This is a sequel of sorts to an earlier piece, Restructuring: History 101, published in
this newspaper. We now can comfortably presume that the Jury is finally in on
the vexed topic: restructuring. If Nigeria were to “catch-up”, she must necessarily
restructure her administrative apparatus. Much earlier, another piece in this
newspaper, Legislature should elect
president and governors, had deployed technical facts to make the point
that Nigeria is, indeed, NOT a democracy, but republican. The rising calls for
restructuring, and ipso facto a
reversion to the 1963 Constitution inspired the current piece. The latter article
is quoted in extenso below:
“Were the United States of America a democracy, Hillary
Clinton, the Democratic Party candidate in the 2016 presidential election would
have broken the ‘glass ceiling,’ and become the first female US president
because she won the popular votes by some three million. Rather, the Republican
candidate, Donald Trump became president because the US practises
republicanism, thanks to the collegiate votes. Not a few persons still wonder
at the difference of the two terms due to the convenient-interchangeability to which
politicians have rendered them over the centuries. The thought would not have
crossed the minds of the US founding fathers who under the apparent influence
of Plato’s Republic, rejected
democracy, lock, key and barrel.
“George Washington who had presided over the Constitutional
Convention and later accepted the honour of being chosen as the first president
of the US under its new Constitution, indicated during his inaugural address in
April 1789, that he would dedicate himself to the ‘preservation of the
republican model of government.’ James Madison, who is rightly known as the ‘Father
of the US Constitution,’ wrote in the Federalist, No. 10: ‘…democracy have been
spectacles of turbulence and contentions; have ever been found incompatible
with personal security; or the right of property; and have in general been as
short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths.’ John Adams, a
signatory to the US Declaration of Independence, said he championed the new
Constitution because it would not create a democracy. He had insisted that
democracy never lasts long, ‘it soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There
was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.’ Alexander Hamilton in his
stead had averred that ‘we are forming a Republican form of government. Real
liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.
If we incline too much to democracy we shall soon shoot into monarchy or some
other form of a dictatorship… Our real disease is DEMOCRACY.’
“It is therefore not a wonder that the word ‘democracy’ is
not found in the US Constitution. Article IV, Section 4 of that Constitution
categorically declares: ‘The US shall guarantee to every state in the Union a
Republican form of government.’ Republicanism recognizes the gradations that
exist in human societies, and therefore posits that electoral votes be
aggregated. Democracy, on the other hand, promotes the doctrine of absolute
equality of all humans; each vote carries equal weight. Therefore it is
disingenuous to interchangeably employ the two terms; the one is cheese, while
the other is chalk.
“Article IV, Section 4 of the US Constitution could well have
been influenced by Edward Gibbon’s The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which appeared in the
period of US Declaration of Independence. That towering masterpiece traces the
Roman history from the middle of the Second Century A.D. to the dissolution of
the Western Empire late in the Fifth Century, through the Dark Ages and the
Middle Ages in Western Europe, including the history of the Eastern and
Byzantium for a thousand years to the fall of the Constantinople in 1453. The Decline and Fall deploys empirical
evidence to show that the greatest western empire ever, collapsed essentially
due to the failure of democracy in
the Roman constituencies.
“According to the treatise, as the Roman Empire’s material
wealth attained unprecedented proportions, following many conquests, her
emperors felt the irresistible urge to centralize administration. With
centralization went the liberty for individual initiative and creativity.
Consequently, constituencies’ contributions to the common wealth declined. That
declining fortunes adversely affected citizen’s morale, inclusive of the soldiers,
thus the fall of the Roman Empire. Centuries after, the Great British Empire
would follow that declining trajectory; see The
Decline and Fall of the British Empire, (Allen and Co. Ltd, Bocardo Press,
Oxford, 2005).
“From the respective fall of both empires we could see that
the ‘collect and share wealth’ philosophy, a cardinal attribute of democracy,
which only works as long as there is someone else’s money to share, is doomed
to eventual collapse. Those receiving are quite pleased with getting something
for nothing. But those forced to give are denied the right to spend the benefit
of their natural endowments and labour on their own self-interest, which
creates jobs no matter how the money is spent. They also lose a portion of
their incentive to produce. The result is that democracy always collapses over
loose fiscal policy. This historical lesson must have moved another US founding
father, Benjamin Franklin, to define democracy in these graphic words ‘two
wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed
lamb contesting the vote.’”
Conclusively, therefore, the United States of America practises
a republican form of government. And since we purportedly imported our present
form of governments from the US, it is appropriate to aver that Nigeria aspires
to practise republicanism. Thusly, a republican Constitution must necessarily
guide her endeavours. Need we state that a more forceful argument cannot be
made for reverting to the much-acclaimed 1963 Constitution; and by extension,
for Nigeria’s administrative restructuring?
Afam Nkemdiche; consulting engineer. August, 2019
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