Retaining a bicameral legislature for Nigeria

By 

Bankole Okuwa

ONE is obliged to participate in the current debate regarding the review of the 1999 Constitution which was hurriedly put together in order to return the governance of Nigeria to the civilians with an underlying set of democratic principles.

On June 19, 2001. The Guardian Online carried the views of two of Nigeria's honourable gentlemen, one at present a member of the House of Representatives and the other a former member during some earlier unspecified period, about the need to merge the Upper House (Senate) with the Lower House (House of Representatives) in order to produce a unicameral legislature at the centre. Their reasons range from curbing waste to the cost of running the present bicameral structure which according to them is too big, with too much money and power at the centre to the detriment of the federating units and the local governments.

Another objection to bicameral legislature at the centre by Dr. Austin Obozuwa and Mr. Ambrose Osawe, according to the publication, is the delay in the passage of bills because they are always duplicated and when they are passed by each legislative body, the two versions of the same bill that emerge would consequently need to be reconciled before the President can sign it into law.

This write-up speaks in support of bicameral legislature at the centre with credible reasons and would try to prove the inefficiency, inadequacy and the inappropriateness of adopting a unicameral legislature.

It was reported that Obozuwa said: "The Nigerian federation is unique in a sense because it was broken up from one unit, so this protection of the equality of states does not arise because we broke up as a unit". The word unit here is ambiguous and misleading. Does the word imply one whole national body without geographical, ethnic or regional sub-divisions? The history of Nigeria's evolution does not support Obozuwa's contention. The northern, southern provinces and the colony of Lagos were amalgamated in 1914 by Lord Lugard. The legislative body established in Lagos was not representative of the colonial people of Nigeria. It was one of those British innovative and ingenuous creations to effect a perpetual colonial rule with the passive collaboration of a select few among Nigerians. If this is the unit that Obozuwa is talking about, there is obviously a danger in that kind of misunderstanding or misinterpretation of history.

When the amalgamation was done in 1914, the scramble for African land between the British and the French in the West African region was intense. The traditional rivalry between the two nations which started in Europe continued intensely in building their colonial empires everywhere. The amalgamation of 1914 was not done to build a future Nigeria. It was to outbid other European powers in their struggle to possess free African lands especially the French. Also, the incident of colonial Nigeria becoming an independent nation in 1960 was a consequence of the prevailing political and economic conditions of European powers that were participants in World War II. The crucial question of self-determination for all oppressed people everywhere including colonial territories of the European nations in Asia and Africa could only be resolved by granting political independence to all.

A good example of a unit as used by Obozuwa would be the United Kingdom otherwise called Britain. It is a political unit because it is composed of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Wales came into a political union with England in 1536. Scotland became part of the Union in 1770 and Ireland joined it in 1801. All agreements were documented accordingly. Though the Irish independence was granted in 1922, Northern Ireland chose to remain in the United Kingdom. All the above-named sub-groups have their elected representatives in the House of Commons till today. The British legislature consists of the three sections of parliament, that is, the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Crown.

This type of arrangement was made for Nigeria at independence but it could not endure. The British parliamentary system would only work well in societies comparatively homogenous in character. In Nigeria, people in one area may have common ties of race, language religion or traditions which make them essentially different from those in other areas. Nigeria's federal environment may not encourage the adoption of a unitary system of government at the centre since ethnicity and other dissimilar features or characteristics become more pronounced in political party membership, structure and system. The outcome of federal elections in Nigeria has always reflected the degree of disunity between its various ethnic groups. The answer to the problem of having a unitary system at the centre of Nigeria's naturally federated structure was given in the 1979 Constitution when a presidential system was adopted.

Other problems that require solution in order to preserve Nigeria as a single sovereign nation continue to be considered and addressed such as this review exercise. Agitation for state creation has been a consistent cry since Nigeria attained political independence. The initial three regions became four, then grew to 12, became 19, the number extended to 30 and recently ended up in 36. Relentless agitation for more states continues in Nigeria till this moment. This is the political condition of the unit Obozuwa is talking about.

State creation in Nigeria was done in response to demand by the various ethnic or sub-ethnic or linguistic groups because Nigerians in general want and need some form of meaningful decentralisation of political power. More states' creation would give the Nigerian peoples much psychological security and confidence building because a greater attention to their problems could be given by a government that is not too far from them.

