THE PROVISIONS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIVES AND DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES OF STATE POLICY

THE PROVISIONS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIVES AND DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES OF STATE POLICY 

Introduction

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 has in no small way affected the various constitutions of Nigeria, the 1999 Constitution being no exception. What the Nigerian Constitution provides as Fundamental Objectives and Directives Principles of State Policy, the former prescribes as constituting human rights. The Nigerian executive arm of government is provided for in the Constitution1. It is saddled with functions which basically revolve around executing the laws made by the legislature. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 made provision for Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy, under its Chapter Two. These objectives merely provide a guide to any government in power in Nigeria and contain essential needs of the people in Nigeria on political, economic, social, educational, foreign policy, environmental, cultural, media, national ethics matters and duties of citizens. These objectives and principle , if turned into human rights, would lead to a new Nigeria devoid of the majority of the setbacks currently witnessed in the present Nigeria which manifest in the form of socio-economic problems like unemployment, lack of basic amenities at a significant level, low level of social welfare and disunity as evidenced in the current religious, political or tribal disturbances or clashes

. Another gain of immense magnitude is that there would be a better rapport between the government and the governed in the social contract underlying the relations in a modern state. The Social Contract theory of the school of jurisprudence opines that the masses in a given society surrender their freedom to the state for the latter to protect their interests. Difficulties in that relationship should be recognized and confronted rather than ignored3. Again, development plans shall be made based on the recognized needs or difficulties and it has been stated that clarity of development plans is a panacea for underdevelopment4. Good development plans on the economic and educational objectives of the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy in Nigeria, for instance, would be a basis for building a better Nigeria. Efforts geared at the privatization of public enterprises which is a current policy of government could yield positive results if the whole exercise is done according to law and transparently too. The Bureau for Public Enterprise could blaze the transparency culture into full acceptance of the policy by Nigerians as the names and addresses of the shareholders of governmental parastatals sold to private individuals are published. Any privatization process contrary to law and public concerns as expressed by local authorities5 is bound to be unsuccessful.

 It is the requirement of the 1999 constitution that the economic system is not operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group. Shrouding the privatization activities or any part of it in secrecy would not solve the problem identified already and meant to be addressed by this section of the Constitution.

THE PROVISIONS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIVES AND DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES OF STATE POLICY 

The provisions of the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State policy in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999 are a welcome development. These provisions include objectives on political, economic, social, educational, foreign policy, environmental, cultural, media, national ethics matters and duties of citizens. However, the drawback to the appropriation of these ‘dreams’ or objectives by citizens as of right is the provision in section 6, sub-section (6), paragraph (c) of the 1999 Constitution which makes the objectives non-justiceable. There is an urgent need to delete the above provision from the Constitution and subject the objectives to binding governmental obligations known as Constitutional Projects which would encourage the use of the public fund for common good. This bold step would attenuate inclinations to financial corruption in Nigeria.

 Constitutional projects should be paired with Constitutional fund or proceed from the Federation Account and constituency projects by Federal Law Makers abolished. Moreover, it is submitted that a new revenue utilization policy should be introduced whereby budgeting should not be made yearly, henceforth, but rather made to cover the life span of an administration at the end of which the administration is subjected to an official probe and that by independent prosecutors.

·         Origins of Democracy

o    The early Greek political system of direct democracy provided democracy’s foundation of political participation.

• Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
• Civil rights refer to the promotion of equality; civil liberties refer to the promotion of freedom. Together, these often include the right to practice religion, to speak freely, and to equal treatment under the law, among other rights.
• Democracies around the world vary in the number and types of rights emphasized in their constitutions. Some of the rights rest in the individuals, such as the freedom of speech, while other countries place the state as the defender and creator of these rights, such as the right to education.  Liberty is therefore not simply the absence of controls over our scope of action but also something that must be created, institutionalized, and defended.

