WAEC SSCE - Government - 2003 (Essay)

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The executive is the organ of government that formulates and implements policies and administers the affairs of the state. Because it wields enormous powers, various controls exist to prevent it from becoming arbitrary or dictatorial. These controls include the following:

1. Control by the constitution: The powers of the executive are defined and limited by the constitution. Any act done beyond these powers (ultra vires) is invalid, and the doctrine of constitutionalism binds the executive to act only within the law.
2. Control by the legislature: The legislature checks the executive by making the laws it must implement, approving the budget and controlling public finance, questioning ministers, conducting investigations through committees, and (in a parliamentary system) passing a vote of no confidence. It may also impeach the president or reject his appointments and treaties.
3. Control by the judiciary: Through judicial review, the courts can declare the acts and orders of the executive null and void where they are unconstitutional or contrary to law. The courts protect citizens' rights against executive abuse.
4. The doctrine of separation of powers and checks and balances: By separating the executive from the legislature and judiciary and enabling each to check the others, the concentration of power in the executive is prevented.
5. Control by public opinion and the mass media: A free press, radio and public criticism expose executive misconduct and compel the executive to act responsibly and account to the people.
6. Control through periodic elections: The electorate can vote out an unpopular or oppressive executive at regular elections, making the executive answerable to the people.
7. Control by political parties and pressure groups: Opposition parties criticise and monitor government, while pressure groups and civil society organisations mobilise resistance to unpopular executive actions.
8. Internal administrative controls: Bodies such as the ombudsman (public complaints commission), the auditor-general, anti-corruption agencies and the civil service rules check administrative abuse and financial misconduct within the executive.
9. International control: International opinion, treaty obligations and bodies such as the AU, ECOWAS and the UN can restrain an executive that violates human rights or international law.

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After the Second World War, Britain introduced new constitutions in her West African colonies (for example the Richards Constitution of 1946 in Nigeria and the Burns Constitution of 1946 in the Gold Coast). Nationalists criticised these post-1945 constitutions for the following reasons:

1. Lack of adequate consultation: The constitutions, especially the Richards Constitution, were imposed on the people without genuine consultation with the nationalists and the population, who resented being handed a constitution they had no part in framing.
2. Retention of colonial control (official majority and reserved powers): Real power was still concentrated in the hands of the Governor and colonial officials. The Governor retained reserve and veto powers, so the constitutions did not transfer meaningful authority to Nigerians or Africans.
3. Limited African representation and the nominated principle: Africans remained under-represented, and many members were nominated by the Governor rather than elected by the people, so the legislatures were not truly representative.
4. Very restricted franchise: The right to vote was limited by high property and income qualifications and confined to a few towns, so the great majority of the people had no vote.
5. No real responsible government: The constitutions gave Africans no control over the executive; there was no ministerial responsibility, and the executive council was not answerable to the legislature.
6. Emphasis on regionalism and division: The Richards Constitution divided Nigeria into three regions, which nationalists condemned as a device to divide the country along ethnic lines and weaken the united nationalist front.
7. Slow pace towards self-government: The constitutions made no clear provision for early self-government or independence, and their reforms fell far short of nationalist demands.

Because of these defects, nationalist agitation forced Britain to revise the constitutions, leading to the more liberal Macpherson (1951) and later constitutions.

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The Organization of African Unity (OAU), founded in 1963 and succeeded by the African Union in 2002, was created to promote unity and co-operation among African states. The member states co-operated with one another in the following ways:

1. Political co-operation and defence of sovereignty: Members agreed to respect one another's sovereignty and territorial integrity, to refrain from interfering in one another's internal affairs, and to settle their disputes peacefully, thereby maintaining peace among themselves.
2. Liberation of the continent: Through the OAU Liberation Committee, members co-operated by giving moral, financial and material support to nationalist movements fighting colonialism and apartheid in territories such as Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
3. Economic co-operation: Members co-operated to promote trade, harmonise economic policies, encourage joint development projects and reduce dependence on the former colonial powers, laying the basis for continental economic integration.
4. Peaceful settlement of disputes: The OAU established a Commission of Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration and used its machinery to mediate in border and other conflicts among member states (for example between Algeria and Morocco, and Somalia and its neighbours).
5. Cultural, educational and social co-operation: Members co-operated in education, science, health, culture and sports, exchanging teachers, students and expertise, and promoting African identity and solidarity.
6. Common stand in world affairs: Member states co-operated by adopting common positions and speaking with one voice in international organisations such as the United Nations, and by pursuing non-alignment in the cold-war rivalry.
7. Mutual assistance and solidarity: Members assisted one another in times of natural disaster, refugee crises and emergencies, and stood together against external aggression and neo-colonialism.

