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Tag: Presidential system

  • System shift: Our first major error was adoption of presidential system -Prof Ango Abdullahi

    System shift: Our first major error was adoption of presidential system -Prof Ango Abdullahi

    A former Vice Chancellor and eldestatsman , Professor Ango Abdullahi has said Nigeria made a fatal mistake by adopting the Presidential system of government in 1979.

    TheNewsGuru.com, TNG reports he made this declaration at the just National Dialogue on a Home Grown Parliamentary System of Government in Nigeria on Monday in Abuja.

    The 86years old Professor also noted at the Dialogue that Nigeria expired in 2014, 100years after the Edict establishing Nigeria as an entity expired

    “For me, that was our first mistake. For us to bring a system that did not fit our history, did not fit our traditions, did not fit our experience either as under colonial government or under our own independent state, we did not. Yet, we were not allowed to even discuss it.

    “If I can remember here my classmate, a very eloquent sociologist, Dr. Ibrahim Tahir. Up to his death, he insisted that it was a mistake for us to bring in the American presidential system to Nigeria, because it did not work for us.

    “And if the parliamentary system had not worked for us just after using it for five years, now we have experienced the presidential system for 24 years.

    “The government is here to testify. 24 years. With due respect, I think our situation is worse than under the parliamentary system that we rejected just after trying it for four or five years.

    He explained: “So, this dialogue here should really be as objective, as passionate as possible. Look at some of the things that we did wrongly. And one of the things we did wrongly was to bring in a system that did not fit our situation.

    “And if we can, and we should, and we can, then we should work on something. It may not necessarily be the typical parliamentary system you find in our former colonial masters. It could be something else.

    “Why? Why did you fail, if we failed at all? Why did the young boys who decided to uproot it, do so? And so on. These are the various questions that ought to be resolved very, very clearly, but unfortunately, for a number of reasons, this was not the case.

    ” The country almost broke up, and thanks to some elders and some soldiers, Nigeria remained after 1966, but without continuing a crisis that ended up in a civil war, which again, was eventually resolved.

    “General Gowon, head of state for who led the country for nine years, did extremely well, together with elders in his cabinet, or rather, in his government, rather than cabinet, there are elders, Shifaholo, Malam Aminu Kano, and the rest of them, were working very closely with General Gowon, that made it possible for him to run this country for nine years, including the crisis we went through in the civil war.

    “It is of interest to note that for those nine years, Nigeria did not borrow a couple from outside. You wonder why? But that’s not for me, but for the dialogue people to really reveal a lot of things that have gone wrong since then, never mind what happened.

    “Then, after Gowon’s nine years, there was a decision to reverse to what people call democracy. Democracy has very elastic meaning. Every country in the world today claims democracy.

    “America claims democracy. China claims democracy. Most countries claim democracy.

    “So democracy must have multiple meanings, flexible meanings, and so on. So it’s right for us here to ask what kind of democracy do we want to have?

    “And it’s also right to insist that we can have a homegrown democracy, and our children who are versed in a lot of things should be able to do so. But then, there was a transition between military and civil, and there was a disagreement in terms of how this would happen.

    “To my mind, that was our first major mistake. I was a candidate. I was one of those who should have been in the constituent assembly of 1975-76 to discuss the constitution that would transition us from military rule to civil rule.

    “I remember our elders, then Malam Aminu Kano and others, who gathered around in Lagos to say that the military leaders have insisted that there would be no discussion on parliamentary democracy.

    “The constituent assembly was not to discuss parliamentary democracy. The constituent assembly should go and borrow or find a presidential system outside the country.

    “I think what they had in mind, and I think up to now, the two parliamentary systems that fall over the place, the American and the French, and eventually we opted for the American presidential system.

    “Well, to my mind, America has just had an election a few days ago, and to my mind, it did not demonstrate democracy. It demonstrated election, but it did not demonstrate democracy.

