Presidential Responsibility In Nigeria's Second Republic
by Charles A. Ikokwu
The Presidency is so tremendous that it is necessary for a President to delegate authority, but the larger responsibility is for him to have around him people he can trust.SERIOUS questions have been raised about the scope and limits of executive power in the last Presidential system of government. These questions have even become more important following assertions by highly placed government officials that Alhaji Shehu Shagari can be exonerated of any responsibility for the deeds of his appointed subordinates.
Charles A. Ikokwu, the writer who holds an MBA Management (Government and Business) is a Nigerian resident in the United States of America.
When the Shagari administration was sworn in about five years ago, Nigerian and foreign students of gov- ernment and politics regarded the occasion as the beginning of a great experiment in constitutional democratic leadership and therefore watched its development and subsequent collapse closely. With our nation's parliamentary proclivities as a result of our decades of association with Her Majesty's government, expectations varied as our experiment began. We all essentially knew that the development of the office was to depend to a great deal on the personal characteristics brought to bear on the office by the first Executive President.
The issue of presidential character of the Chief Executive assumed great im- portance since there was no prece- dence, and precedence, we know, is in itself a source of legal and moral auth- ority. Shehu Shagari, therefore, had a unique opportunity in our nation's history to help define the substance and effectiveness of presidential auth- ority, its limits, and scope. Only time will tell if he has contributed significantly enough to make finding answers easier.
In general terms, the power of the Presidency could be divided into three major categories of authority: statutory, constitutional, and extra constitutional. Much of the President's authority was delegated by Acts of the Legislature - in fact, virtually all major legislations include grants of power to the executive so that he may effectuate national policies. Whatever the reasons for legislative grants of authority, statutory delegations were an important part of the President's reservoir of power.
The second kind of presidential authority is constitutional: power vested in the President by the basic law and exercisable by him on his own initiative. This is a difficult area to fully define because problems arise when the Constitution itself is involved. The extent of Presidential authority has been the subject of continuing national debate in the United States of America, between 'broad' and 'strict' construction of the powers outlined in the constitution. Every President has been involved in this debate, all propounding a 'theory of broad presidential power' by asserting that it was limited only by 'specific restrictions and constitutional or legislative prohibitions.'
President Theodore Roosevelt viewed the President as the 'steward of the people,' having not only the right but the duty to do whatever the needs of the nation demanded, unless such action is forbidden 'by the Constitution of the Laws.' Emphasizing the President's tribunate character, this 'stewardship theory' places the executive in the centre of the governmental system, but it does not help very much in defining just what obviously vast residue of power not constitutionally or legally forbidden to the President includes.
Based on the American experience, the President is constitutionally Head of State, Chief Executive, Head of Administration, Chief Foreign Policy maker, Commander in Chief, and Legislative Leader. Under these titles, he has independent power to perform, among many others, such varied and significant functions as recognizing new governments, enforcing legislative enactments and judicial decisions, subdelegating presidential authority, making executive agreements which have the force of treaties, deploying the armed forces, and recommending or vetoing legislation.
These and all the other activities which flow from the constitution either by direct sanction or reasonable implication comprise an impressive array of powers even if exercised by a President whose conception of the office is modest. When placed in the hands of a strong President, they take on overwhelming proportions, resulting in the theory of 'inherent powers."
In the Nigerian context, former President Shagari would have provided us with our firm determination of what inherent powers are derived from constitutional authority. There is another kind of power which supersedes the constitutional power just discussed - Extra-constitutional. Presidential prerogative is the most difficult to assay, however, because it is acknowledged in political theory and unrecognized in jurisprudence.
In America, many Presidents have resorted to extraconstitutional power, but only Abraham Lincoln, whose dictatorial regime at the beginning of the Civil War remains the clearest example of reliance on such authority, ever admitted the true nature of his actions, expressing the hope that 'measures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the preservation of the Nation.' The Civil War President exceeded his constitutional auth ority in many instances, from the independent raising of an army to the unauthorized expenditure of public funds.
