The legislature is the first organ of government and the most democratic institution with deep taproot across the nooks and crannies of the country. Its core feature is representativeness. To that extent, it is perceived as the anchor of popular rule.
The assumption is that it is the people’s assembly, as reflected in the ancient Athenian arrangement. Thus, in a modern time, it is dangerous for unelected representatives to sneak into the law making body through the back door, by malpractices and even judicial technicalities.
During coups, the greatest casualty, usually, is the parliament. On assumption of office, the military rulers often fused the legislative functions with the hijacked executive roles, thereby violating the doctrine of separation of powers and the accompanying checks and balances.
Throughout history, any representative body, be it legislature, a national conference or a sovereign national conference, is usually feared by the military and dreaded by the civilian executive because it represents the voice of the people. That was why an ad hoc conference of 1994 gave the military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, a terminal date in power.
So powerful is the National Assembly that, against the run of presidential opinion, the head of the anti-graft body was not cleared, thereby forfeiting his nomenclature of substantive authority.
The legislative organ should be the mirror of democracy. Although the judiciary can also curb the excesses of the power-loaded executive, it is the primary duty of the parliament to act as a proper legitimate check through its various oversight functions.
The executive should act in utter sensitivity to the presence of a very active and articulate legislature always ready to defend public interest through its monitoring of executive activities. It is often said that in presidential democracy, the president can sanction an “unwise” member of the legislature in national interest.
The legislature is the first organ of government and the most democratic institution with deep taproot across the nooks and crannies of the country. Its core feature is representativeness. To that extent, it is perceived as the anchor of popular rule.
The assumption is that it is the people’s assembly, as reflected in the ancient Athenian arrangement. Thus, in a modern time, it is dangerous for unelected representatives to sneak into the law making body through the back door, by malpractices and even judicial technicalities.
During coups, the greatest casualty, usually, is the parliament. On assumption of office, the military rulers often fused the legislative functions with the hijacked executive roles, thereby violating the doctrine of separation of powers and the accompanying checks and balances.
Throughout history, any representative body, be it legislature, a national conference or a sovereign national conference, is usually feared by the military and dreaded by the civilian executive because it represents the voice of the people. That was why an ad hoc conference of 1994 gave the military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, a terminal date in power.
So powerful is the National Assembly that, against the run of presidential opinion, the head of the anti-graft body was not cleared, thereby forfeiting his nomenclature of substantive authority.
The legislative organ should be the mirror of democracy. Although the judiciary can also curb the excesses of the power-loaded executive, it is the primary duty of the parliament to act as a proper legitimate check through its various oversight functions.
The executive should act in utter sensitivity to the presence of a very active and articulate legislature always ready to defend public interest through its monitoring of executive activities. It is often said that in presidential democracy, the president can sanction an “unwise” member of the legislature in national interest.
The ethnic mouthpiece has maintained that the foundation of the National Assembly is faulty, being a product of a military imposed 1999 Constitution. To the former, only a national conference can give Nigeria a new peoples constitution. Instructively, the report of the 2004 and 2014 national conferences were thrown into the dustbin.
Also, parliamentarians are also baring their fangs, ready to assert the constitutionality of the institution of parliament. To them, the powers to amend is enshrined in the 1999 Constitution.
However, the National Assembly can really make a difference by making the resolution of the contentious national question the focus of the review. The important issues are devolution of power, state police, review of revenue allocation, fiscal federalism and resource control and affirmation of states’ control over local governments.
If these are not realised, the review is a waste of time and resources.
* culled from The Nation