ARMS OF GOVERNMENT UNDER 1999 CONSTITUTION

To ensure a separation of powers, the Federal Government is made up of three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. To ensure the government is effective and citizens' rights are protected, each branch has its own powers and responsibilities, including working with the other branches.

FALSE DEMOCRATIC REGIME IN NIGERIA HINDERED HER CONSTITUTIONS

Democracy is quite simply a system where the people elect their leaders at every level in free and fair elections. The most important and symbolic aspect of democracy is thus the ability to freely elect the leaders by the people which also represents the most significant difference between democracy and other forms of government. Without this essential ingredient, democracy ceases to exist. 

Since the ancient Greeks pioneered the modern art of democracy, it has triumphed against other systems of government and become the global model.  By its very nature in which leaders emerge and can be removed only through the vote of the people, democracy no doubts better guarantees the responsiveness of leaders to the needs of their people. 

Nigeria pretends to be a democracy, but even by a layman’s definition of the basic ideas of democracy, it is obvious that the democratic process begun in 1999, after decades of military rule, is nothing but a scam. 11 years after, Nigerians of all stripes are reeling in disappointment as they live through a 419 democracy that has turned out to be the most visionless and corrupt in the nation’s chequered history. While the illegitimate so-called leaders or rather “lootocrats” continue to bandy the false label of a democracy, in reality, it has been more a clone of military regimes where the usurpers of power have used the apparatus of the state, complemented by godfathers and other enablers to deliberately and   routinely rig elections and impose pre-selected candidates at every level of government.

The fraudulent system that pretends to be a democracy has in the last 11 years, unleashed an unconscionable and shameless bunch of unelected criminals at every level of governance. True to type, they have gone on to undertake the greatest looting spree in the nation’s history. 11 years after and with earnings of more than N34 trillion or $350 billion courtesy of an unprecedented oil boom, there is absolutely nothing to show for the record earnings.  The most basic necessities of life such as roads, pipe borne water, electricity, functional hospitals, etc are simply non-existent.

Nigeria ready for democracy or, put in another way, are Nigerians ready for democratic consolidation? These questions are germane and imperative considering where we are at the moment. The question, are we ready for democracy, makes sense because what we have had since 1999 is not democracy but the autocratic civil rule.  It has been nothing other than the rule by godfathers, mobsters and former unrepentant dictators who seem bent on controlling Nigeria from the frontlines and puppet strings after their years in power. The term, democratic consolidation, is relevant to those who think we are in a democracy, and as such, we need to move to the next level of the democratic agenda.

But we are not in a democracy because democracy is about human rights and development. For human rights, we have witnessed a little improvement compared to the days of the military dictatorship, but we are not there yet as we have moved forward and then backward in a one step forward, and another step backward movement. It has just been about the movement in a barber’s chair that leads to nowhere but movement on the same spot. And this is not where we are supposed to be.

The Peoples Democratic Party had its chances for 16 years to set Nigerian firmly on the path of progress and development. However, it chose to bungle the opportunity when it elected President Olusegun Obasanjo and other succeeding presidents from the party. Members of the party did not understand democracy but were focused on personal aggrandizement and driving the arrogance of power to new heights while deriving the perks of office to the maximum available. It is admitted that Obasanjo engineered some reforms, but his score was poor overall. He delivered so little with so many opportunities to excel and change the Nigerian landscape.

Obasanjo was a man who had the opportunity the first time between 1976 and 1979 and secondly for eight years between 1999 and 2007 to change the history of Nigeria. But he chose to blow the opportunity on the arrogance of a megalomaniac. And the greatest disservice he did to Nigeria was not to allow genuine primaries at the presidential and other levels within the party, coupled with his desire to subjugate the legislature. Thus, Obasanjo set the stage for the denigration of internal democracy in our political parties.

