1. NIGERIA’S FIRST NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AND THE CHALLENGE OF
DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE IN THE FOURTH REPUBLIC
Introduction
On May 29 1999, the newly elected President of Nigeria’s fourth Republic, Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo, was sworn-in in a colourful ceremony well attended by several
foreign heads of states and dignitaries. [Sam: Can we refer to the inauguration speech
itself, particularly any reference to importance of separation of powers and respect
for the rule of law] Barely a week later, on June 3, he proclaimed the National
Assembly, thereby restoring the legislature after a period of fifteen years of obscurity.
[Sam: What about the existence of NA between 1991-93 August? Maybe we should
say ‘relative obscurity’]. The inaugural speech of the President, his diagnosis of the
‘Nigerian condition’ and the promise to deliver democracy dividend in a short period
raised hopes that the emerging constitutional framework of governance would address
the manifold dimensions of governability crisis bequeathed by long years of
authoritarian, military rule. The inauguration of the national parliament [assembly] of
the new Republic and the 4th legislative assembly since attaining nationhood in October
1960, therefore, made a bold statement about the place of the legislature in the emergent
process of democratic governance. Following the valedictory speeches of the President
of the Senate, Anyim Pius Anyim, on June 4 2003, and the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’abba, on June 3 2003, the life of the first National
Assembly came to an end. And with the successful “civilian to civilian transition”
which followed the 2003 elections, as well as the subsequent inauguration of the second
National Assembly, an assessment of the role of the first legislative assembly in
Nigeria’s democratic project would provide a timely measure of the journey so far.
The legislature may be defined as a body of persons in a country or a state vested
with power to make, alter and repeal laws. Although the nature and composition of the
legislature may vary from one country to another, the primary function is to make laws
“for peace, order and good governance.” This function embraces deliberation on
matters of general and/or particular interest, law making, debating, amending and
enacting government proposals for the use of public money or appropriation, and

2. checking the executive branch through oversight functions. Other important functions
of the legislature, especially in a presidential democracy, would include checkmating
the excesses of the executive, the performance of judicial functions, providing political
education for the public, as well as leadership selection. The framers of the 1999
Constitution, like the previous ones, intended elected public officers, especially the
Legislators to be the custodians of the peoples’ sovereignty as enshrined in Chapter
two, Section 14, 2 (a) of the Constitution which expressly states that, “sovereignty
belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this constitution
derives its powers and authority”. To give effect to this, the Constitution places a very
high premium on the question of accountability of the legislative assemblies to the
people by providing for periodic elections (four years) and the recall of elected law
makers. Section 169 of the 1999 Constitution provides for the recall of erring elected
members of the National Assembly. There are similar provisions in respect of states and
local government legislators. In respect of the members of the National Assembly, a
successful recall bid requires a petition signed by more than a half of the people
registered to vote in that constituency, and subjecting it to confirmation by a simple
majority in a referendum.
It however needs to be reckoned that the challenge of assessing the performance of
the national legislature in the realm of governance is a very daunting one. To begin
with, there is the question of what can be attributed to the effectiveness or otherwise of
the legislature given that the country’s return to civilian rule in the last five years has
been marked by continued economic decline alongside episodic attempts to grapple
with economic reforms, deterioration in the state of security, progressive decline in the
material living conditions of most Nigerians, all of which have resulted in obvious
tension between state and civil society, and the fear of relapse into military dictatorship
Second, there is the fundamental problem of what constitutes the index of governance
to be used in the assessment. For instance, given that the foremost role of a legislative
assembly is law making, should the focus be on the number of bills passed? What about
consideration for the quality of such bills and their relevance to urgent national issues
of economic reform, sustainable growth, the promotion of welfare and national unity
and integration? Or given that the overbearing powers of the executive has been a
recurrent decimal in Nigeria’s troubled democratic past, should we not focus on the

3. effectiveness of the oversight functions of the legislature to the detriment of other
issues? After all, it is within the framework of the oversight functions that the doctrine
of separation of powers and checks and balances central to the principles of democracy
and governance take on greater meaning. There is also the additional dilemma of
whether we should focus on the effectiveness of the legislators in the primary task of
representation especially where the contradictory pulls of constituency interests and the
national interests may co-exist in tension.
These concerns resonate when dealing with the legislature in the fourth Republic
considering the divergent viewpoints regarding the expectations from the legislature.
For example, there is what could be regarded as a minimalist position, shared by those
who consider the restoration of civilian rule in May 1999 as marking the beginning of
Nigeria’s transition to democracy. In the words of Ofeimun (2002:7), it had “ a special
historical task spelt out for it, in the opinion of at least, the advocates of a Sovereign
National Conference, to perform as transitional legislature over its four-year term”
(2002:37). From this perspective, issues such as convening a conference of ethnic
nationalities, constitutional reform and the re-professionalization of the armed forces,
among others, were expected to occupy the attention of the first National Assembly.
Another equally important perspective would be to see the fourth Republic legislature
as an institution for policy making in a democracy, in which case, its assessment needs
to be situated within the overall framework of the functions of the legislature in relation
to lawmaking, supervision of the executive through oversight functions, and a host of
other functions.
It would seem to us however that any meaningful assessment of the first
National Assembly in relation to Nigeria’s governance project, of necessity, has to take
on board all these concerns. But this then takes us to the problematic of what constitutes
the most appropriate methodology to be adopted. It is widely recognised, for example,
that studying the legislature requires, among others, a very close relationship with the
legislature and legislators to be able to observe how debates and votes are conducted,
and how the legislators relate generally within and outside the legislature. This calls for
direct and close observation of proceedings of the National Assembly, which, for all
practical purposes, requires time and resources. Aware of these methodological
concerns, this qualitative assessment of the first National Assembly of Nigeria’s fourth

4. Republic has drawn extensively from documented activities of the first National
Assembly by civil society groups who monitored closely the activities of the parliament
at the national level and the records of its activities kept by the National Assembly.
Notable examples include the Newsletter of Constitutional Rights Project devoted to
full coverage of the activities of the National Assembly, Assembly Watch and The
Lawmaker, a Kaduna-based Legislative Magazine. The assessment has also drawn from
the documented accounts of the activities of the National Assembly, The Senate
Handbook and the accounts of stewardship rendered by the leadership of the National
Assembly at the end of the first National Assembly. These sources are complemented
by media sources.
The assessment presented in this volume is organized into five sections. Section
two which immediately follows brings into focus the challenge of governance faced by
the first National Assembly. Section three examines the background to the emergence of
the fourth Republic in order to underscore the implications it has for the performance of
the national legislative assemblies. This is followed by section four which explores the
nature of the environment, which provides the context for performance of the
legislature. Section five evaluates the national parliament in relation to its core function
of law making and the formulation of public policy. The sixth section of the assessment
deals with the performance of the national legislature on the related issue of providing
a linkage between the people and the civil society on the one hand, and the policy-
making arena on the other. Section seven of the assessment deals with the overarching
In section eight of the assessment, the role of the first National Assembly of the fourth
Republic in institutionalizing the legislature is examined. Section nine provides the
conclusion and the way forward.
The Legislature and the Challenge of Governance in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic
The challenge of democratic governance in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic is real. As
popularized by the World Bank, governance is about the conscious management of the
public realm based on certain common goals such as the promotion of popular
participation, accountability and transparency. The theory of governance assumes that
the conscious management of regime structures enhances the legitimacy of the public
realm, generates trust for the public realm, and enhances reciprocity between the

5. political system and the citizenry (Hyden, 1994). In its formulation on governance, the
Bank tends to put more emphasis on the management of the country’s economic and
social resources for development, and by so doing, divest the concept of its political
overtones in favour of economic policy and management (Robinson, 2003:37). But as
Archer (2003 :13 ) correctly points out, the strength of the ‘good government’ approach
lies in the fact that it “promotes certain political factors, especially democracy, the rule
of law, and human rights on the grounds that markets and government will only
remain efficient if they are held to account by voters and consumers – the public”. What
this then suggests is that, regardless of reservation, which we have about the notion of
governance, there are positive values in the governance discourse to be cultivated and
engaged with, in a creative manner.
At the core of the crisis of governance in Nigeria’s fourth Republic is the legacy of
long years of military dictatorship. Decades of military dictatorships, among others,
have had the effect of eroding constitutional federalism through massive centralization
of power and resources, the violation of the rights of citizens, the erosion of the culture
of rule of law, and the enthronement of a culture of arbitrariness and impunity resulting
in high levels of corruption and reliance on violence as a means resolving differences. It
is against this background that one could appreciate the enormous challenge of
building enduring democratic institutions that would restore the rule of law, curtail the
excesses of the executive, combat corruption and promote decentralization of power
and resources. The one institution that has a critical role to play in this process is the
legislature.
That the performance of the legislature within the general framework of law
making, executive oversight and the making of public policy provides a strong
indication of improved governance regime is hardly in dispute. First and foremost, the
legislature is the real site of representation in a democracy. Modern democracies,
especially the liberal democratic type is about the people exercising their powers
through elected representatives. The diversity of interests and constituencies
represented in the legislature, therefore, makes it an important structure in linking the
people to the state and in the exercise of the sovereignty of the people through the
elected representatives. It is for this reason that the legislature is often regarded as the
“First Estate” of the realm contrary to the tendency to give pre-eminence to the

