Recently I came across an old almanac of the US, the 1993 Almanac to be precise. It detailed everything you needed to know about the US, and more importantly it explained in detail how the American government is actually run. Who held what post and how they actually got there. In reading the Almanac I realized what a shoddy and dangerous counterfeit of the American presidential system we are practicing
I am not talking about the obvious problems we have at the federal level. That has been over flogged by so many people so many times. We could go on for days talking about what is wrong at the federal level; from the concentration of power in the hands of the president to the unitary aberration of our so called federal system. The list is endless.
What troubles me is the criminal and dysfunctional counterfeit we have created at the state level. The state and the local government levels are the levels at which the impact of any government in power should be felt. But in Nigeria what we have succeeded in creating at this level are comical and megalomaniacal Governors, though I must admit very rich comedians and megalomaniacs.
Where are the institutional checks and balances? Did I hear you say what about the legislature and the judiciary? I will soon come to that but permit me to lay out to you what real institutional checks and balances are as I found out from that Almanac.
In the US the Lieutenant Governor (who we call the Deputy Governor here) stands for election on his own ticket, on his own merit. He is not tied, or shackled to the whims and caprices of any governor; he does not need to bootlick any governor to get what is his by right, and the constitution over there has ensured that. He is not the lapdog of the governor. Oftentimes he does not even belong to the same party as the governor.
Check and balance number two: The chief law officer of the state, the Attorney General, is not determined by the whims and caprices of the governor or the shenanigans of any party for that matter. You want to be the Attorney General of any state in the US, you stand for election, period. He is not at the mercy of the governor. Sometimes corrupt governors end up being prosecuted by the Attorney General. It makes you wonder what the fate of Gandollar would have been in Kano state if the Attorney General was truly independent.
Check and balance number three: the office of the State Treasurer or Comptroller who we call here the Commissioner of Finance is an elective office and often the holder of that office belongs to a different party. This serves as an effective check on the proclivity of any governor to turn the state treasury into his personal account. The beauty of it is that he cannot be sacked by the governor.
Check and balance number four: Almost in every state in the US, is the office of the Secretary of State. This office is not about foreign affairs at the state level. The holder of that office is the secretary to the state government and the head of the civil service. It is equally an elective office that could end up in the hands of any party including independent candidates. This means that it is impossible for any governor to fill the civil service or any of its organs with party members or members of his own tribe or family.
Check and balance number five: The office of the State Auditor is equally an elective office. This means the holder of this office is not in anybody’s pocket or at anybody’s mercy. Here is a case of somebody who can publish and not be damned. He is just doing what he is elected to do.
You can now begin to see why the presidential system of government, after 20 years, has failed to deliver. The system has given us governors with too many powers, and office holders whose office is nothing but a mockery of the phrase.
So how did we fail to include all these checks and balances in our own system? How did we miss it? Deliberate omission? Sheer intellectual laziness? Oh yes, checks and balances such as the legislature and the judiciary? I have bad news for you. The system as it is now puts those two institutions in the pocket of the almighty Governor.
Dotun Adedoyin
Adedoyin writes from Lagos