    “For me, that was our first mistake. For us to bring a system that did not fit our history, did not fit our traditions, did not fit our experience either as under colonial government or under our own independent state, we did not. Yet, we were not allowed to even discuss it.

    “If I can remember here my classmate, a very eloquent sociologist, Dr. Ibrahim Taher. Up to his death, he insisted that it was a mistake for us to bring in the American presidential system to Nigeria, because it did not work for us.

    “And if the parliamentary system had not worked for us just after using it for five years, now we have experienced the presidential system for 24 years.

    “The government is here to testify. 24 years. With due respect, I think our situation is worse than under the parliamentary system that we rejected just after trying it for four or five years.

    “And if we can, and we should, and we can, then we should work on something. It may not necessarily be the typical parliamentary system you find in our former colonial masters. It could be something else.

    “But definitely, the presidential system has not worked for us. And it should be possible for us to be less sentimental, more objective in really bringing this out clearly. And there are questions I would like to ask, especially those who would be on the panel to tell us yes or no.

    “I will ask these questions later to illustrate the point that the presidential system has failed Nigeria over the last 24 years. And there is need for us to change to something else. Thank you very much.

  • Presidential system too expensive – Retired Maj. Gen.

    Presidential system too expensive – Retired Maj. Gen.

    Retired Maj. Gen. IBM Haruna has called for a shift from the presidential system of governance to social democracy to reduce cost of governance.

    Haruna, who is also the Chairman of the North East Leaders of Thought (NELT), said this at a news conference in commemoration of his 84th birthday, on Thursday in Abuja.

    According to him, it is time for all citizens to think seriously about the type of constitution being operated.

    “The presidential system is so expensive and it gives power to individuals that are elected more than the people that elect them. Once the politicians are elected, they are hardly seen in their constituencies.

    “Constituency offices are barely present. Nigerian elections are for the highest bidders.

    “Corruption has spread overboard to bureaucracies and the security sector.  This breaks my heart. This is not what we envisaged. We wanted Nigeria to be a shining example for Africa.

    ”I will, therefore, recommend the practice of social democracy for the country.

    “Social democracy is not an onslaught against liberal democracy, but it provides opportunity for smoothening the ‘rough edges of capitalism’ which bites the common-man so hard.”

    Haruna said he was not calling for the abolition of liberal democracy with its capitalist tendency, but pointed out that its excesses must be mitigated.

    He noted that advanced countries where liberal political economy is practiced had evolved social democracy and identified some of the nations to include Germany, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Canada, UK, New Zealand and the U.S.

    He urged the Nigerian government to look inward in addressing the immediate food security threats.

    “It is not as if there are no foodstuffs in the country. We do have foods but the challenges are the sudden withdrawal of subsidy and the high cost of transportation has made the cost of living expensive for the common man.

    “Agriculture the world over is being subsidised. I think it is a wrong policy for the government to withdraw subsidy on agriculture.

    “I think there is a need for a review of government policy on agriculture.

    “Government should also look carefully through the regulatory agencies such on infiltration of Genetically Modified food systems (otherwise known as GMO), and its health implications to the citizens.’’

    Haruna commended the performance of President Bola Tinubu as Chairman of ECOWAS which, he said, had earned him a second term.

    He urged the president to do everything possible to bring back all aggrieved West African nations such as Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea (Conakry) .

    “Remember that Niger and most other African countries stood by us in most of our global trial moments, especially during the civil war and the time Nigeria was declared a pariah state by the Commonwealth of Nations and the Western world.

    “We are better united and stronger together,” he said

    He also called on the military and the police to remain focused in the defense of the country.

    This, he said, was because the security of the nation is the last bastion in defense of its democracy and the institutions.

    “Nigeria must remain indissoluble as a democratic country. The military must keep their sacred duty to the Nigerian people.’’