6. executive because of the very history of perversion of governance with which we tend
to be more familiar. Second, the legislature has a critical role to play in promoting
checks and balances since the doctrine of separation of powers is at the heart of
presidential democracy. In this regard, the legislature is expected to be the first line of
defense, and the bulwark of resistance against executive excesses and the high
possibility of descent into authoritarianism characteristic of presidentialism. This is very
useful in the Nigerian context where executive dominance has become part of the
chequered history of democracy.
In summary, therefore, the importance of the legislature arises from the fact that
its functions are versatile, encapsulating both executive and judicial functions. It is a
stronger expression of the popular will of the people. Indeed, if one were to extrapolate
from the experience of western democracies where the creation of parliaments and
constitutions that became the foundations of the liberal state emerged from the
struggles of the nobilities, the middle class, workers and peasants, a legislative
assembly can be said to represent, as Marx would put it, the illusory forms of the class
struggles, providing a platform for contestations of several political forces and
tendencies that exist within the political community. As an embodiment of the principle
of representation and a key element in the theory of representative democracy, the
performance of parliament provides an opening, no matter how limited, of measuring
the extent to which the people, through their elected representatives, exercise power in
the arena of law making and policy formulation. But it is important to provide some
background to the emergence of the legislature in the fourth Republic and sketch the
implication for the performance of the national legislature. It is to thus we turn in the
section that follows.
Transition to the Fourth Republic and the Making of the National Assembly
Nigeria’s democratic re-birth which ushered in the fourth Republic followed, not
just decades of authoritarian rule, but also a series of either truncated or stalled
transition programmes that were not intended to install viable democratic order. These
transition programmes spanning the military dictatorships of General Ibrahim
Babangida (1985 – 1993) and General Sani Abacha (1993 – 1998) have been

7. appropriately characterized as Nigeria’s “permanent transition” (Young, 1997) or
“transition without end” (Diamond, et.al. 1998). However, the sudden death, on June 8,
1998, of General Sani Abacha, dramatically changed Nigeria’s political landscape as it
brought to grief, the self-succession agenda of the transition programme he initiated.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar, his successor, realizing the obvious threat to Nigeria’s
corporate existence, occasioned by regional reactions to the annulment of the June 12
presidential elections and the continued incarceration of the winner, Chief MKO Abiola,
quickly moved to announce a 12-month long transition to civil rule programme. The
series of transition elections, which commenced with the local government elections in
December 1998 and ended with the presidential election in May 1999, thus returned
Nigeria to civil rule. But the spectre of a hurriedly implemented transition continues to
haunt the performance of democratic institutions in general, and that of the national
parliament in particular.
The first important issue here is the composition of the National Assembly in
terms of party representation. The first National Assembly threw up a very interesting
pattern in terms of party representation and composition. There was a total of 468
members in the two legislative chambers. Symbolizing the equality of the constituent
states as in the American federation, the Senate is composed of three Senators from each
of the 36 states in the federation, with membership strength of 109. Of this, four –
Adamu Augie, Ajayi Joseph Olatunji, Shettima Mustapha and Idris Abubakar - died by
the end of the legislative session. However, representation in the lower house, the
House of Representatives, is based on population. This accounts for a total membership
of 359 in the House of Representatives, reflecting the number of federal constituencies.
Reflecting the inherited patriarchal ideology and the low level of representation of
women in the decision-making arena, representation in two legislative chambers was
skewed against the women folk. Thus, while the Senate had 3 female members, the
House of Representatives had 12 female members.
The three political parties that took part in the transition elections between 1998
and 1999 - the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), the All Peoples’ Party (APP), and
Alliance for Democracy (AD) - were all represented in the National Assembly. In the
Senate, the ruling PDP had an overwhelming majority of 65 members, followed by the
ANPP with 24, and the AD, with the least representation of 20 Senators. In the House of

8. Representatives, the distribution reflected the clear dominance of the ruling PDP with
359 members, the APP with 79 members, and the AD trailing with 69 members.
Expectedly, the dominance of one party generated some initial fears and expectations.
In one sense, it led to the expectation that cordiality would characterize
executive/legislature relationships, making the legislature a mere rubber stamp of the
executive. A related fear was that the absence of a meaningful opposition could subject
the entire process of governance to the whims of the ruling party. But as borne out by
subsequent experience of turbulence that characterized executive/legislative relations
and the threat of impeachment of the President, these fears and expectations were
largely unfounded, offering useful theoretical insights about the nature of political
parties after prolonged authoritarian rule and the place of the legislature in this
context. [Sam: This is my addition – Kayode]
There was a sense, however, in which initial developments within the national
legislature appeared to provide the basis for such fears. One of such developments was
the interest of the executive, reinforced by the zoning policy of the ruling party, to
determine the selection of the leadership of the National Assembly. There was also the
problem arising from the exclusion of other party members from the screening of 49
and 15 nominees for the position of ministers and advisers respectively, by the ruling
party, which led to protest and walk out by senators from the APP and the AD. (The
Guardian, June 23, 1999) But as already noted these initial fears were dispelled by the
friction that characterized executive/legislature relationships for much of the first four
years of Nigeria’s return to democracy. An important dimension in the sour
relationship between the executive and the legislature was the initiative from members
of the ruling party to impeach the President, and the overwhelming support given by
the same parliamentarians.
The hurried nature of the transition earlier alluded to was not helpful to
Nigeria’s emergent democratic governance order in more ways than one. Although the
manner in which General Abdulsalami Abubakar executed the transition programme
was tolerated because of the overriding concern to get rid of the military, it has
remained a source of problem to the routinization of democratic governance in post-
military Nigeria. To begin with, the Constitution, as the supreme will of the people, on
the basis of whom the legislature was expected to exercise sovereignty was not enacted

9. by the people, nor was it a product of debate, consultations and negotiations involving
the people. The Justice Niki Tobi-led Constitutional Review Committee engaged in a
limited consultation with the people and simply amended a few sections of the 1999
Constitution. The fact that the constitution that provides the framework of governance
was not a product of a people-driven process raised a fundamental question regarding
the legitimacy of the actions of the legislature. A closely related issue was the credibility
of the elections, which ushered in the fourth Republic. The elections were marred by
allegations of rigging and other forms of electoral malfeasance well documented by
election monitoring groups (TMG, 1999). The implication of this ‘selection’ of
representatives of the people rather than election through a free and fair electoral
contest was a severe blow to the moral authority and legitimacy of the members of the
national legislature.
Aside from these problems, a number of people elected into the National
Assembly in 1999 were individuals who suffered credibility problems and therefore
lacking in the moral character required of people involved in the making of laws and
public policy at this level. Without doubt, there men and women of integrity in the two
legislative houses at the national level. For example, among those elected into the
Senate were eight former ministers, four ex-governors, six former permanent secretaries
and directors-general, twenty-eight former parliamentarians, three professors and
professionals like lawyers, medical practitioners and pilots as well as retired generals
and accomplished businessmen (Anyim, 2003). But the presence among the ‘elected’ or
‘selected’ law makers, of persons of questionable integrity had implication for the
public image of the national parliament. Not only did some of these legislators play
visible roles in the past military regimes, or were politicians involved in the campaigns
for the extension of military rule, but some were also associated with criminal activities
such as Advanced Fee Fraud (419) and drug trafficking. So worrying were the signals
represented by these revelations, early in the life of the fourth Republic, that members
of the National Assembly were forced to set up committees to investigate the veracity of
the allegations. The reports of these committees, unfortunately, were never put in the
public domain. It is however on record that some members of the House of
Representatives were arrested, detained and put on trial in relation to financial crimes
of different sorts. One of such members, Maurice Ibekwe, died in detention.