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In British West Africa before the Second World War, the Legislative Council was the law-making body in each colony, but it was firmly controlled by the colonial power so that real authority remained in British hands. The ways in which it was controlled include the following:

1. Official majority: The council was dominated by an official majority, that is, colonial officials (heads of departments and nominated officers) who outnumbered the unofficial and African members. Since officials were bound to vote as the Governor directed, the government could always carry any measure it wanted.
2. The Governor's presidency and control: The Governor presided over the council and controlled its business. He determined when it met, what it discussed and could dominate its proceedings.
3. Nomination rather than election: Most members, including the few Africans, were nominated by the Governor rather than elected by the people. Only a very small number of seats (in Lagos, Calabar and later a few coastal towns) were elective. Nominated members owed their positions to the Governor and could be removed by him.
4. The Governor's reserve and veto powers: The Governor possessed reserve powers to pass any bill the council rejected, and to certify measures as necessary in the public interest. He could also veto or refuse assent to bills.
5. Control by the Colonial Office in London: The Secretary of State for the Colonies in London supervised the council. Laws could be disallowed by the Crown, and the Governor acted on instructions from London.
6. Limited jurisdiction: The competence of the council was restricted, often to the Colony and not the whole territory (for example the Protectorate of Northern and Southern Nigeria was outside its full reach), and financial matters were closely controlled.
7. Restricted franchise and property qualification: The few elective seats were based on a narrow franchise with high property and income qualifications, so only a handful of Africans could vote, keeping popular control minimal.

In sum, through the official majority, nomination, restricted franchise and the Governor's overriding powers, the Legislative Council remained an instrument of colonial control rather than an organ of self-government.

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(a) Organisational structure of the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM)

The NYM was organised as a modern political association with the following structure:

1. National officers / central leadership: At the top was a body of national officers, led by a President, supported by a Vice-President, General Secretary, Treasurer, Financial Secretary, Publicity Secretary and other officers who directed the affairs of the movement.
2. The Executive Committee (Central Executive): A national executive committee made up of the principal officers and elected members ran the day-to-day administration and took major decisions between conventions.
3. The Annual Convention / General Assembly: This was the supreme decision-making organ where delegates from the branches met to lay down policy, elect officers and adopt programmes such as the Nigerian Youth Charter.
4. Branches: The movement established branches in Lagos and in various provincial towns across Nigeria, each with its own local officers, giving it a country-wide network unlike earlier Lagos-based parties.
5. General membership: Membership was open to Nigerians who subscribed to its aims, paid dues and supported its programme; the members formed the base of the organisation.
6. Organ of publicity: The movement ran the Daily Service newspaper as its mouthpiece for spreading its ideas and mobilising support.

(b) What led to its collapse

1. The Ikoli-Akinsanya leadership crisis (1941): A bitter dispute broke out over who should fill the Legislative Council seat vacated by Kofoworola Abayomi. The contest between Ernest Ikoli and Samuel Akinsanya, and the way it was handled, split the leadership.
2. Ethnic and personal rivalry: The crisis assumed an ethnic colouring, and the withdrawal of Nnamdi Azikiwe and many of his supporters from the movement, following the dispute, dealt it a fatal blow.
3. Personality clashes and ambition: Rivalry and distrust among the leading personalities (Ikoli, Akinsanya, Azikiwe, Davies and others) destroyed the unity of the movement.
4. Disagreement over aims and strategy: Differences over methods and direction weakened cohesion.
5. Mass resignations and loss of support: The resignations that followed the crisis drained the movement of members and finance, so that it lost its influence and effectively disintegrated, paving the way for the emergence of the NCNC in 1944.

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(a) Three fundamental human rights of a citizen

Fundamental human rights are the basic entitlements guaranteed to every citizen by the constitution, which the state is bound to protect. Three of them are:

1. Right to life: Every citizen is entitled to live, and no one may be deprived of life except in the execution of a lawful sentence passed by a competent court.
2. Right to personal liberty: No citizen may be arrested or detained arbitrarily; a person may only be deprived of liberty in accordance with due process of law.
3. Right to fair hearing: Every citizen is entitled to a fair and public trial within a reasonable time by an impartial court, and is presumed innocent until proved guilty.
4. Right to freedom of expression: Every citizen has the right to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.
5. Right to freedom of movement: Every citizen is entitled to move freely throughout the country and to reside in any part of it.

(Any three of the above are acceptable.)

(b) Limitations to these rights

Fundamental rights are not absolute; they are subject to limitations designed to protect the wider society. They may be restricted:

1. In the interest of public order, safety and security: Rights such as movement and assembly may be curtailed to prevent riots, crime or breach of the peace.
2. In the interest of public health and morality: Freedoms may be limited to control epidemics or to protect public decency and morals.
3. During a state of emergency or war: Government may lawfully suspend or restrict certain rights when the security of the state is threatened.
4. To protect the rights and freedoms of other persons: One citizen's exercise of a right must not injure the rights, reputation or property of others (for example, freedom of expression is limited by the law of libel and slander).
5. By the ordinary operation of the law: A person lawfully convicted by a court may be deprived of liberty or, in some jurisdictions, of life; and lawful detention and taxation restrict individual freedom.