  • Tinubu, hope and unpatriotic Nigerians – By Ugoji Egbujo

    Tinubu, hope and unpatriotic Nigerians – By Ugoji Egbujo

    By Ugoji Egbujo

    The president has tried his best to restore hope. But hope has become so elusive. He floated the naira, and it started floundering to embarrass the government. The masses must endure and help the president not to lose his own hope. So once we gather at official ceremonies, we must stand and recite the pledge. That is all he is asking for, for now. These things are done in North Korea to show loyalty and patriotism. We will sing the national anthem, sing the pledge and sing ‘On Your Mandate’. We are not the only hungry people in the world.

    If foreign investors see us singing the Pledge and Mandate happily, they might overlook the bandits, who have chased away farmers from farms, and bring in the elusive dollars for us to enjoy. As the president has said, we must emulate the Super Eagles. They didn’t lose hope when he told them they were playing boring football. And we can all see the reward. The APC governors have patriotically sent them 200 million naira to renew their hopes. Our Foreign creditors will like that.

    The President has begged us to stop painting our country in bad light. We are not children. Therefore, we must stifle and squash all news on rampant kidnapping, bad roads, corruption and food inflation. After all, these things happen in other countries, too. When people are kidnapped, we must go to our churches and mosques to pray quietly for the country. When we gather money and pay ransoms to free our relatives from captivity, we must agree with the security agencies that they stormed the bushes and defeated the bandits and rescued the hostages.

    Because if we allow the security agencies to take the glory, our country will be seen as a serious country where crime and impunity do not reign. We can’t go about tweeting pictures of the battered bodies of murdered Ekiti Obas being thrown into the back of a pick-up vehicle. Is that how we want to attract tourists? We must help a government that wants to restore hope in tourism to stabilize the naira. So, our youths on social media must patriotically let sleeping dogs lie sometimes.

    Then, the issue of petrol cost. Hairdressers are even complaining. Our mothers didn’t use electricity to do these things. This government means well. It removed petrol subsidies to save the country, and fuel prices jumped. When it saw the masses crying, it decided to borrow money to distribute N8000 to millions of households. Only a magnanimous president would have bothered. Since then, hasn’t he suffered trying to give workers a new minimum wage?

    Even though the naira he has been trying to help with his world-class financial engineering skills ingenuity has been disgracing itself, he has resisted pressures from international agencies to remove the subsidy, which has smuggled itself back to drain the treasury. That shows he is an astute president. He fights today and runs away to fight another day. Let nobody deceive himself by thinking that the president is afraid of the social repercussions of subsidy removal. He is courageous and methodical. At the right time, he will treat the stubbornness of petrol subsidy. Though a brave man, should he hurry to swallow something larger than his anus?

    Patriotism entails the ability to stomach hardship in the interest of national unity. But Nigerians are Jeremiahs. Because of a slight change in the price of rice and bread, some disgruntled women allowed themselves to be used in Minna, Niger state. They must think they are hungrier than Imo women who are suffering and smiling and sitting at home on Mondays. Do they believe the government doesn’t know they are hired agents of political destabilization pretending to be hungry?

    How can a bunch of people enjoying the low cost of living in Africa be crying and disturbing a hardworking government? Even if the price of rice, beans and cement have increased sharply in the last month, is that why some people in Kano joined with placards bearing inscriptions in King’s English to scare the government. But not minding the minnows and the mischievous rabble-rousing political masterminds using them to sow disunity from the shadows, the government has graciously decided to share food to quieten them.

    Yes, it’s an unprecedented achievement. Which other government in the history of this country shared food from the national reserves when there was no emergency or natural disaster, and just after sharing borrowed money? The government is bending over backwards because it’s a listening and humane government. But some people think the government is timid and afraid of protests in the north. Let them remember that the security agencies are equipped to deal with troublemakers. After all, we have just acquired additional helicopters and weapons for about one billion dollars. Yes dollars. Nobody should test the resolve of this government.