Enter, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua who did not rule long for us to have enough time to properly assess his style of governance. His key highlights were his 7-Point Agenda and his profession to the rule of law. But there was evidence that he did not understand governance at the highest level, being someone who never desired or aspired to rule or lead Nigeria, but was only invited by Obasanjo to assume power. He was a reluctant and unprepared President who was struggling with his ill-health, at the same time, trying to understand federal governance challenges as well as setting his agenda of governance. Unfortunately, God called him back and not much changed. The confounding part of his regime was the fact that he sought to revise a number of President Obasanjo’s agenda even though they came from the same party and he was handpicked by the same Obasanjo. And the issues he revised and failed to agree with Obasanjo and delayed policy implementation were the few good points of the Obasanjo regime.

President Goodluck Jonathan came as a self-professed breath of fresh air, with so much euphoria about his education, being the first person with a doctorate to rule Nigeria. His amiable personality and the fact that he comes from a minority group all made him a hot cake. There was a wildfire of goodwill and expectations from Jonathan. Unfortunately, the lethargic comportment of the PDP also enveloped him as he could not control the corruption, excesses and the mischief from his party and they ended up crashing the goodwill of the party on the altar of the All Progressives Congress. But the ascendancy of Jonathan was against the zoning formula of the PDP, which had agreed to the rotation of power between Northern and Southern Nigeria and among the six geopolitical zones. Since Yar’Adua did not complete his tenure which was interpreted as the turn of the North, the expectation was that another Northerner should have succeeded him. Thus, the groundswell of opposition to President Jonathan was beyond his sins in power but fuelled by a desire for a return to the original power-sharing formula.

The APC benefitted from the prevalent mood in the country and promised to be different. Specifically, President Muhammadu Buhari benefitted from this mood and got elected into power. Incidentally, we have been on the APC change agenda for over three years but the more things change, the more they remain the same. Indeed, in many sectors, there has been retrogression. Nigerians wanted to change, yes, we got change, but not in the direction we desired. We are simply at the point of total stagnation, with the leadership not coming forward with any new ideas of governance. They are simply using the old ideas of the PDP with little or no polish but implementing them in the crudest and barbaric of ways.

Nigeria now witnesses its President and Attorney-General of the Federation justifying disobedience to court orders which were rare in the PDP days or at best, in the memory days of Prof Yadudu as Gen Sani Abacha’s Attorney-General. We now witness killings by herdsmen with impunity while the President asks us to pray and refuses to do anything about protecting the right to life. We now have a presidential spokesman who is impunity personified with the effrontery of asking landowners to forfeit their lands or be killed by herdsmen who evidently are above the law. We have a President who hails General Yakubu Gowon for introducing the National Youths Service Corps while keeping mum on his Minister of Finance who allegedly lied on oath and falsified exemption document to show that she did the youth service when in actual fact, she did not serve. Just like in the Obasanjo regime, the anti-corruption agencies have been turned into vendetta machines to chase the President’s political opponents out of town under the guise of a war on corruption.

CONCLUSION

It is to a high extent that one of the significant innovations in our constitutions in recent times is the inclusion of fundamental objectives and directive principle of state policy of Nigeria. However, it is not an understatement to say that the provisions on fundamental objectives and directives principles of state policy of Nigeria as enshrined in the 1979, 1989 and 1999 constitutions of the federal republic of Nigeria (as amended) are controversial. The controversy trailing the provision is not unconnected to its non-enforceability and judiciability in our law courts. People have argued that the enforceability and justiciability have made the provisions unachievable, incapable of furthering the aims of good governance and sustainable development.

Hence I am in support of these facts, as the constitution itself has not been considered even when we claimed to operate under the democratic regime for the past 18 years. The way in which power is wielded and performed in the current political dispensation in Nigeria bears out and complicates Foucault's thesis of subtle and stealthy power at the same time; it is at once crudely physical and invisibly subtle, and as such it gives no room to democracy, Fundamental Objectives and Directives Principles of State Policy, effective citizenship, fundamental human right and all arms of governments are dominated by so-called federal body.  It is so brutally real that one can only speak of a power-knowledge regime with some intellectual trepidation.            

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