes in 2/3 states of the federation before s/he can be declared winner.
These were institutional designs targeted at bringing about placatory behaviour among political actors that is a sine qua non in guaranteeing political stability, which was totally missing. More to this, the power of the president was to be kept in check using the mechanism of horizontal accountability by the legislature and the judiciary. These are all institutions of restraint? Of course, there are several other institutional designs. But as I said, I will limit myself to these ones that are central to the survival of democratic governance in Nigeria.
Accordingly, it is safe to argue that the major preoccupation of the “49 Wise Men” was centered around developing institutions’ restraint for the embryonic Second Republic. Maybe because of its life span, the subsisting Fourth Republic under a presidential system has witnessed more institutional engineering in Nigeria’s history, and the country is still developing more. Therefore, we cannot say with certitude that Nigeria has witnessed institutional recession/weakness because of its fixation with the presidential system. Like I noted in my rejoinder last week, institutional weakness in Nigeria is not a consequence of the presidential system but that of political actors who drive the institutions. Hence, I reiterate my argument that parliamentarism, despite the rhetoric of its exponents in Nigeria will not magically solve the problem of good governance deficit.
Akor countered my submission on the hybrid model in the South on the grounds that it provided a mechanism that made possible the removal of two presidents by parliament. But I think he seems to forget that on his matrix of delivering good governance, the model has failed in the country despite the removal of those presidents. In the case of Thabo Mbeki, it engendered policy summersault, which is the problem with parliamentary systems, while Jacob Zuma’s presidency was a paradigmatic case of a cesspool of corruption that plunged the country into a serious economic crisis that is still troubling South Africa. To forestall such unnecessary removal from office, the presidential system provides for rigidity in the president’s tenure of office which allows for policy continuity.
Thus far, it is indeed intellectually refreshing having this debate with an erudite friend, whose column on this page I always look forward to reading.
Ihembe is a postgraduate student in the Department of Political Sciences, @ the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Reachable via martinihembe@gmail.com WhatsApp +2347036396194.
