Nigeria’s democracy still struggles to enthrone the rule of law
By Emeka Ejere
Nigeria has practised nearly 25 years of uninterrupted democracy but it may require a lot more to find a place on the map of true democracy when the imperative of upholding the rule of law at all times is considered.
A democratic state under the rule of law is a state where citizens elect their own leaders and the government itself is bound by the law, while also helping to ensure that the law is respected among the citizens of the state. Democracy, therefore, cannot exist without the rule of law especially the rule that dictates who should occupy public office given the results of elections.
Although the Nigerian legal system is designed to ensure that no one is above the law, and that the rule of law is upheld at all times, in practice, politics has sometimes overridden the law, particularly in cases where powerful individuals or interests are involved.
Nigeria is a country with a federal system of government, where power is shared between the Federal Government and the 36 states in the country. The 1999 Constitution, as amended, is the supreme law of the land and provides for the separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial arms of government.
However, political analysts believe that Nigeria’s democracy is being increasingly taken over by people with deep pockets, who corner every aspect of the electoral process, thereby shutting the people out of the sacred role of being the true sovereigns in matters that concern their representation and governance.
It is no longer secret that starting from how candidates of parties emerge, the delegates that go to participate in the primaries are usually bought over by those who have the means. By so doing, a critical appraisal of the character and the quality of the people who have presented themselves to be elected to fly the flag of the party is skipped.
In the election proper, deployments of thugs by these money bags for the purpose of voter suppression, especially in perceived strongholds of their opponents is becoming a norm. There have been allegations of politicians even tampering with sensitive electoral materials through the connivance of compromised electoral officials. This has led to elections producing the kind of people who are not the true representatives of the people.
Mutual suspicion of electoral malpractices have also led to the courts being the final deciders of winners and losers of most elections at all levels in the country, amid allegations of compromise against the judiciary.
This is even as high influence of money in the entire process has thrown up political investors, who sponsor candidates with the aim of huge return on investment at the expense of good governance. Insistence on the terms of such contracts and attempts to review same have often led to battle of supremacy between the principal and the subordinate, with the former often resorting to impeachment plots, irrespective of the position of the law.
In Nigerian politics, impeachment has remained a dangerous political weapon in the hands of the President, governors, and other powerful political actors. When Chief Olugegun Obasanjo was president, five state governors – Ayo Fayose of Ekiti; Chris Ngige, Anambra; Joshua Dariye, Plateau; Rasheed Ladoja, Oyo; and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Bayelsa – were removed from office for various alleged offences, including stealing of public funds,
”Up to 2014, 2015, we had a government we could stand up and say we elected this person. He’s there because we voted for him. But from 2015, things are no longer the same”, Chief Goddy Uwazuruike, senior lawyer and former President General of Aka Ikenga, told Newswatchplus
“I can’t stand here and say in all honesty that the people of Nigeria elected Buhari. I’ll rather say it was a matter of convenience for Jonathan to say go, I won’t contest.
“And then for the present government, nobody is even saying it was elected by the people. Rather, all the blames are going to the courts, because the courts are muddled up. So, our democracy experience is up and down.”
For Chief Chekwas Okorie, founder of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), those who buy their way to power, against the wishes of the people, do not serve the people but begin to recoup their investments, especially if they were sponsored by a godfather.
”And then when they get into office, first of all if they were sponsored to go in, they feel beholden to their sponsor, that’s what people will now call godfathers. And at the same time they’re also preparing to become godfathers themselves”, Okorie said.
“So they begin to steal public funds. And that becomes a problem of the society. People begin to cart away common patrimony, even for reasons that they themselves cannot explain. All they know is that they have access and they must steal.”
Current animosity between Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki and his deputy, Philip Shaibu on one hand and Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fugbara and his predecessor, and Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, on the other hand over conflict of interests has kept political atmosphere in both states charged for some time.
While governorship ambition of Shaibu is the bone of contention in Edo, control of state affairs is standing between Wike and Fugbara. But this is not new in the nation’s democratic experience as these men are not the first to engage in such wars of supremacy between a principal and his subordinate and a godfather and his political son.
President Bola Tinubu as governor of Lagos State fiercely fought his then deputy, Femi Pedro, who had governorship ambition against Tinubu’s choice of his Chief of Staff, Babatunde Fashola, as successor. Pedro went ahead and contested against Fashola, and was thereafter impeached.
Former Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha, had two deputy governors for his two terms in office and fell out with both of them, Jude Agbaso and Eze Madumere, at different points. Jude Agbaso was deputy governor of Imo State till March 2013 when he was impeached over his governorship ambition. Madumere’s relationship with Okorocha was seen to be more cordial. However, he too fell out with his principal in similar circumstances. Madumere was said to be against the choice of Okorocha’s son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, as his successor.
Similarly, former Akwa Ibom State governor, Obong Victor Attah’s frosty relationship with his then deputy, Dr. Chris Ekpenyong, degenerated to the point that the latter was impeached, defying efforts by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo and the PDP to halt the impeachment.
Governor Ayo Fayose was alleged to have instigated the removal of his deputy, Abiodun Aluko in 2005. The Ekiti State House of Assembly impeached Aluko after finding him guilty of 16 offences. The lawmakers claimed all the offences were grounds for impeachment.
