• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

Pay attention to the science: A response to Martin Ihembe

Nigeria

As I was preparing to write the concluding part of the article on why Parliamentarism can offer Nigeria an escape from bad governance and weak institutions, I was notified that a dear friend and ardent student of political science, Martin Ihembe, has sent in a rejoinder to my article. Luckily, I was copied and I decided to respond to his rejoinder immediately so that readers can have the benefit of reading from both sides at once.

I honestly think his rejoinder is based on misconception – and it appears right from the very first paragraph where he stated: “I think the parliamentary versus presidential debate in Nigeria is one that has been repeated ad nauseam without considered reflection.” As a student of political science myself, I am well aware of the parliamentarism vs presidentialism debate and do not wish to prolong it. My interest wasn’t on the structures but on which is best suited for building strong institutions, institutions of restraints and delivering good governance – and that was what I preoccupied myself with in the article.

Ihembe preoccupied himself with the parliamentarism vs presidentialism debate throughout but produces no single argument or empirical evidence to show that presidentialism is better at building strong state institutions or indeed, fostering good governance

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. As is the usual practice with those arguing for presidentialism, the one and only “go to” example of the success of this system is the United States of America. But they conveniently forget that the circumstances of the foundation of the United States are totally different from virtually every other country in the world. The thirteen colonies that met in Philadelphia were virtually independent states on their own rights and the first government that was established was a confederacy after the “articles of confederation” came into force on March 1, 1781.

A guiding principle of the articles was the preservation of the independence and sovereignty of the states and the establishment of “a weak central government”. The United states remained a country under formation since then with other independent states joining the union one after another throughout the 18th and 19th century right up to the 20th century – precisely 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii signed up to make up the present 50 states of the union. But supporters of presidentialism revel in making an exception to the rule. Why have they been finding it extremely difficult to come up with another success case of presidentialism?

Yes, there is corruption and state capture in South Africa. But in the 21st century alone, two South African presidents have been removed from office not by the parliament but by their party peacefully and seamlessly. Is that possible in a presidential system?

Even Americans were aware of their unique circumstances and exceptionality that after World War II, they did not attempt to impose their presidential system on occupied West Germany and Japan or on South Korea after the Korean war but encouraged those entities to develop strong parliamentary governments that not only saw to their quick recovery from the ravages of the war but also ensured their speedy development.

Of course, the foremost American founding fathers were excellent political philosophers. Most of the arguments in the parliamentarism vs presidentialism debate are also mostly philosophical and normative. Tired of the cyclical nature of the arguments John Gerring and his associates decided to do a scientific/empirical study using a global data set to test the relationship between a historical measure of parliamentary rule and 14 indicators ranging across three policy areas: political, economic, and human development.

The result revealed a strong relationship between parliamentarism and good governance and had clear advantages over presidentialism. To dismiss the result of this study with anecdotal and normative arguments without any empirical data is to show clear disdain for science. There is a reason the discipline is called political science. The science isn’t just honourific. Ihembe would have certainly come across the saying “if it cannot be measured, it cannot be improved.” Some science fanatics would even say “if it cannot be measured, it doesn’t exist”.

Well, if Ihembe is not satisfied by the evidence adduced by Gerring and his associates even though no one has yet challenged the validity of their data set or conclusions, I am happy to point him to another empirical study done this time by two economists – Richard McManus and F. Gulcin Ozkan – in 2018 titled: “Who does better for the economy? Presidents versus parliamentary democracies.” They used data from 119 countries across the period 1950 to 2015 and examined an extensive set of macroeconomic data, and the result was clear: “presidential regimes consistently are associated with less favourable outcomes than parliamentary regimes: slower output growth, higher and more volatile inflation and greater income inequality.”

Ihembe disagreed with my criticism of the “49 wise men” that drafted the 1979 constitution and concluded instead that “it is by far one of the most ingenious constitution-making exercise the world has ever seen in modern history” The only evidence he adduced to support that audacious conclusion was the views of some “established scholars.” Well, maybe I should remind him that “established scholars” also supported military dictatorships, autocrats and all sorts of banality around the world. It was also “established scholars” who strongly argued for the establishment of a Diarchy (a government by both the military and civilian politicians) in Nigeria shortly after the civil war, and they basically convinced General Yakubu Gowon to scrap the return to civilian rule.

Ihembe also disagreed with the recommendation of the South African model arguing that there is also personalisation of power in South Africa. Yes, there is corruption and state capture in South Africa. But in the 21st century alone, two South African presidents have been removed from office not by the parliament but by their party peacefully and seamlessly. Is that possible in a presidential system? Even the United States has not been able to successfully remove any president from office for corruption or other crimes.

I followed Ihembe’s arguments with great interest. But where he totally lost me was in his conclusion:

“The solution…is not a switch to parliamentary democracy as Akor submits, but attitudinal change…” This takes us right back to our starting point. Our institutions should not be built for only good men. As James Comey, former FBI director argued recently; “Since the beginning, the United States has built a system with bad and incompetent leaders in mind. Fredrick Douglass made the point clear when he said: “Our government may be in the hands of a bad man…We ought to have our government so shaped that even when in the hands of a bad man we shall be safe.” That is the function of strong institutions.