10. Added to this was the certificate scandal that rocked the leadership of the House
of Representatives early in the life of the fourth Republic. Soon after he was elected
Speaker, it became public that Alhaji Salisu Buhari had a case of perjury to answer,
having made false claims regarding his age and degree certificates. In his submission to
the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Alhaji Salisu Buhari falsely
claimed to have obtained a degree certificate from the University of Toronto in Canada.
As a result, he lost both his position as Speaker and member of the House. Buhari, who
resigned his position as the Speaker on July 21, 1999 was later convicted on July 28 of
forgery and perjury, having pleaded guilty of falsifying his educational qualification
and age (This Day, August 3, 1999). However, as it turned out, the Buhari episode was a
mere tip of the iceberg. Several other members of the national legislative assembly had
a similar credibility problem. Again, the Committee set up by members of the National
Assembly to investigate this issue never made its findings public.
[Sam: As part of this initial credibility problem, shouldn’t we also talk about
the furniture allowance problem, which portrayed them as self-seeking
representatives uninterested in the needs of the larger public]
The overall performance of the national legislative assembly in strengthening the
emergent governance regime was largely dictated by political dynamics within the
ruling PDP and the legislative assembly, and the relationship between the executive
and the legislature. The zoning policy of the ruling party, for example, confronted the
National Assembly with a fait accompli in the recruitment of its leadership. This,
somehow, tended to tamper with the constitutional provisions that members of the
National Assembly shall elect from among themselves, persons to occupy positions
such as Senate president and Deputy, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives
and the Deputy. Thus, despite the spate of removal of the leadership, especially in the
Senate, the choices were limited to the zone to which a particular office had been
allocated.
The desire of the executive to control the legislature became a key factor in the
stability and coherence enjoyed by the two chambers of the National Assembly. This
desire tends to be encouraged by the uncontrolled access of the executive to money for
inducement and for patronage politics. This was more obvious with the Senate where
two presiding officers, Evans Enwerem and Chuba Okadigbo were removed. The

11. difficulty experienced by the presidency in controlling the leadership of the House of
Representatives after the removal of Buhari was a sore point in the frictions that
characterized executive/legislature relationship for much of the duration of the first
National Assembly. But not to be ignored was the internal political dynamics within the
two legislative houses which, added to the antics of the executive, accounted for much
of the instability, internal rancour and frequent change in leadership.
The experience of the House of Senate in particular, brings into bold relief, how
the internal dynamics within the legislative assembly undermined its viability as a
counter-veiling power to the executive. Internal power play and pecuniary
considerations set the members against themselves and made the National Assembly
vulnerable to executive manipulation. Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, the third President
of the 4th Assembly Senate admitted this much when he lamented openly in his
valedictory speech that the Senate was
“……factionalized into various groups and the various groups were at one
another’s throat; a Senate whose leadership was at war with itself; a Senate
where the motivating reason for attending sittings was to forestall the chance of
an opposing camp taking advantage against the other; in fact, a Senate whose
relationship with the executive was very very sour and therefore counter-
productive”
The consequence of this state of affairs was that every Senate President was forced to
devise his own survival strategy and manage the ever-conflicting interests of factions
and fractions of the members. As survival strategies of the successive leadership took
precedence over legislative and policy duties, the consolidation of governance became
the major casualty.
This internal dynamics within the legislature and the response of the leadership
in the Hobbessean game of survival explains the dramatic increase, at some point, in the
number of standing committees in the Senate from 31 to 63. Although Senator Anyim
defended the increase in terms of “coping with the demands of expanded executive
with 49 ministers and sundry committees” and the “need for effective oversight of
ministries in the absence of experienced and skilled legislative aides”, it would appear
more plausible from his own admission that the primary factor was the need to cope
with the internal power struggles and the jostling for leadership positions and the
accompanying pecuniary benefits (Anyim, 2003).

12. The point to bear in mind, therefore, is that a realistic assessment of the
performance of the first National Assembly in the realm of democratic governance must
factor in the very circumstances that shaped the transition to the politics of the fourth
Republic in general, and, in particular, the kind of actors that were to emerge. Equally
important is the internal dynamics within the legislature.
The Political Environment of the Fourth Republic Legislature
The performance of the Legislature as an institution for the making of laws and
public policies depends largely on the political environment, which defines its context.
This would include, among others, factors identified by Shultz (1968), as characterizing
the legislature in the Third World - executive dominance, functional ambiguity
proceeding from a limited decision-making role, the popular election of legislators,
constitutional supremacy, the absence of lobbying by private interests, and uninformed
debates often focusing on parochial concerns of the legislators. These characteristics are
widely shared by the successive Nigerian legislative assemblies, and to a large extent,
by the legislature in Nigeria’s fourth Republic. But more significantly, they are
important defining characteristics of the environment of the legislature in Nigeria.
Besides, important environmental factors include the prevailing party system,
the salience of ethno-religious and regional identities in the construction of political
identity and political mobilization, and the prevalence of the culture of militarism. It
may be helpful to elaborate on the salient aspects of the political environment and the
impact it could exert on the performance of the legislature.
Take for example, the tradition of executive dominance and what is widely
acknowledged as the relatively ‘underdeveloped’ nature of the legislative arm of the
Nigerian state. Here, it needs to be pointed out that the dominance of executive power
and the corresponding decline of parliamentary bodies is a more generic problem in
presidential democracies including the United States of America (Olson, 1980), widely
touted as the most successful presidential democracy. The specific manifestation of this
tradition of executive dominance is related to Nigeria’s colonial and post-colonial
history, and, in particular, the continued strengthening of the executive branch because
of the frequent disruptions of constitutional framework of governance and the long
history of military rule. By extension, it is also related to the dominance of the public

13. bureaucracy in the policy making arena, a situation which tends to be strengthened by
the lack of experience and understanding on the part of the legislators, of the complex
working of government and the policy-making process. It may be helpful to briefly
elaborate on this matter in order to draw out the implications on the performance of the
first National Assembly.
The conclusion that the legislature remains a weeping baby in its relationship
with the executive arm of government derives largely from the episodic history of the
legislature in Nigeria. In the colonial period, what then existed as the Legislative
Council was not the organ of the colonized people in exercising power or influence. In
the post-independence period, the frequent interruptions of the democratic experiments
have not allowed for the growth and nurturing of the legislature. The first sovereign
legislature or parliament in Nigeria came in October 1963 when the National Parliament
enacted a Republican Constitution. The 1964/65 general elections a year later offered
the opportunity for its consolidation, but series of political conflicts shook the new
democracy to its foundation. Within the political class, intolerance, bickering, political
thuggery, corruption and the failure to respect the rules of the political game truncated
the democratic experiment. Prolonged military rule and some civilian interregnum
followed until the restoration of civil politics in May 1999.
Thus, while the executive branch had always survived under the unitary
command of the military junta, the legislature was always sacked and the constitution
suspended. For the entire period of military dictatorship, the legislature was more or
less completely absent. What existed under the military as a parody of the legislature
hardly met the requirement; be it the Supreme Military Council (SMC) under General
Gowon, or the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) as it existed under the Babangida
junta. The command structure of the military ensured that power was extremely
centralized under the control of the military head of state. The return to constitutional
rule inherited this military legacy, and it appears to have been exacerbated with the
emergence of a “monarchical” or “imperial” presidency under Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo who is “Baba” of the Nation.
Among others, there are two important consequences that derive from this for
the performance of the legislature. To begin with, the tradition of executive dominance
explains the fact that external forces, especially the interest of the executive to control

14. constitutes a strong component of the political dynamics that influence the behaviour of
the legislature. With respect to the first National Assembly, the preponderance of bills
initiated by the executive and the frequent changes in the leadership of the National
Assembly are fairly strong indications of this dimension of the environment of the
legislature. In another respect, the tradition of executive dominance tends to explain the
pathologies of the legislature especially its tendency to unduly antagonize the
executive. More often than not, the legislature suffers inferiority complex in relation to
the executive, in some instances, arising from the control exerted by the latter over
resources of the state and opportunities to dispense patronage.
The consequence is that, the legislature tends to come under pressure to assert its
powers and relevance, and to demonstrate that it cannot be reduced to a mere
appendage or rubber stamp of the executive branch. While the oversight functions of
the legislature is not in doubt, the tendency for legislators to resort to threats of
impeachment and other forms of blackmail in relation to the executive at all levels since
the return to civilian rule in 1999 can be partly explained by the these pathologies.
Anyim (2003) underscores the pathology of the first legislative assembly of the fourth
Republic in his allusion to “a long culture of Executive government and in particular
where the executive is the only source of patronage in a poverty-ridden
environment….and the duty of providing social amenities, and the overriding duty to
protect the other arms of government”.
Second, the prevailing party system and the level of institutionalization of political
parties constitutes a very important environment that determines the efficacy or
otherwise of the legislature. For two reasons, the effectiveness of the legislature in a
presidential democracy has to be undergirded by a strong party system. In the first
place, the presidential system, unlike the parliamentary system, has no place for
“official” opposition. Again, while the legislature under the latter enjoys considerable
leverage over the executive, it is not the case under the former. It is expected, for
example, in the presidential system that legislators will canvass the position of their
parties and seek to bring their party philosophy and viewpoints to bear on the policy
making process. This is even more so when the party in control of the executive equally
controls the legislative assembly. Against this background, the organization of political
parties, the degree of internal coherence and the control they can exert on their

15. members in the legislative assembly become critical in determining the behaviour and
performance of the legislators.
Unfortunately, the political parties of the fourth Republic are far from being
political organizations of people sharing common visions and values regarding the
political community. Neither do the political parties exhibit internal coherence nor
clearly articulated programmes and manifestoes as the basis of actions by the dominant
actors including the legislators. Instead, the political parties are amalgams of strange-
bed fellows, united more by the exigency of capturing political power. Consequently,
the political parties are bedeviled by lack of internal democracy and are hijacked by a
few financiers and power brokers. The ruling party, the PDP, provides a clear
demonstration of the institutional weakness of the political parties of the fourth
Republic as vehicles for building democracy. The party is a rainbow coalition of
remnants of the politicians of the Second Republic, coalition of groups and individuals
in the frontline of the opposition to the Abacha military junta, and some elements of the
so-called “new breed” politicians nurtured by the succession of post-1984 military rule,
representing different political tendencies and interests. The hurried nature of the
transition programme did not allow adequate re-alignment of political forces. At the
end of the day, the party emerged from a fusion of the most dominant Peoples’
Democratic Movement (PDM), the G 34 that took on the Abacha dictatorship and other
political associations and groups.
While the ANPP emerged from the same kind of alliances and combinations, the
AD reflected ethnic and regional interests with the strongest base in the Yoruba
speaking South West. The core of the party was drawn from activists of the National
Democratic Coalition (NADECO), and Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba political movement
which derived its legitimacy from the struggles against the annulment of the June 12
presidential elections and opposition to Abacha’s self-succession designs. Perhaps, the
only explanation for the registration of the party given the constitutional requirements
of demonstrable national presence of party structures, organizations and membership
was the need to assuage the feelings of the South-West in the context of the strident
opposition to the annulment and the incarceration of Chief MKO Abiola, the assumed
winner of the June 12 presidential polls. Unlike the other political parties, it had a
clearly articulated programme and manifesto defined by commitment to welfare issues.