Also, the cold relationship between Oyo State governor Seyi Makinde and his former deputy, Rauf Olaniyan, which lasted for over two years, came to an end not long ago with Olaniyan’s impeachment by the state House of Assembly based on the recommendation of the panel formed to investigate the allegations leveled against him.
Several other deputy governors like Enyinnaya Abaribe of Abia State; Peremobowei Ebebihave, Bayelsa; Sani Danladi, Taraba; Mohammed Gadi, Bauchi; and Suleiman Argungu, Kebbi have been impeached from office since the country returned to civilian rule in 1999.
Another deputy governor in Akwa Ibom, Nsima Ekere, was almost impeached during the Akpabio administration. But he hurriedly resigned from office before the House of Assembly began the impeachment proceedings. Just recently, Ondo deputy governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, narrowly escaped impeachment orchestrated by loyalists of the ailing governor, Rotimi Akeredolu.
Instances of fights between incumbent governors and godfathers also abound. They include; Adams Oshiomhole verses Godwin Obaseki in Edo, Peter Obi verses Willie Obiana in Ananmbra, Godswill Akpabio verses Udom Emmanuel in Akwa Ibom, Orji Uzor Kalu verses Theodore Orji in Abia, Chimaroke Nnamani verses Sullivan Chime in Enugu, and Rabiu Kwankwaso verses Umar Ganduje in Kano among others.
However, there have been some cases in Nigeria where the law has eventually overridden politics. Alhaji Garba Gadi was said to have ignited the fury of his principal, Isa Yuguda, when he refused to defect to the PDP from the ANPP that brought them to power. Gadi was impeached but later re-instated by a high court in Bauchi due to irregularities in the proceedings leading to his impeachment.
Similarly, former Ondo State deputy governor, Alhaji Ali Olanusi, was said to have enraged his principal, Olusegun Mimiko when he defected to the APC instead of joining him in the PDP. He was impeached by the state House of Assembly in 2015 but two years later, a court declared the impeachment illegal and restored Olanusi to his office. But it was too little too late for him as his tenure with Mimiko had already elapsed.
Also in Plateau State, Mr Dariye, who was replaced by his deputy, Michael Botmang, after his impeachment, eventually went to court and upturned the impeachment, and was reinstated as governor in March 2007.
Amusingly, deputy governor, Sunday Onyebuchi, was removed in Enugu State on the accusation that he operated a poultry farm within the government house. The court in 2015, however, nullified his impeachment.
“Well, it derives from the very serious flaw in the recruitment process, where somebody who has been in power and has acquired so much war chest from public treasury, which he now appropriated to himself, will be the one to come out openly, unashamedly, to announce to the whole world that he alone paid the nomination fee of every person that went for election in a state, from House of Assembly, House of Reps, the governor, and Senate’’, Okorie observed.
“And now where there’s a disagreement between the person who has been so rolled into office and his so-called godfather, then that also affects the entire governance and bring about bloodshed, like it nearly happened in Rivers but for the intervention of the President. And it’s not even over.”
Uwazuruike sees impeachment as a political weapon for removing an opponent often for selfish reason, regretting that the victims are innocent in most cases.
‘’Most of the time impeachments are for a selfish purpose. You’ve designed that if this person is removed, you put another person loyal to you. Quite often, the person you’ll remove is innocent”, he argued.
Perhaps, Buhari administration has unbroken record of disregard for court orders and judicial pronouncements, which pundits say made a mockery of the Nigerian judicial system. He had, in the early days of his civilian presidency, at a Nigeria Bar Association conference in Abuja, stated that he would not obey the rule of law where it conflicted with national interest. However, pundits could not understand how the rule of law and national interest could be at conflict.
In 2022, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), accused Buhari of a brazen disregard for the rule of law and human rights, ignoring Nigerian judges on, at least 40 occasions.
Some of the cases where the Buhari administration had defied court orders include: refusing to release Ibraheem El-Zakzaky, Shi’a Muslim leader, and his wife Zeenat Malama; refusing to release the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu; refusing to release the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki; flouting debt limit order, and ignoring injunction against naira note. As at November 2018, the Buhari government had refused to grant Dasuki bail despite five different high court rulings, according to reports.
Rating successive governments in respect of obeying court orders, Uwazuruike said, ‘’If I’m to rate them, I will give Yar’Adua and Jonathan 80 percent; Obasanjo, I’ll give him 70 percent; Buhari, I’ll give him 25 percent, and this government , so far I’ll give them 40 percent”.
Reacting to the trend, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Rotimi Jacobs, said failure of any party to respect court judgments is an abuse of democracy and an invitation to anarchy. “My reaction to it is that the court, government, parties, Nigerians must comply with court orders. That is a constitutional duty imposed on every one as stipulated in section 287 of the Constitution.”
Okorie believes that electronic voting and restructuring hold the key to a true democracy that will bring about economic development. “Once we move away from the method we’re adopting now and go to the electronic voting I have started advocating since 2012, what it means is that first; there’ll be no ballot box for anybody to carry and the hire of thugs becomes unattractive”, he said.
On restructuring he said, ”Once you restructure, I can tell you, every state in Nigeria is endowed with such enormous amount of human and material resources, that when they begin to compete in a healthy manner, on their comparative advantages, Nigeria will experience exponential growth”.
‘’And if there is fiscal federalism, nobody will care again who’s President and who’s not, whether he’s Muslim or Christian or whatever; whether he’s from the north or the south”.