    If unpatriotic people can’t emulate the Super Eagles, they should at least emulate the great Wole Soyinka. Instead of bad-mouthing the federal government, the erudite professor said he wouldn’t hold the government to account until after one year. Even if the naira falls to 5000 per dollar and people start dropping off in the streets, he will be quiet for about a year. That is patriotism. The only people he will focus on now are the Gbajue people, who tried to truncate our democracy with their noise in 2023. They are the people that should get the heat. It’s even possible that the Gbajue dissidents, rather than unscrupulous banks and thieving politicians, are responsible for the rascally behaviour of the naira. If the market women in Minna had emulated the professor, the police wouldn’t have arrested their leaders for disturbing the government.

    Patriotism means a government must be allowed to settle down. But these people on social media exaggerate things to sow ideas in the army. The president goes to France to rest, and they shout that he is sick. The government shares borrowed money, and they cry that politicians are carting away our national patrimony through sham Palliative Schemes. Betta Edu and Kogi airport notwithstanding, the social media critics are truly a mob of nattering nitwits.

    How can they accuse the president of practising ‘share the money’. Wasn’t it this president who discovered that the then ruling PDP used ‘Share the money’ philosophy to bankrupt the country under Jonathan? If the Tinubu government has derailed hopelessly, as they are insinuating, how did the Super Eagles reach the AFCON final? Haven’t these folks heard the NFF testify that the Super Eagles reached the final because they keyed into the president’s renewed hope vision by manifesting ‘No gree for anybody’? Unpatriotic people will start 2013 whataboutery now.

    The president should ‘not gree for anybody’ who thinks he has renewed Sapa. It is true he had promised to recruit 50 million youths into the armed forces to cure youth unemployment and stop the insurgencies and banditry. But is that enough to warrant the acidic criticisms? They should give him his eight years and see. Can’t they see that the price of agbado and beans has skyrocketed and affected the plan? They should give him time. But casting aspersions and making the president lose hope is not good. They are even digging up the president’s tweets against Jonathan to justify their unpatriotism. Times have changed. That was the Shoeless age. This is the Emilokan era. Unpatriotic people should focus on their governors and local government chairmen.

    The youths don’t know they are a major part of the problem themselves. Yahoo Yahoo and banditry are perpetrated by the youths. Are they the only jobless youths in Africa? They can’t find jobs and so? Jobs are online. The other day, the CBN governor revealed that one of the principal causes of the naira depreciation is the number of young Nigerians seeking foreign education abroad. Yet these young people think the politicians and bankers are consuming the dollars.

    Politicians only buy delegates and run political transactions in dollars to avoid EFCC. The youths carry dollars and hand over to oyibo universities. Can’t these young people stay at home and study here? Even if the standard of education has fallen, can’t they just get the education like that and use it to do political, military, police and civil service jobs here? Some lazy youths said the CBN governor was told half-truths to the House of Reps.

    These youths are irreverent. They said if the CBN governor wasn’t an analogue civil servant, he would have factored in foreign remittances of about 20 billion dollars per annum before insinuating that the one billion dollars spent annually on foreign education was wasteful. They even said that the CBN governor craftily didn’t go into details of medical tourism to avoid irritating the president, who was resting in France. It is youthful insolence rather than corruption that is killing the country. Imagine asking the CBN governor if the dollars the Federal government wasted on the 400 people sent to cheer the president at the climate change conference in Dubai was captured under foreign education.

    Trouble is brewing, but telling the government that it is wallowing in self-deceit is unpatriotic. So, patriots are quiet, and the country is teetering on the brink.

  • Veteran politician, Yakasai calls for adoption of French mode of presidential system in Nig

    Veteran politician, Yakasai calls for adoption of French mode of presidential system in Nig

    Veteran politician and former liaison officer to President Shehu Shagari, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, has suggested the adoption of the French-style presidential system of government in Nigeria.

    Yakasai made the call at TheNiche’s 3rd annual lecture on Thursday, September 8 in Lagos where he was the chairman of the event. The minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, was the keynote speaker.