Two factors which are fundamental to the established structure and maintenance of the Nigerian federal system are evident here, that is, the various communities (population) that have become sub-units or states and all the states subsequently created have coordinating roles to play at the centre. In Nigeria's type of federal structure, the centre-periphery relationship is essentially important and necessary. As pointed out earlier, the general desire of the Nigerian peoples to hold together as a nation often reflects its ethnic character in general elections to the House of Representatives on the few occasions that elections were conducted. Any conservative idea from a group of communities or a radical one from others about any beliefs, collective or unilateral, such as religion or language adoption (lingua franca) or such other ideas which might threaten the common resolve as one nation can be contained by the other chambers, that is, in the Senate where all states big or small is relevant to its existence.

The Senate which was a second chamber during Nigeria's First Republic was fashioned after a political tradition and culture that was absolutely alien to Nigeria and Africa. The idea was to create a semblance of the House of Lords, which with all intents and purposes is the relic and successor to the ancient, undemocratic Great Council; or the Curia Regis which represented the British aristocracy and all the other vested interests of the British ruling elite, that is, Hereditary peers, Lords Temporal, Archbishops and Senior Bishops  Lords Spiritual, and the Law Lords who constitute the Privy Council.

The absolute monarchs of Britain needed these advisers; this elite group which shared its economic and political values to rule before the Magna Carta of1215 established a legitimate milestone for a permanent but continuous socio-political change in the British society. Consequently but gradually in an ordered process, the House of Lords began to lose its original and unrepresentative powers to the House of Commons over time. The House of Lords' powers became reduced by legislation in the House of Commons through the passing of Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. Today, the House of Lords, as a relic of the British traditional post, is under reconstruction and modernisation by the Blair government. All hereditary peerages are scheduled for permanent exclusion in stages until the Lords become more meaningful and relevant to political modernity in Britain. I hope we can appreciate the unsuitability and irrelevance of creating an upper legislature that was similar to that of the British in Nigeria's First Republic.

In a major structural difference from the Upper House of the First Republic, Nigeria's Senate today is representative of the states; the units that constitute its federal structure, and its members are elected by the people of the various states for that purpose. It is therefore imperative for the states to play their unifying role as a second legislative chamber at the centre and act as a check to any kind of legislation which the representatives from any group of states may want to unfairly impose on the country. A lingering but nationally unacceptable idea such as making Nigeria a Moslem state will never materialise. Imagine the incident of the illegal action of the Babangida dictatorship surreptitious obtaining an observer status for Nigeria at the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) when it is legally recognised to impose Sharia laws is a fundamental violation of the individual's right of religion whether one is a Moslem or a Christian. Every meaningful democracy recognises freedom of worship as part of fundamental human rights.

Bicameral legislative structure therefore has always been the answer to federal systems that embrace wide areas, such as Nigeria, where there are sectional diversities of language, nationality, religion and geography. Switzerland has three nationalities and three 'official' languages, French, German and Italian, and two religions. Nigeria is more complex than Switzerland given her potential for national insecurity, high illiteracy rate, low level of technology and very high unemployment rate. Switzerland and other industrial federal democracies are more stable than Nigeria which is relatively young and struggling to establish a stable system of government for the development of its democracy. Nigeria's greater complexity and wider range of potential that tend to make it unstable such as sectional political obsessions reiterate the compulsion to establish a bicameral legislative structure at the centre in order to remain politically stable as the leading black nation in Africa and the world.

Australia also provides an example of a nation adopting the federal system despite the unifying influences of common nationally and common language. Federalism was adopted because its six colonies had a history of separate governments as the original 13 states of the United States of America. The unifying influences in Australia and the United States did not de-emphasise the need for bicameral legislature. The German example was also deliberate despite their common social values and relative homogeneity. The German unification of 1870 which reflected its residual political strength at its geographical but parochial points necessitated the creation of the Bunderstag and the Bundestrat at the centre. The Bunderstagrepresents the population and the Bundestrat continues to represent the units that make up the Federal Republic.

There are several other examples throughout the world to justify the bicameral legislative arrangement. A bicameral legislature at the centre may be unwieldy, wasteful and too costly in terms of money, time and other materials, yet it remains one of the best choices for the vision of keeping Nigeria together as a nation. Legislative bills need to be duplicated and later reconciled in order to prevent group or class or ethnic tyranny. As a developing nation, Nigeria might need to pay some price to sustain its growth and political development. With due respect to Dr. Obozuwa and Mr. Osawe, only socialist or communist federal systems find bicameral legislatures superfluous. The main reason being that socialist or communist countries adopt one-party systems without opposition.

It, therefore, ought to be clear that within the democratic tradition, a bicameral legislative structure at the centre of a federal system will help Nigeria to stabilise by checking and preventing tyranny of a group of people or states from time to time. And this will ultimately help to ensure that the pride and confidence we all hope for as Nigerians is realised.

Professor Okuwa is of University of Arkansas in the United States.

November 2001