16. To its advantage too, is a measure of internal coherence deriving from a regional
interest to push for the political restructuring of the country, although this could be
perceived to be in conflict with the quest for national unity. Nevertheless, the
undemocratic, oligarchic and gerontocratic tendencies of its leadership ensured the
overall weakness of the party as a vehicle for building democracy.
The last manifestation of the institutional weakness of political parties in the
fourth Republic relates to the overbearing influence exerted by elected executive such as
President and Governors in the control of the party machineries. This flaw largely
derives from the history of the political parties and the disconnect between the
membership and the leadership of the political parties. And since the funding of parties
appear to come from the contributions of elected public officers sponsored by the
various political parties, they are in a vantage position to exercise undue influence over
the directions of the parties. By the same logic, wealthy individuals who contribute to
party finances and elections are in the position to hijack the decision-making processes
with the political parties.
There is also the problem of Nigeria’s political environment defined by the
salience of the political mobilization of ethnic, religious and regional identities. Although this is
ultimately tied to the class basis of politics and the patronage system that characterize it,
these identities supply the idioms of Nigerian politics including the construction of the
state, the definition of citizenship and the manner of resource allocation as well as the
perquisites of power. To a large extent, the character of ethnic and communal
mobilization that characterized post-annulment politics and the emphasis on power
shift had sufficiently framed the prism of political discourse. Party formation and the
allocation of party offices, the zoning of key political offices such as president, vice-
president and the leadership of the National Assembly bear the stamp of “ethnic
arithmetic” and the desire for ethnic and geo-political balancing.
The salience of the ethnic paradigm in the construction of state power and in the
shaping of perception of political events and issues impacts on the performance of the
legislature. As will be demonstrated later, ethno-regional and religious perception of
issues was a critical factor to consider in assessing the first national legislature of the
fourth Republic. This can be immediately illustrated by two episodes. In the wake of
allegations of financial improprieties against the Senate President, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo,

17. Ohaneze N’digbo, a pan-Igbo political and cultural organization sought to ethnicise the
matter by rising to his defense A similar attempt to introduce ethnic and regional
sentiments into national discourse was made at the peak of the feud between the
executive and the legislature and the threat to impeach President Obasanjo. The
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’abba, who was pitched
against the President, came under the accusation of implementing a “Northern”
agenda.
The culture of militarism at all levels of governance constitutes yet an
environmental challenge for the nurturing and consolidation of democratic governance
in Nigeria. After decades of military dictatorship and the desecration of rule of law and
constitutionalism, there has occurred profound disorientation in the psyche of
Nigerians. This becomes more obvious when it is realized that the bulk of the
membership of the political class has been nurtured under successive military
dictatorships. The consequence is that, arbitrariness and violence tend to become
preferable to civic virtues and democratic ethos of tolerance, dialogue, negotiation and
consensus building as mechanisms of conflict resolution and the management of
differences.(Fayemi, 2002)
Finally, there is the problem of capacity that faces the legislature. There a several
dimensions of the capacity gap of the first National Assembly. First, is the problem of
inexperience on the part of the legislators and the absence of legislative culture as a
result of prolonged military rule. Second, is the problem of loss of staff with requisite
skills and experience to both the executive branch and the private sector. This loss of
qualified manpower capable of supporting legislative work becomes more obvious in
the quality of legislative/research staff available to the legislature. But this could
also be explained in part, in terms of the relative under funding of the legislature,
and, partly, as result of failure on the part of the legislators themselves to appreciate
that the quality of legislative assistants and researchers they recruit has a direct
implication for their performance as lawmakers. Added to these problems would be
the inadequacy of facilities such as computers, fax machines and accommodation. As
many of the members of the first National Assembly themselves have admitted, the
problem of inadequacy of basic infrastructures undermined their efficacy in the task of
law making (The Guardian, March 17, 2003).

18. [Sam: My addition] Yet, in reflecting on the capacity challenge, it is important
to also review on how receptive the membership of the legislature is to capacity
development. Given their antecedents as described above and the political
environment amply illustrated above too, all of which contributed to what some have
referred to as their basic lack of interest in good governance, there is a feeling that
they also showed interest in the per-quisites of training rather than in training per se.
Nevertheless, there were a variety of training initiatives in legislative development
and performance embarked upon by both external and internal bodies – notable
amongst which were the USAID sponsored National Democratic Institute (NDI) and
the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) training programmes which
commenced immediately after the election of members of the National and State
Assemblies. More focused legislative training programmes were also run by a
variety of institutions, specifically dedicated to the various committees of the two
chambers – for example NDI’s focus on the Appropriation Committee, Centre for
Democracy & Development’s (CDD) training of the Defence and National Security &
Intelligence Committees of the Senate to mention just two. The African Capacity
Building Foundation (ACBF) engaged in a more extensive programme for legislative
staff and institutional development was an example of an in-depth and on-going
capacity building arrangement. What the extensive turnover of the first fourth
republic National Assembly demonstrates though is the challenge of concentrating
capacity building initiatives on legislators, given the potential of the loss of
institutional memory when they are deselected at the party level or lost their place in
an election.
The First National Assembly in the Law and Policy Making Arena
The making of appropriate legislation for law, order and good governance is the
foremost constitutional responsibility of the legislative assembly. The extent to
which it engages in this task is an important parameter in assessing its contribution
to the strengthening of the process of democratic governance. In this regard, the
pertinent issues to consider include the number of bills, and the extent to which bills
are initiated from within the legislature as opposed to bills that originate from the

19. executive arm of government in continuation of the tradition of the dominance of
the latter. Also important will be the quality of laws passed and their relevance in
addressing urgent national issues that relate to the survival of the polity and the
welfare of the people. In the same vein, the level of public participation in the
making of laws and legislation is a critical element in the role of the legislature as a
representative institution that connects the people to the government and the policy
making process.
Despite the leadership crisis and internal upheavals that characterized the
first National Assembly, it scored fairly high in terms of number of bills passed thus
making it difficult to suggest that it was a mere “talking shop”. The Senate
Handbook (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2002) provides a comprehensive
documentation of the activities of the Senate, including the inner workings and the
numbers of bills passed. According to the Handbook, by the end of January 2002, a
total of 165 bills had been moved on the floor of the Senate, 38 being sponsored by
the Executive. Out of this total introduced on the floor, the Senate passed 27. At the
end of the four years, it received a total of 258 bills out of which 74 were bills that
emanated from the executive, while 178 came as Private Members’ Bills. This was a
slight departure from the experience of the second Republic during which most of
the bills originated from the executive. [See section of this book that reviews the
Bills handled during the first four years]
But what is more important than bills either received or moved on the floor of
parliament is the number of bills actually passed. The Senate passed a total of 65
bills. Aside from these a total of 14 bills were defeated on the floor before reaching
the stage of being committed to the Committee of the whole house. It also
transmitted to the lower house a total of 65 bills while it received 17 bills from the
lower house. Considering bills, which were passed by the two houses, available
record shows a total of 36, out of which 26 were assented by the President as laws,
and consequently, enrolled at the Supreme Court. While 10 of the bills passed by the
two houses were not assented to by the President, the national parliament used its
powers to override 4 cases of presidential veto.