    The 96-year-old Yakasai said the imposition of the American presidential system on the country had not done much good because it is too expensive, complex to the peculiarity of Nigeria’s diversity, and challenging to operate.

    He said: “Another important reason why I am advocating the adoption of the French presidential system is that it is far cheaper to operate and therefore more suitable to our own reality as a developing nation. The operation of the American system made administering Nigeria, which is a federal state with diverse nature, more expensive to run and extremely difficult to develop and prosper, unlike many of its sister developing Nations.”

    The theme for the lecture is Nigeria at The Cross Road: The Challenge of Post 2023.

    Yakasai said that the American presidential system, which was established with the 1979 constitution, hasn’t given the people of Nigeria the much needed benefits.

    lamented that the American presidential system had created poor political leaders who have become political entrepreneurs that run the country as a private undertaking and not a federation responsible for the wellbeing of over 200 million people.

    He said: “Today, 62 years after independence, it 1s shameful that Nigeria is described as a resource endowed but a poor country. The study by Heritage, (2021), described Nigeria as mostly unfree, characterized by severe political instability, security threats, policy failures and disregard for the rule of law. More fundamentally, the lack of diversification – Production and income, in spite of the several policies and plans, continue to worsen the socio-economic challenges of the country.”

    Among those at the lecture are; former Delta State Governor, James Ibori, former director general of Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku Peterside, KOWA party presidential candidate in the 2015 election, Remi Sonaiya, public intellectual, Dr Uma Eleazu, former chairman Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), Professor Anya O Anya, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship candidate in Enugu State, Frank Nweke and ex-diplomat, Dr Christopher Kolade, who joined via zoom among others

  • For Presidential system not to kill us, can we go back to Parliamentary System, By Mideno Bayagbon

    For Presidential system not to kill us, can we go back to Parliamentary System, By Mideno Bayagbon

    By Mideno Bayagbon
    (08055069059 Whatsapp)

     

    An overwhelming number of Nigerians reacted to my column last week Wednesday calling for the scrapping of the presidential system of government which I described as being too expensive, too profligate, too corruption-enabled to succeed here. I had concluded that we either kill it, or it will be the death of Nigeria. But before taking some of the reactions, let’s take a look at a possible, alternative, though not perfect, that we could engineer to take its place.

    As it is, Nigeria is drowning in the cesspit that our politicians have pushed it into through the presidential system. True, some have argued that the presidential system is best suited for a federation, is stable, and afford the citizens the opportunity to collectively decide who should rule over them as President, Governors and parliamentarians. What was, however, not envisaged in such a postulation is the emperor-like, nepotistic, profligate and corrupt variant which has held Nigeria down in the last 22 years. What was not envisaged is the capacity of our politicians to twist logic and reason to nightmare, the sort that the nation is stewing in today.

    What is most painful in all of these is the fact that it has killed all routes to creating and engendering good leadership. The worse of us, with enough Naira and dollar dunlops, fierce bravado that easily sheds innocent blood and manipulate the system to their advantage, have ruled the roost. Which is why i am joining the millions of Nigerians who are tired of the tomfoolery going on, in calling for the scrapping of the presidential system and in its place the Parliamentary System of Government be enthroned. It is not perfect, has its own hiccups, but the advantages are self evident.

    For a start, this is a system which encourages good leadership; that empowers a leadership that has been tried and known. Great leaders emerge, as we experienced during the first Republic, which threw up some of the greatest leaders the country has ever produced. Recall, that it was when we were practicing the Parliamentary System that such great leaders like Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Sarduana Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Aminu Kano, among others, emerged. Till today, we have not been able to replicate this high cadre of leadership in any part of the country. The Parliamentary System brought the best and brightest to lead their parties, both in and out of parliament. It stimulates and encourages the parties to try frantically to outdo each other in providing good governance in all the areas they control.