Yet, when Woodrow Wilson used indirect sanctions to gain compliance with his war agencies' directives; when Franklin Roosevelt closed the banks, traded destroyers for bases, threatened to repeal existing legislation, and interned citizens solely because of their racial descent; and when Harry Truman committed the nation to war on his own initiative - all were acting in the Lincolnian tradition. I am sure future historians will tell us how much Alhaji Shagari helped chart the course of Presidential politics in terms of use of various types of power.
The Presidency is a centre of energy and direction and decision-making and a continuous process of the President's existence in a dynamic environment. The environment is laden with situations and events pressing for attention; with ideas and movements; with the interest and ambitions of men and nations; with political friends and foes; with previous decisions that have failed and succeeded.
With this background, let us examine the definition of the Presidency. First, the President was the Leader of the Executive Branch. To the extent that our public officials have need of common guidance, he alone was in any position to provide it. We hoped that he was held primarily accountable for the ethics, loyalty, efficiency, frugality, and responsiveness to the public's wishes of the entire administration, particularly his personal choices of advisers and ministers.
From the constitution, explicitly or implicitly, he received the twin powers of appointment and removal, as well as the primary duty, which no law or plan or circumstance could ever take away from him, to take care 'that the laws be faithfully executed."
Next, the President was the leader of the forces of peace and war where his position was paramount, if not dominant. Although assisted by other arms of government, logic of history combined to place the President in a dominant position. Secrecy, despatch, unity, continuity, and access to information - the ingredients of successful diplomacy - were properties of his office.
Thirdly, the President alone was in a political, constitutional, and practical position to provide leadership for legis- lative efforts at solving the country's problems, and therefore, expected, within the limits of propriety, to guide the legislature in much of its law making activity. His tasks as Leader of the Legislature were difficult and deli- cate, yet he must be judged a failure if history records that he was unable to influence the legislature.
Fourthly, the President was the leader of his party, for his power was political and was provided by his party. It may have troubled many people to watch the President dabble in politics, but for all practical purposes his first loyalty was to his party. The President was inevitably the nation's No. 1 political boss. Finally, he was in the same breath the leader of public opinion. While he was to act as political chief to some, he was to be moral spokesman for all. In short, the President was to be the focal point of politics and policy in our political system. Having engaged in this piecemeal analysis of the categories of Presidential leadership, we must now fit the pieces back together into a seamless unity, and hope this exercise in political taxonomy has not obscured the paramount task of this exercise - Presidential responsibility.
Alhaji Shehu Shagari was elected to provide a steady focus of leadership. In a constitutional system compounded by diversity and antagonism as our dear country was, the presidency was to serve as the countervailing force of unity and harmony. In a society ridden by centrifugal forces, it was the only point of reference we all had in common.
The character and strength of the President should have been demonstrated in his ability to discipline his lieutenants from whom he felt he was not getting a credible discharge of his policies and wishes. To separate Shagari from the excesses of his appointees, I think, is a failure in the definition of presidential responsibility. More importantly, our country's leaders will set a precedent, the consequences of which no one can now fully contemplate.
A headmaster can now lay blame on his teachers and students for ineffective leadership? How can a battalion commander have his second-in-command detained for the failure of the troops in carrying out battle strategy and losing to enemy forces? I am concerned that more than the risk of pleasing one man, we may be doing irredeemable damage to the theory of presidential responsibility.
The Presidency is so tremendous that it is necessary for a President to delegate authority, but the larger responsibility is for the President to have around him people he can trust and who will not overstep the boundaries of delegated authority. That Alhaji Shehu Shagari can attempt to personally exclude himself from the incompetence, graft, mismanagement, and insensitivity to the needs of our Second Republic demonstrates the flaw in the man's character. In Europe and America, heads of government regularly take responsibility for the failings of policies and appointees. Some have had to resign. The tragedy of our Second Republic was not the system but the practitioners. History may reverse the present judgement and find him guilty of poor leadership, which may have precipitated all other ills for which our beloved country now bleeds and men and women are left so forlorn and unprepared.