20. A closer examination of the bills passed would show that Appropriation and
supplementary appropriation bills topped the list of bills passed by the first Senate
of the fourth Republic. Other important bills that were passed include the Bill for an
Act to make provision for a compulsory free Universal Basic Education, the Anti-
Corruption Bill, the amendment of the National Minimum Wage Act, the Bill for an
Act to make provision for Statutory Allocation of Public Revenue to Local
Government Councils in the Federation, and the Bill for an Act to prohibit and
punish unconstitutional take over and service in an unconstitutional Government.
The House of Representatives, again, like the upper legislative house, scored
fairly high in the area of law making. During its first legislative session, beginning
from 4th June 1999 to June 9th 2000, for example, a total of 31 bills were introduced,
while 10 were actually passed. Again, in a clear departure from the experience of the
previous republics, only 8 of these bills emanated from the executive; 23 emanating
as Private Member’s bills, while 2 came from the Senate. A total of 15 bills were
passed in the third legislative session from August 2001 to June 2002. From
September 2002 to January 2003, the House passed a total of 41 Bills. Apart from the
regular Appropriation Bills, some important bills passed include Allocation of
Revenue (Abolition of Dichotomy in the Application of Principle of Derivation),
Establishment of the Debt Management Office, Bitumen Development Commission,
Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences, Electric Power Sector Reform Bill,
and Border Communities Development Agency Bill, among others. Also included is
ratification of international protocol to which the Nigerian government is a
signatory such as the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in
Persons, ratified in January, 2003. However, beyond this impressive figure of bills
passed is the more fundamental question of the degree of relevance to urgent
national problems or the level of responsiveness to the yearnings and desires of the
public.
Indeed, a critical component of the powers to make laws relates to the degree
of responsiveness of the legislative assembly to issues of urgent national importance
which can be gleaned from examples provided from bills and resolutions passed by
the lawmakers. From available records, the lower chamber alone passed over a

21. hundred resolutions demanding immediate response from the executive and other
relevant agencies of the state. More often than not, these resolutions were passed
following motions brought before the House by representatives from the affected
areas, suggesting some degree of responsiveness to constituents’ needs. Some
notable resolutions passed include those condemning the invasion of Abia and
Borno State Houses of Assembly by persons believed to be sponsored by the
executive, the violent communal disturbances between Tsaragi and Share local
government areas of Kwara State, urging government to take necessary actions in
respect of oil pipeline fire disaster in Okpe Local Government Council of Delta State,
and ordering investigations into the activities of the Education Tax Fund, following
alleged disappearance of large sums of money. Others were passed in relation to
the eruption of ethnic and religious violence in Plateau State, alleged destruction of
lives and properties by invading Nigerian soldiers in Benue State and flood disasters
in parts of Kano and Adamawa States.
A further examination of the bills passed by the two chambers of the National
Assembly shows that some of the proposed laws address issues of governance,
development and welfare of Nigerian citizens. The Anti-Corruption Law, for
instance, created an agency for promoting horizontal accountability, and dealing
with the menace of corruption and the pervasive culture of impunity, which have
become obstacles to development and welfare of Nigerian citizens. The
offshore/onshore issue deals with the thorny issues of fiscal federalism. One can go
on and on in pointing to the significance of each of the laws that have been passed.
These, added to resolutions and handling of complaints addressed to the two arms
underscore the relevance of the legislative assembly in the nurturing of democracy
and governance in Nigeria.
The passage of these bills and resolutions notwithstanding, there are grounds
to suggest that the first National Assembly failed largely as an institution for
building and nurturing democratic governance in the fourth Republic. This is more
so, considered from the point of view that the most immediate challenges of the
post-1999 era were essentially reformist in nature, and marking the beginning of
transition to democratic governance and eventual consolidation. The failings of the

22. national legislative assemblies on the reform of the 1999 Constitution and the
political restructuring of the country to promote a balanced federation provide clear
basis for arriving at such a conclusion.
Take for example, the review of the 1999 Constitution. The return to civil
politics in May 1999 witnessed the implosion of the most protracted ethno-religious
and communal conflicts across the length and breadth of the country. Although a
number of such conflicts pre-dated the emergence of civilian rule the liberalization
of the political atmosphere provided space to groups and communities whose anger
and interests were suppressed by the prevailing atmosphere of authoritarian rule.
But more importantly, the festering political conflicts arising largely from the
mobilization of ethnic, regional and religious identities tend to occur in the context
of the struggle over power and resources, and directly relate to the legacy of military
rule which eroded democratic culture and centralized political power and resources.
This distortion was reinforced by related problems of citizenship, the decline of the
economy and the systematic withdrawal of the state from the provision of welfare
needs of the population as dictated by the imposition of IMF and World Bank
supported Structural Adjustment Programme.
It was against this background that many Nigerians and the civil society
groups in particular identified the holistic review of the 1999 Constitution as the
most important agenda of political reform. It was expected that the opportunities
provided by civilian rule would lead to a process-led and a people-driven approach
to the re-making of the Nigerian constitution as a framework of governance and as a
mechanism of conflict resolution through the building of consensus on a number of
contentious issues (CFCR, 2001; 2003). Among others, the most contentious issues
identified by both the Citizens’ Forum for Constitutional Reform and the
Presidential Technical Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution include
issues of federalism, revenue allocation/resource control, the crisis of “ethnic”
citizenship, gender equality and the language of the Constitution, political parties
and freedom of association, the issue of social and economic justice and the
entrenchment of independent commissions. It was expected in many quarters that
government commitment to an open and transparent review of the Constitution

23. would partly address the agitation for a Sovereign National Conference. However,
because of the realization that the locus of review lies with the legislature, it became
central to the advocacy strategy of a number of civil society groups and coalitions
committed to constitutional review to engage the national legislative assemblies in
particular.
Unfortunately, the first National Assembly failed in playing a leading role in
the process of reviewing the Constitution, and, indeed, was lacking in the political
will to do so. First, as a result of abdication of responsibility by the National
Assembly, the executive and the presidency in particular took the initiative. The
presidency first toyed with the idea of a Committee drawn from all the political
parties before it set up a Technical Committee on the Review of the 1999
Constitution. However, the National Assembly set up a joint Committee chaired by
the Deputy President of the Senate. It is instructive to note that for the four years it
existed, the Committee did not take the issue of a review process involving the
people seriously, although largely under the prodding of the executive, it engaged
in a limited public hearing on the constitutional review issue and focused public
debate narrowly on the question of terms of office for elected public officials. In the
face of the lack-lustre attitude of the National Assembly and its refusal to work with
civil society, the country continued to witness tensions in the polity arising from the
defects in the 1999 Constitution.
Related to this was the attitude of the National Assembly to the issue of
convoking a Sovereign National Conference. Although the return to constitutional
framework of governance had raised questions regarding the “sovereign” status of
the conference, endemic and protracted political conflicts won more converts to the
side of the proponents of national conference. At least, some kind of consensus
appeared to emerge that a credible platform for the various nationalities and interest
groups top discuss and re-negotiate the basis of Nigeria’s continued existence had
become inevitable as a way of sustaining the Nigerian project. Within the National
Assembly, the AD remained the only political party committed to the political
restructuring of the country. It however, lacked the political muscle to push the
agenda given its regional character and the corresponding low level of

24. representation it enjoyed in the national parliament. Its own internal crisis resulting
in the defection of some of its legislators to the ruling PDP further eroded its
strength. Nevertheless, it tried to pursue this agenda using the platform of the
National Assembly. In March 2000, Senator Femi Okunronmu of AD proposed a bill
that would provide a law for the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference.
The Bill was dismissed by the Senate on grounds of lack of merit, and for alleged
violation the 1999 Constitution.
Besides, there were clear instances of abuse of legislative power by the first
National Assembly of the fourth republic. One example was the repeal of the
Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000 by the National Assembly.
The bill that resulted into the establishment of the Act was introduced to the Senate
by the executive two days after it was inaugurated on June 6, 1999. It however, took
the Senate almost nine months before it was passed on February 15, 2000. The Anti-
Corruption Commission was hailed by all stakeholders in the Nigerian democratic
project and the international community as an agency [a vehicle?] for fighting the
endemic culture of corruption. Thus, in keeping with the trends associated world
wide with agencies of horizontal accountability, it was given wide powers with
substantial independence, although its funding was tied to the pleasure of the
executive.
The performance of the Commission has been bogged down by a number of
factors, some of which are acknowledged by the Commission. For instance, apart
from the issue of under funding, the operations of the Commission are fettered by
legal provisions such as the lack of prosecutorial authority on cases investigated as
well as lack of pro-active powers by the Commission since it can only investigate
cases reported to it in the form of petitions. The frequent resort to courts for
injunctions by persons under investigation also considerably disabled the
Commission. In addition, the performance of the Commission could not be better in
the absence of a legal regime that guarantees freedom of access to information as
well as the protection of whistle blowers. Curiously, the first National Assembly sat
over the Freedom of Information Bill sponsored by the Media Rights Agenda, a
Lagos-based NGO, and had for long been subjected to public hearing. These

25. constraints, notwithstanding, the Commission has brought a number of elected
public officials under its search lights, including some state governors, and the key
functionaries of the National Assembly, especially the Senate President, Pius Anyim
Pius and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’Abba.
This development provided the immediate context for a proposed amendment and
the subsequent repeal of the Act by the first session of the Fourth republic assembly.
The first move to repeal the Act was made by the Senate when it alleged that
the Anti-Corruption Commission was being used by the executive to even scores
with the leadership of the National Assembly. The leadership of the National
Assembly alleged that the presidency was opposed to its determined effort to
defend the independence of the legislature. But the timing and the speed with which
the Upper legislative body handled the repeal and the passage of a new bill became
a source of concern to the Nigerian public and civil society groups in particular. The
speed with which the bill for the repeal passed through the first and second
readings in particular raised suspicion. Setting aside its own rules, this was done on
the same day whereas it took the same Senate nine months to pass the bill which
brought the Act into existence in the first place. The question of timing was also a
source of concern because the move to repeal the Act followed the commencement
of investigations of the Senate President and the Speaker of the House by the Anti-
Corruption Commission following petitions it allegedly received on their corrupt
practices. The decision of the to conduct public hearing on the Act as a result of
persistent pressures from coalitions of civil society groups was merely an after
thought.
Despite the initial sign that the House of Representatives would not support
the move by the Senate to pass a new Anti-Corruption Bill that would significantly
whittle the investigative and prosecutorial powers of the anti-graft commission, it
later joined in the fray. On Thurday, March 10, the House, attended by only 60 out
of the 360 members passed the bill repealing and re-enacting the Corrupt Practices
and Other Related Offences Act 2000, following the second reading a day earlier.
What was particularly striking in the bill passed by the House is the grant of
immunity to the both the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of

