Curbing executive overdrive: The beauty of democratic institutions

The reason for the separation of the three arms of government in a democracy is often not well appreciated by the society. We complain of the high cost of running the three arms. After military coup d’etats, the soldiers often reduce the arms to two or at times to one and a half. The Supreme Military Council (SMC) takes over legislative branch.

The same people or most of those in the SMC are also the same that seat on the Federal Executive Council (FEC) – the executive arm and they proceed to inaugurate Special military tribunals (SMTs)which take over most of the judicial functions, sending the accused to 240 years of imprisonment, even without allowing the accused take a plea. What is left of the judiciary function is the opportunity to adjudicate on divorce cases or stealing of goats and fowls.

Indeed the independence of the arms are often challenged. It seems to cause delay and create the impression that there are three governments. The Executive is often impatient and would want to lord it over the other arms. Why can’t the executive write their budget and just go ahead to implement? Anybody that makes any amendment is accused of padding. Why can’t the courts just go ahead to jail a man whom the EFCC or ICPC accuses of corruption? 9.8 million dollars have been found with a former NNPC GMD. Why waste time with the rigmarole of courts and the SANs that will soon begin to challenge jurisdictions and file time-wasting motions?

It is all the beauty of democracy and democratic institutions. Checks and balances in the management of the affairs of men and the state. Men are but mere mortals and the best of them can make mistakes, have emotions, have biases, can be driven by ego, or be out rightly mean. Some even go crazy without knowing or admitting it. Quite often selfish interest is clothed in nationalist appeals.

The bible says that” Every Man is wise in his own counsel”. So no single individual or even institution can be given the reign to run riot. When a Judge says a man should be hanged, the Governor must authorize execution. When the legislator passes a bill, the President or Governor must give accent. Nowhere is this beauty of separation of powers and independence of different arms of government been so clear in recent history than what is going on right now in the United States of America. All of a sudden, one man, Donald Trump who was recently elected the President of the USA by the American Electoral College seemed to run riot with his executive orders. Matters which should have been subjected to extensive legislative debates were taken up as executive issues and by a stroke of the pen, the world order was being re-written by one individual.

Then the third arm of government, the judiciary was invited into the matter by citizens and latter by some of the states. And Donald Trump was stopped in his track as court after court felt he was on overdrive and was overreaching his powers. Virtually all the lower courts and the appeal courts have all ruled against President Trumps travel ban on citizens of eight predominantly Muslim countries and on refugees from any part of the world. Though President Donald Trump (PDT) has been very un-presidential in his tweets and comments on the judiciary calling some “ so-called Judge” and saying the judgements were” political”, he has literally been restrained from what appeared to be executive recklessness and in the process redeeming the image of the USA as the bastion of democracy and not autocracy. If PDT had not received this check, only God knows how many more executive orders would have been released since then. Certainly that seems to slow him down, causing him some frustration, but that is the beauty of democracy and its institutions.

PDT has threatened to escalate the matter to the Supreme Court. That’s fine. But for now, he has been shown that no one has absolute powers in a democracy. Every power is circumscribed in a true democracy. Indeed despite his apparent disdain for the intelligence agencies, they are going ahead to investigate his transactions with Russia during the 2016 campaigns and election. Whether a Democratic or Republican is in power, the institutions go on with their job. And I have a feeling that despite all the “shakara” PDT will face some embarrassment eventually with his “underhand” dealing with Russia before and after the elections. The FBI is undeterred! That is the beauty of independent democratic state institutions.

Can this happen in Nigeria? Your guess is as good as mine. One can say that our democracy is work in progress. Perhaps deriving from our many years of military dictatorship, we seem to be practicing quasi-democracy. The Executive has overbearing influence on the other arms. The word of the President or the state Governor is law. No one dares challenge. If you try, you are seen as a trouble maker and may be run out of town or out office. The legislature seems to be fairly emasculated, especially in the states where many of the houses of assembly are mere rubber stamps to the whims and caprices of the Governor. From what we hear, Imo state seems to be a classical example. Our judiciary is hardly independent, again, more so in the states, where the Chief Judges are at the beck and call of the Governors. Hardly can any case go against the governor in any state of Nigeria!

Most of our institutions are beholden to the President or Governor. They watch the body- language of the President before they act. I am amazed that up till date, no significant APC politician, including those who decamped from PDP has been arrested or prosecuted for corruption in the last two years. Recent accusations have been quickly dismissed or ignored. I believe that the EFCC is doing a lot of hard work and I have acknowledged that in this column, but that has not taken away my amazement at this apparent lopsidedness. The boards of Government agencies are dissolved at the pleasure of the President, without regard to the statutes setting them up and nearly two years after, many have not been reconstituted. Heads of government agencies are removed without due process. All these work to weaken our institutions and in the process weaken both national development and democracy.

I believe that the time is come for the civil society to promote and support the independence of the three arms of government and the separation of power enshrined in the Nigerian constitution. Every effort must be made to resist any attempt to weaken any branch of government by the executive using all kinds of underhand pressures and subterfuge. Nigeria must allow its institutions to mature by de-politicizing them. They are very critical for sustaining democracy as we are witnessing in the United States of America.