With the culture of secrecy and mind-boggling shenanigan currently
surrounding the health condition of Nigeria’s President Umaru Yar’Adua, as orchestrated by members of his kitchen cabinet, so-called, it is getting pretty clear by the day the extent to which the Presidential system of government is becoming petty, if not an outright burden. Quite unlike in a Presidential system, where Cabinet ministers could afford to have a field day, ascribing to themselves the roles of mini-gods, as oracles, to merely indulge their immodest, sensual desires for primitive accumulation and its concomitant self aggrandizement, at the expense of the collective consciousness, it is not the case with the Cabinet or Parliamentary system of government.
This is because, in the latter system of political administration, members of the Cabinet, including the Prime Minister, are responsible to the Legislature and not to the President, who acts in a ceremonial capacity, a mere figurehead. It stands to reason, therefore, that they (the Cabinet members) cannot afford to be flippant, to overreach themselves or simply behave as they like, without the slightest modicum of decency or self respect.
As the current political administration in Nigeria has shown, where an easy going, ailing President was foisted on the people ab initio, it is easy to rationalized the laissez-faire, sometimes arrant I-don’t – care attitude of President Yar’Adua’s close aides, who see nothing wrong in capitalizing on their principal’s state of indisposition in order to carve a niche and an underserved panache for themselves
On the basis of the foregoing, an advantage for the Parliamentary system of government is the supremacy of the Legislature, not the Constitution, as it were. Cabinet ministers, who are also lawmakers, owe their allegiance to the Legislature which, if it is not impressed by the performances of the Cabinet members, can wield its big stick any time by passing a vote of no confidence on the Executive Committee as a whole under the banner of the principle of Collective responsibility.
In a Parliamentary system of government, there is a free flow of information.
This is largely made possible by the understanding that the two arms of government – the Executive and the Legislature-are fused , which means that there is no clear-cut separation of power as is exemplified in the presidential system.
The free flow of information which the Cabinet system permits rules out the possibility of speculative discourses. On this note, one can imagine that, were Nigeria to be practicing the Parliamentary system of government, the rights of Nigerians, including the right to be kept abreast of President Yar’Adua’s health status, would have been treated with honour and integrity, not rubbished or denied.
Again, the Parliamentary system of government is less expensive to run, with the reduction of membership participation in the government of the day since Cabinet members are also members of the Legislature and, also, from the point of logistics, electoral bodies charged with conducting elections will not be unnecessarily stress up as elections into the legislative business as well as the executive business are done in one day.
If the Executive owes its allegiance to the Legislature, as we tried to argue in the foregoing, it therefore means that any dictatorial tendencies on the part of the Executive will be curtailed.
With the checkmating of the Executive arm of government by the Legislature arm and the undercurrent of an unhindered flow of information, policy-making is fast-tracked and the end results are stability, good governance and development. In a Parliamentary system, real executive powers are vested in the Council of Ministers known as the Cabinet or executive, headed by the Prime Minister, who is only primus interpares (first among equals). As mentioned earlier, the Legislature, in this system of government, serves as the source of authority for the Executive.
The Prime Minister and all Cabinet ministers are chosen from the Legislature and are still members of the Legislature from where they sources their powers. The Prime Minister, who is the parliamentary leader of the party in power, is controlled by his party. By implication, the party with a majority in the Legislature controls both the Executive and the Legislature. Nigeria practiced the Parliamentary system of government during the First Republic (1963-1966). Other nations that practice the Parliamentary or Cabinet system of government include British and India.
Venerable (Prof.) B.N. Egede - Dept of English, Ambrose Alli University. |