26. Representatives. While repealing the Act, the House of Representatives announced
the sack of the entire staff of the Justice Mustapha Akanbi-led Anti-Corruption
Commission (Vanguard, March 14, 2003). A frustrated citizen simply accused the
leadership of the National Assembly leadership of engaging in acts that amounted
to “legislative terrorism”.
The controversy that attended to the Electoral Act 2001 and its subsequent
repeal to make way for Electoral Act 2002 brings into bolder relief the failure of the
National Assembly, especially the House of Senate, to contribute to the process of
strengthening institutions of democratic governance. This is particularly in
cognizance of the role of elections in a democracy. Nigeria’s political history shows
that the crisis of democracy often emanates from unresolved election disputes. The
crisis of legitimacy triggered by electoral malfeasance often provides the ground for
the opposition to question leaders thrown up by the electoral process, and
subsequently for the military to remove such unpopular governments. The massive
rigging and violence that characterized the 1983 general elections precipitated the
demise of Nigeria’s second democratic experiment on December 31 1983. Despite
the unpopularity of the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN), it secured majority
votes in many parts of the country, including the stranglehold of opposition parties
such as the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in the south-west and the Nigerian
Peoples ’Party (NPP) in the south-east. Thus, as in the first Republic, it heightened
the legitimacy crisis of the government and prepared the ground for the subsequent
military coup.
In fact, given the legitimacy issues that arose from the 1999 elections, and in
particular, the concern about the absence of a level playing ground in the elections
because of the institutional weaknesses that characterised the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC), the reform of the electoral law and the electoral body
was considered central to the survival of Nigeria’s electoral democracy. Given this
background and the immediacy of the 2003 general elections, as well as the local
government elections, which were to follow, the reform of the electoral, law and
other relevant institutions became core issues to be addressed as part of the
challenges of strengthening democracy. When the legitimacy deficit which followed

27. the 1999 elections which was characterized by vote rigging, intimidation, bribery,
forging of election results and violence is added to these, the handling of the
Electoral Act becomes a key issue in the assessment of the first National Assembly.
In August 2001, the Chairman of INEC, Dr. Abel Goubadia, proposed a bill to
the National Assembly. The Bill, according to him, represented an improvement
over the 1982 Act and the provisions in the 1979 Constitution (National Interest,
October 13, 2001). The first problem arose from delayed deliberations on the Bill
given the imminence of the local government elections initially slated for April 2002
and the 2003 elections, which would follow in April 2003.
Without doubt, the 2001 Electoral Act was far from being the ideal legal
framework for addressing all the concerns about elections and the electoral process
because of the limited consultations that preceded it, and the lack of political will to
deal with the reform of INEC to enhance its autonomy. But the Electoral Bill as
passed by the Senate contained some novel provisions including those that relate to
registration of new political parties and independent candidacy. However, as signed
by the President following behind the scene manouvres involving him and some
key leaders of the National Assembly, not only tampered with some important
provisions, but also introduced new provisions that undermined the tenets of the
democratic process. The surreptitious manner in which the Bill, as passed by the
House was distorted, was described by Senator Femi Okunronmu of the AD as “un-
parliamentary” in procedure”. (Okunronmu, 2001).
The issues that generated controversy in the Electoral Law include the tenure
of local government, the barring of some state governors from contesting the 2003
elections, guidelines on registration of new political parties and the order of
elections. On the tenure of local government chairmen, contrary to the three years
provided in the 1999 Constitution, and the express powers of the State House of
Assembly in determining the structure and mode of operation of the local
governments, the new law signed by the President extended the tenure of local
government Chairmen to four years. This was perceived as an affront on state
governors who, for political expediency, required the control of the machinery of
local governance. Equally contentious was the provision in the new Act which

28. barred sitting governors who were elected governors in the aborted Third Republic
from contesting the 2003 elections on the presumption that by being elected
governors in 1999, they were already serving the maximum of two terms prescribed
by the 1999 Constitution. By this provision, the governors of Ogun State, Chief
Segun Osoba,; Taraba, Reverend Jolly Nyame; Kogi; Alhaji Abubakar Audu and
Yobe, Alhaji Bukar Ibrahim would not be eligible to contest for the same position in
the 2003 elections.
By far the most worrisome of the provisions in the Electoral Act 2001 relates
to registration of new political parties. The proviso introduced by the President in
Section 180 (1) established a threshold of 10% as the minimum votes to be garnered
by political associations seeking registration as political parties in the local
government elections, which had several implications. For one, since the local
government election comes last in the order of elections proposed in the Act, it
meant that the new parties would not be eligible for the 2003 elections. In addition,
this proviso introduced requirements that derogate from the provisions of the 1999
Constitution. Expectedly, this provision provoked reactions across the land. It was
particularly considered as a calculated move by the ruling PDP to remain in power
by excluding new political actors that could effectively challenge its dominance.
The 36 governors later dragged the federal government to court on three
main contentious issues in the Act: the extension of the tenure of local government
to four years as contained in Section 10, the re-ordering of elections to start with the
presidential election, and the stringent conditions for registration of new political
parties provided in Section 74 of the Electoral Act (Sunday Vanguard, March 24,
2002). The extension of the tenure of local government Chairmen brought Speakers
of the state Houses of Assembly together in opposition to the new law. A Supreme
Court ruling on the suit nullified provisions in the new Act, which violated the
provisions in the 1999 Constitution. The Court re-affirmed the power of State
Houses of Assembly in relation to the determination of tenure of local government
chairmen, and ordered the registration of new political parties before May 18, 2002
on the ground that all extra-constitutional conditions in the Act were illegal
(Weekend Vanguard, April 20, 2002).

29. One important conclusion that can be drawn from the political intrigues that
attended to the passage and signing into law, the Electoral Act 2001 is that, for the
members of the National Assembly narrow political calculations took precedence over
national interest. For example, extending the tenure of Council chairmen from three to
four years, disregarding their initial three-year tenure, was motivated by the need to
respond to the fear that the executive, including the Presidency and state governors
stood to make electoral gains from an early council polls. Thus, in instances where the
political calculations of the Presidency and that of the leadership of the National
Assembly coincided, the latter willingly played along.
Finally, the first National Assembly failed to play its expected role in the
formulation of the blue print for the reform of Nigeria’s economy and polity as
enshrined in the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy
(NEEDS). Indeed, from the very beginning when the government embarked on the
ill-fated Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process, the executive did not
consider it necessary to involve the legislature. And despite the fact that the World
Bank group rejected Nigeria’s interim PRSP on account of absence of a consultative
process, NEEDS, the so-called successor to the PRSP did not involve the input of the
National Assembly. The president merely briefed the House of Senate on the
NEEDS document (Punch, November 27, 2002), without the kind of consultation and
input required of a major reform document whose implications for state-society
relations, and, indeed, the development process is very profound.
Law making, Civil Society and Public Participation
Legislation is the primary task of elected representatives of the people in the
legislature. The mandate conferred by their being elected notwithstanding, the
legitimacy of the routine exercise in writing laws and making of policies is determined
by the extent to which they capture the mood and desires of the electors. This, therefore,
warrants the need for some kind of public participation and the expression of the voice
of civil society. Among others, public participation in the process of policy formulation
provides a useful mechanism for the public to enforce accountability on the elected
public officials. However, given the peculiar nature of Nigerian-type society,
characterized by the absence of professional lobbyists, the disconnection between

30. political parties and the populace as well as the tendency of the political and
bureaucratic elites to alienate the people from the policy-making process, civil society
organizations provide the most important arena of promoting public participation in
the process of governance.
Civil society is the “realm of organized social life that is open, voluntary, self-
generating, at least partially self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and bound by
a legal order or set of shared rules”(Diamond 1999: 221). What distinguishes civil
society from society in general is the fact that it involves citizens acting collectively in
the public sphere. The importance of civil society in the policy-making arena largely
derives from three key elements in the definition and conceptualization identified by
Osaghae (1997). These include its autonomy from the state, public character (setting a
normative order for the state) and furtherance of a common good. The numerous
grassroots social movements that draw their strength from the solidarity and the
struggle of the people against oppression in different parts of the country are parts and
parcels of civil society.
Unlike the previous republics, the emergence of a strong civil society and a wide
range of associational life provided a fairly distinct environment for the functioning of a
legislative assembly. The economic failure of the 1980s and SAP regime which followed,
led to the emergence of several civic organizations ranging from human rights
organizations and professional associations to business and mutual self- help
associations thriving across the country, in both urban and rural areas. As Alemika
(2000:3) aptly observes, the era of adjustment and military dictatorships in the 1980s
and 1990s witnessed the proliferation of the “NGO industry” around diverse issues
such as human rights, environment, democratization, women empowerment, poverty
reduction, population, reproductive rights, health, development, to mention just a few.
Furthermore, Roniger (1994) provides additional elaboration when he argues
that the primary function and significance of civil society comes from the fact that it
provides the platform for the citizens to express their interests, preferences and ideas, to
exchange information, achieve collective goals and make demands to improve the
structure and functioning of the state. Within these range of activities the question of
holding state officials accountable for their actions is very central to the raison de’tre of
civil society. A very strong assumption, therefore, in the notion of civil society is that