    The opposition is active and keeps the ruling power in great check. The advantage is that government is daily held accountable for its actions in parliament. Every major action of government will have to be defended, explained and agreed on, in parliament. The Prime Minister is routinely grilled and there is no room for him, or any one in government, to develop wings and start behaving like an all conquering emperor the type we have had to deal with in our recent Presidential System history. For an example, a Prime Minister Mohammadu Buhari would have been a far different ruler than the current President Mohammadu Buhari. In the first place, it would have been near impossible for him to have been elected Prime Minister being a reserved and taciturn man by nature. His educational failings and lack of basic world, IT and economic knowledge could have put paid to his ambition. Even if he got elected to parliament, it would have been difficult to have him as party leader because he would have had to daily square up with party leaders in opposing parties who do not suffer his handicaps. Some say this is nearly impossible in Nigeria because we have politicians who speak with money, without any consideration and concern for those who voted them into office.

    Parliamentary System is a money saver, will decapitate corruption and encourage those who truly want to serve the people. Take the instance of those who want to contest elections. A Prime Ministerial candidate does not need to canvass the entire country, like a Presidential candidate must of necessity do, with all the expensive campaigns we have witnessed in the past. Today, no one who wants to be president of Nigeria can get elected if all he has to fund his ambition is a paltry, yet humongous N50 billion, at least N10 billion of which is his personal fund. A Prime Ministerial candidate, as leader of his/her party only needs to win in his/her constituency and the party wins majority of seats in the parliamentary election. He will for example only need to win the equivalent of a House of Representative constituency.

    Only the leader/party with the best policies emerge Prime Minister. The party must convince the electorate that its policies and programmes will better cater to the nation and peoples interest than the other parties. They are the ones who are better able to convince the people that they have the right people to implement their policies and take the country and people a notch higher in the comity of nations. Those who distinguish themselves are rewarded with higher pecks of positions in the party. They grow in leadership and governing skills, honing not just their legislative abilities but also their executive capacities. This becomes not just a training field but also a leadership development programme for the country. You must distinguish yourself in both parliamentary and executive roles in the eyes of your colleagues and the public.

    A Parliamentary System merges the three arms of government. The Executive branch is peopled by members of Parliament. The head of government, who is the Prime Minister, picks his/her cabinet from party members of parliament. The Opposition party leader also forms a shadow cabinet from the party’s members in parliament and it is their duty to keep the ministers on their toes. The only problem however, is that those who make politics the first line of business in Nigeria will rise in ferocity to fight against anything that will threaten their avarice and illicit trade.

    You can imagine the level of savings this will entail. In the current presidential constitution of Nigeria, each state must have a ministerial slot, while each of the six geographical zones are also represented with all the attendant huge financial implications. The Parliamentary System is capable of bringing down the cost of governance by at least 40 percent. The era of members of the National Assembly acting as Lords and allocating stupendous salaries, constituency allowances, exotic cars, palatial mansions, and the general pilferage going on in the name of being lawmakers would be eliminated or drastically reduced. Becoming members of parliament or ministers will no longer be the easy road to unearned wealth.

    The icing on the cake is that a PM who is seen as having failed in his/her duties can have his party members rebelled against him or a Vote of No Confidence can be raised and passed against him/her. Just like it happened in the United Kingdom recently. Two PMs lost their coveted positions to the Brexit campaigns which saw the United Kingdom pull out of the European Union. David Cameron, under whom the vote was taken and Theresa May who was expected to do the needful, kissed the dust because they could not easily disengage the United Kingdom from the EU after the people had voted. They had the door shut against them and their fellow party member, Boris Johnson, who instigated some of the fallouts, is today Prime Minister and Teresa May who he replaced is on the back benches of parliament. It is either you perform creditably or you go.

    We need this kind of spirit behind the Nigerian government where, whoever is expected as president can expect to stay in power for eight years no matter his/her capacity to perform. As we all know, the various parliaments, National Assembly and State Assemblies, are but genuflecting appendages to either the President or Governor. How long shall we allow ourselves to be so ruined while the rest of the world marches on in progressive leaps?