31. associational life provides a mechanism through which public interests and
commitments are formulated and through which ideas regarding basic freedoms and
entitlements of the citizens are clarified and defended.
The struggle for the expansion of the democratic space, and the frontal challenge
of successive military dictatorships was spearheaded by a number of pro-democracy
and human rights groups, many of which emerged in response to the brutality of
military rule, and the shrinking political space. Not surprisingly, therefore, the civil
society has come to be recognized as a major stakeholder in the Nigerian democratic
process. Against the backdrop of the immediate history of civil society in the struggle
for democracy, and what is expected of its role in the consolidation of democratic
governance as well as the legitimation of the process, the relationship between the
legislature and the civil society in the policy making arena provides a strong indication
of how the former advances the process of democratic governance.
Despite the reservation in some quarters that civil society organizations may not
have cultivated the culture of engaging a democratic process as opposed to providing
barricades against military dictatorship(Abdulai, This Day, , there is evidence to suggest
that civic groups have a programmatic perspective of what the requirements are for
democratic consolidation. This has led to the necessity for civil society organizations to
build networks and coalitions around key issues of democratic reform and
consolidation. Thus, in addition to the formation of the Transition Monitoring Group
(TMG) which monitored the transition elections, several other coalition groups have
emerged. The important ones include the Citizens Forum for Constitutional Reform
(CFCR), the Electoral Reform Network (ERN), the Zero Corruption Coalition and
National Coalition on Violence Against Women (NCVAW). Each of these groups
involves a coalition of several NGOs and CBOs that engage in information sharing and
developing common strategies of dealing with specific issues.
The Freedom of Information Bill sponsored by the Media Rights Agenda (MRA)
is one good example of the opening of the legislative process to public participation.
The bill is so central to the quest for transparency and accountability in governance as
well as enhancement of citizens’ access to information. The House Sub-Committee on
Media Practice and Regulation conducted a public hearing in 2001 at which several civil
society groups were present. Although the bill is yet to be signed into law, it is a

32. significant development that a tremendous opening has been created for the public
participation in the making of policies. A similar point can be made about the bill on
domestic violence, which was submitted to the National Assembly by the NFVAW. The
summit organized the Community Action for Popular Participation (CAPP), Shelter
Rights Initiative (SRI), the Justice Development and Peace Commission (JDPC) and the
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in May 2002, drew attention to the need for greater
public participation in the budget process (Wasah, 2002). Interestingly, since then,
several organizations of civil society have emerged with specific focus on the budget,
and have sought to engage the legislature on several fronts.
There is ample evidence that this trend will increase with the consolidation of
democracy and it remains to be seen how the legislators will recognize the critical role
of civic groups in the process of law making. Emergent trends towards the end of the
tenure of the first National Assembly suggest some positive signs as demonstrated by
the intervention of Zero Corruption Coalition (ZCC), Transparency International (TI)
and the Citizens’ Forum for Constitutional Reform (CFCR) in the public hearings
conducted by the Senate in the wake of the repeal of the Anti-Graft Law early in 2003.
However, the decision to conduct public hearing after the new bill had passed through
the first two readings would create a climate of distrust in the efforts of civil society to
engage the democratic process.
Notwithstanding some moderate efforts to involve the civil society in the
making of laws and public policies, the conclusion which one can draw is that, the
first National Assembly failed largely to provide opportunities to the Nigerian
public to participate in the process of policy making and formulation through the
instrumentality of public hearing. There was evident reluctance on the part of the
legislature to accept the civil society as the ultimate guarantor of the survival of
Nigeria’s democracy, but even as a partner in the business of sustaining democratic
governance. Accompanying this disposition was the tendency to perceive the civil
society as rivals, and to hide under the narrow argument that the constitution vests
the powers for legislation in the legislature.
Evidence of reluctance can be seen in the slow pace of the reform of the 1999
Constitution despite prodding from civil society groups, and opportunities of
engagement provided by a number of coalitions of civil society on constitutional

33. reform. The Joint Committee of the National Assembly squandered the
opportunities provided by the first four years of democracy to make any appreciable
progress in the realm of constitutional reform. Similarly, the legislature stalled the
process of passing and enacting the Freedom of Information Act which is critical to
the pursuit of important political values of transparency and accountability, and
ultimately, in the anti-corruption crusade. In particular, the National Assembly
failed to use the instrumentality of public hearing as a means of promoting public
participation in the budget process, and to see the budgetary process as a means of
building legitimacy for public policy.
Legislative Oversight and the Use of Impeachment as Instrument of Control
The mutual tension that tends to characterize the relationship between the
executive and the legislature has remained one of the most important challenges since
the return to a constitutional framework of governance in 1999. At the vortex of the
tension and conflict between the two is the exercise of oversight functions by the
legislature. It is however, a challenge that is rooted in the culture of executive
dominance and the relative institutional weakness of the legislature in Nigeria’s post-
independence political history. The attempt by the first national parliament of the
fourth Republic, especially the House of Representatives, to reverse this trend by
asserting its constitutional powers to oversight the executive in the implementation of
laws and public policies resulted in tension and conflicts with the legislature
threatening to invoke its ultimate power of impeachment. Considering the
constitutional powers conferred on the legislature in the system of checks and balances
that undergirds Nigeria’s presidential democracy, the performance of the legislature in
terms of oversight functions, and the use of impeachment as instrument of enforcing
political accountability on the executive becomes crucial in assessing the performance of
the legislature in the realm of democratic governance.
Central to presidential democracy is the doctrine of separation of powers, by
which the mutual veto embedded in each of the three organs of government as a
guarantee against possible abuse by one domineering branch. Since the tendency in the
presidential system is for the executive to dominate, the watchdog role of the
parliament simply translates into checkmating the excesses of the executive branch. The

34. experience of the United States is telling in this regard as exemplified in a
disproportionate growth in executive authority and a wide accretion of powers in the
presidency beyond the original intention of the framers of the constitution (Burns, et al,
1993: 406). The ability of the legislature, therefore, to provide countervailing power to
the executive is a good measure of improved governance regime in a transitional
democracy.
Indeed, the supremacy of the legislature within the ambit of separation of
powers is reflected in its oversight functions. Although it can be argued that the
legislature in Nigeria has failed largely to express its supremacy in the order of
branches of government through effective use of the “power of the purse”, the
constitution expressly recognizes its oversight functions. Thus, re-affirming the absence
of a watertight compartment, the power of the parliament does not stop with
appropriation of funds. It has the additional responsibility of monitoring the executive
in its implementation of public policies and ensuring that laws and policies are
translated into concrete social delivery. As a measure to check the authoritarianism that
inheres in the wide powers vested in the executive in a presidential democracy, the
constitution confers on the legislative assembly the power of impeachment as well as
the procedure for effecting the impeachment. Consequently, it can be argued that the
logical conclusion of the power of oversight on the executive branch is the power of
impeachment by which a sufficient breach of the Constitution provides the legislature
the opportunity to use its power to remove the executive from power. The question,
however, is what constitutes grave breach of the constitution that should warrant the
legislature to invoke the power of impeachment. While an easy answer to this dilemma
is not fathomable, it is important to stress that it is power which is seldom used by the
legislature as the history of executives successfully impeached in America’s over 200
years of presidential democracy seems to suggest (Burns).
However, as the Nigerian experience tends to show, the kind of pathologies
earlier alluded to tend to shape the psychological disposition of the legislature who,
more often not, resort to the use of impeachment more as an instrument of blackmail
than the constitutional control of an overbearing executive. The first four years of
Nigeria’s democracy provides a glimpse into the possibility that exists for abuse in the
use of the oversight powers of the legislature and the power of impeachment in

35. particular. The threat to repeal the Anti-Corruption Law in the first instance and its
subsequent amendment is one indication of this general tendency. But even more
instructive is the way in which legislative assemblies in the various states tended to
misuse the impeachment clause in the constitution considering the spate of
impeachment of Speakers. In Enugu State, the House of Assembly removed in quick
succession four Speakers through impeachment, while in both Imo and Adamawa
States, the Houses of Assembly removed three Speakers invoking the impeachment
clause. In Abia, Bayelsa and Cross River States, there were at least two instances of
Speakers being removed in each case through impeachment. Although it could be
argued that the desire of the various state Governors to exert control over the legislature
was a key factor in the spate of impeachment, there was a sense in which impeachment
became an instrument of blackmail and political opportunism rather than the original
purpose for which it was designed by the framers of the constitution.
The same can be said of the National Assembly, especially the upper legislative
house where twice, changes were effected in the leadership using the instrumentality of
impeachment. The first President of the Senate, Chief Evans Enwerem was removed
barely six months after he was elected presiding officer on the allegation that he
compromised the independence and integrity of the Senate. His successor, Senator
Chuba Okadigbo was removed barely a year in office on grounds of misuse of power.
The last president of the Senate in the first session managed to survive threats of
removal. Perhaps, the only exception was the removal of the first Speaker of the House
of Representatives, Alhaji Salisu Buhari, early in the life of the first National Assembly
on grounds of falsifying his age and academic certificates. To a large extent, the spate of
impeachment and threats of impeachment of the leadership was partly symptomatic of
the low level of internal governance within the legislative body, and partly a function of
executive interference, but there was also a sense in which impeachment as an
instrument of control and checkmating the excesses of elected public officers became a
cheap instrument of blackmail and political opportunism.
Against this background, it is important to examine in greater detail the
performance of the national parliament on the question of exercising oversight
functions and the manner in which it used impeachment as instrument of enforcing
political accountability. For close watchers of the politics of the fourth Republic, the

36. stand-off between President Olusegun Obasanjo and the National Assembly, following
the move by the House of Representatives, to impeach him dominated the last quarter
of 2002, and brought the current democratic experiment to a stand still. The most
curious aspect of the impeachment drama is the fact that the ruling party, the PDP,
enjoyed control of the two arms of the national parliament, and was not in the position
to avert the confrontation between the executive and the legislature. What this points to,
however, are the obvious institutional and attitudinal weaknesses that characterize
Nigeria’s democratic experience namely, the weakness of the party system and the
absence of democratic temperament in the behaviour of elected public officials at all the
levels of governance.
The impeachment drama started in the middle of August 2002 with the House of
Representatives suspending a two-week recess to set in motion the machinery for the
impeachment of the President. Although the theatre of the drama shifted to the House
of Representatives, threats to impeach the President had been a recurring issue in the
relationship between the executive and the legislature in the brief history of the fourth
Republic started from the House of Senate. The first threat o impeach the President
occurred in June 2000 when Senator Arthur Nzeribe, a PDP Senator, circulated a litany
of impeachable offences purportedly committed by the President in the Senate. The
alleged complicity in the impeachment saga of Senator Chuba Okadigbo who was then
Senate President was believed to be responsible for his eventual removal. The second
call to impeach the President was sponsored by Senator Idris Abubakar of the ANPP,
and it centred on non-implementation of federal budgets. The fact that the motion to
impeach the President was tacitly supported by the Senate President, Pius Anyim,
believed to have been put in leadership position by the President to do his bidding, led
many to conclude that new trends were emerging in the relationship between the
executive and the legislature (Mamodu, 2002:44).
Unlike the previous threats, the notice of impeachment and the option to resign
within two weeks, which the House of Representatives confronted President Obasanjo
with, in August 2002 was more than a superficial episode. Not only did it reflect the
groundswell of opposition to the dictatorial tendencies of the President within the
national legislature, there was a clear political will to defend the independence of the
legislature. (Nwachukwu, 2004:44) provides a detailed account of how the relationships

37. between the President and the lower house evolved, and eventually degenerated into
tension and the impeachment move. The relationship started with friction and some
level of distance between the President and the leadership because of the perceived
contempt of the President for members whom he preferred to refer to as “boys”. This,
however, changed late in 2001 when Alhaji Umar Ghali Na’abba decided to move closer
to the President as a strategy of winning material benefits to members of the House who
were starved of funds. But this fairly smooth relationship between the lower House and
the Presidency which peaked with the Speaker enjoying the privilege of using
presidential jet for his lesser hajj trip in 2001 did not last as the controversy which
trailed the Electoral Act, 2001 brought back mutual tension and antagonism. This
antagonism reached the highest point following the “State of the Nation” debate
conducted by the House during which a litany of allegations including high
handedness, dictatorial tendencies, failure to grapple with economic and social
problems, and gross violations of the constitution, among others, were leveled against
the President.
Thus, following the debate on the “State of the Nation”, the House, following the
adoption of a motion, issued an ultimatum to the President to either resign within two
weeks or be impeached. The motion to impeach the President was sponsored by
Mohammed Kumaila of the ANPP who accused the President of incompetence, lack of
political will to tackle corruption, and non-implementation of budgets. The House later
on compiled a total of 17 allegations of constitutional breaches against the President.
Most of the allegations bothering on unauthorized spending and outright violations of
the Revenue Allocation Act include:
i. Issuance of a presidential order purportedly amending the Revenue Allocation
Act which amounted to a violation of Sections 161 (1) and (2) and 313 of the 1999
Constitution;
ii. Engaging in extra-budgetary spending including N60 billion on the National
Stadium, Abuja; payment of N12billion to Julius Berger Plc and the purchase of
63 houses for Ministers to the tune of N3 billion, in violation of Section 80 (2), (3),
and (4)of the 1999 Constitution;
iii. Deployment of troops to Odi in Bayelsa and Zaki Biam in Benue State in 2000
and 2001 respectively, resulting in murder of innocent citizens and massive

38. destruction of property without lawful authority contrary to Section 217 (c) of the
1999 Constitution;
iv. Refusal to fully implement the recurrent budget as it affected the salaries of staff
and overheads of ministries contrary to the provisions of the Appropriation Act,
2002;
v. Unilateral cut across the board of overhead costs contained in the 2002
Appropriation Act by 50% without the approval of the National Assembly;
vi. Unilateral merger of the Federal Road Safety Commission and the Nigerian
Police without a bill for an Act to harmonise the two bodies and/or repeal the
Federal Road Safety Commission Act.
vii. Merging without an enabling legislation, the Nigerian Bank for Commerce and
Industry (NBCI), the National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND), and
the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB) to form the Bank of Industry,
while the laws establishing each of these institutions were still valid and
subsisting.
viii. The appointment, without consultation with the Police Council, of Musiliu Smith
as Inspector-General of the Police, contrary to 1999 Constitution; and
ix. The appointment of an Acting Auditor-General of the Federation exceeding a
period of six months without the resolution of the Senate contrary to Section 8 b
(3) of the 1999 Constitution (Newswatch, September 16, 2002).
On the basis of these allegations, a number of which had to do with alleged
violation of appropriation laws, the growing insecurity in the country and the running
of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), the House served on the
President a formal notice of impeachment (Tell, September 23, 2002). The president’s
remark at the end of the ultimatum given him to resign, to the effect that the
impeachment threat was “a joke carried too far” inflamed the passion of the legislators.
Considering the gravity of the alleged breaches and the tide of public opinion which
appeared to register disaffection with the style of leadership of the President, the Upper
legislative house joined the impeachment move. Emboldened by the support of the
upper House, the Speaker of the Lower House was quoted as saying that 13 new
offences had been discovered and added to the initial seventeen (This Day, October 10,
2002).

39. It would appear that the resort to impeachment as the ultimate instrument of
oversight and ensuring political accountability was necessitated by the increasing
frustration of the legislature to stamp their authority on the process of governance. This
can be seen in the failure of the leadership of the National Assembly to check the
growing powers of members of the executive. At the end of July, for example, the
Senate took a decision to invite Mallam Adamu Ciroma, the Minister of Finance over
the decision of the Federal Executive Council to slash the capital vote in the 2002 budget
by 44% (This Day, August 2, 2002). Prior to this, the issue of low level of implementation
of appropriation law and the deliberate refusal of the executive to be engaged on the
matter had been a key issue in the relationship between the two arms of government.
The National Assembly was so enraged over the implementation of the 2001 budget in
particular that it initially refused to debate the 2002 budget proposal. To worsen
matters, the President sidetracked the National Assembly in the review of the
Appropriation Act 2002, which the national Parliament reluctantly enacted once the
Supreme Court judgment on resource control in April 2002 virtually rendered non-
existent the Appropriation Law. Instead, the President relied on a committee, which he
set up to carry out a review (Nwachukwu, 2002:44).
The impeachment imbroglio, which lasted for about three months, appeared to
have taught the President a major lesson about the dynamics of democracy. The
President was forced to shift from dismissing the move as a “joke” and to confront it as
a political reality. As part of his last ditched effort to diffuse the threat, the President
engaged in lobbying members of the Senate to his side in a desperate move to ensure
that the impeachment motion did not secure the required 2/3 majority in the upper
house. He was not only reported to have resorted to praying and fasting (Newswatch,
September 23, 2002), but also sought the intervention of elder statesmen, particularly
credible northern political leaders. This became necessary following the inability of the
party machinery to resolve the impasse. The intervention of the National Working
Committee of the ruling party, and the initiative spearheaded by Chief Audu Ogbeh,
the Chairman of the party, who uprightly accused Umar Ghali Na’abba of treason, the
lower House maintained its resolve to impeach the President. The President first
allegedly sought the intervention of Alhaji Umaru Dikko and Alhaji Umaru Tanko
Yakassai to prevail on Ghali Umar Na’bba to back down on the impeachment threat.