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Assimilation was the French colonial policy which aimed to turn Africans in the colonies into black Frenchmen by making them adopt French language, culture, law and citizenship, and by integrating the colonies with metropolitan France. In practice the policy largely failed, especially outside the Four Communes of Senegal. The factors responsible for its failure include the following:

1. Wide cultural differences: African social systems, languages, religions and customs were deeply rooted and very different from French culture. Africans were unwilling to abandon their own way of life, and complete cultural conversion proved impossible.
2. Racial prejudice of the French: Despite the theory of equality, many French settlers and officials regarded Africans as inferior and were unwilling to accept them as true equals or fellow citizens, which contradicted the very idea of assimilation.
3. The huge population involved: The African population was too large to be assimilated. It was practically and financially impossible to turn millions of Africans into educated French citizens.
4. Inadequate educational facilities: Assimilation depended on French education, but the schools provided were far too few to educate the mass of the people, so only a tiny minority could ever qualify as citizens.
5. Cost of the policy: Providing the schools, welfare and institutions needed to assimilate Africans on a large scale was too expensive for France to sustain.
6. Opposition from French commercial and settler interests: Merchants and settlers feared that assimilated Africans would compete with them and demand equal rights, so they resisted the extension of citizenship.
7. Stiff conditions for citizenship: The requirements for becoming a French citizen (fluency in French, monogamy, evidence of French culture and loyalty, and so on) were so stringent that very few Africans could satisfy them.
8. African resistance and nationalism: Africans increasingly rejected the denial of their identity and resented being asked to renounce their heritage, giving rise to opposition that made the policy unworkable.

Because of these difficulties, France gradually abandoned pure assimilation in favour of the modified policy of association.

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Government as an academic field of study refers to the branch of the social sciences that is concerned with the systematic study of the state, its institutions, and the ways in which power and authority are acquired, organised, exercised and controlled in a political community. As a discipline it is closely related to, and sometimes treated as another name for, political science.

As a field of study, government examines the following:

1. The state and its institutions: It studies the origin, nature and purpose of the state and the institutions of government, namely the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.
2. Political concepts and ideas: It analyses key concepts such as power, authority, legitimacy, sovereignty, liberty, rights, democracy, and the rule of law.
3. Systems and forms of government: It compares different systems (for example presidential and parliamentary, unitary and federal, democratic and authoritarian) and the constitutions on which they are based.
4. Political processes: It studies elections, political parties, pressure groups, public opinion, and the making and implementation of public policy.
5. Relations among states: It also covers international relations and organisations such as the United Nations, the AU and ECOWAS.

As an academic discipline, government is systematic and analytical: it uses observation, comparison and reasoned analysis to describe political facts, explain political behaviour, and evaluate political arrangements. It is therefore both a body of organised knowledge about how societies are governed and a method of studying political life scientifically.

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Federalism is a system of government in which powers are constitutionally shared between a central (federal) government and the component units (regions or states), each being coordinate and independent within its own sphere. The conditions that gave rise to the adoption of federalism in Nigeria include the following:

1. Large size of the country: Nigeria is very large in area. A federal arrangement was necessary so that government could be brought closer to the people in different parts of the country and administration made more manageable.
2. Ethnic and cultural diversity: Nigeria is made up of many ethnic groups (notably the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo) with different languages, customs and traditions. Federalism allowed these diverse groups to live together while retaining a measure of self-rule and protecting their identities.
3. Fear of domination: The smaller ethnic groups and the various regions feared being dominated by any one large group. Federalism, by dividing power among the units, reassured each group that it would not be swallowed up by the others.
4. Wide differences in the pace of development: The regions differed greatly in Western education, economic development and social outlook (the South being more advanced in Western education than the North). Federalism enabled each region to develop at its own pace.
5. Influence of colonial policy and earlier regionalisation: The British had already divided Nigeria into regions (under the Richards and Macpherson Constitutions), and the regional structure created a foundation on which federalism was built.
6. Desire for unity in diversity: There was a need to hold the country together as one nation while allowing the different peoples to manage their local affairs; federalism offered unity without enforcing uniformity.
7. Uneven distribution of population and resources: Differences in population size and in the distribution of natural resources made a single centralised (unitary) system unworkable and pushed the country towards a federal solution.

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Since independence, many West African states abandoned the inherited parliamentary system for the presidential system. The factors that increased the popularity of the presidential system in the region include the following:

1. Desire for a strong and stable executive: The parliamentary system, with its dependence on shifting party coalitions and votes of no confidence, produced instability. The presidential system, with a fixed tenure for the president, offered a more stable and decisive executive suited to the tasks of nation-building and development.
2. Separation of powers: The presidential system separates the executive, legislature and judiciary, providing clearer checks and balances and reducing the domination of the legislature by the executive that occurred under the parliamentary system.
3. The need for national unity in plural societies: A single, directly elected president who represents the whole nation was seen as a symbol of unity in ethnically divided states, unlike a prime minister who is essentially a party leader.
4. Direct election and popular mandate: The president is chosen by the whole electorate, giving the office a broad national mandate and making the leader directly accountable to the people rather than to Parliament.
5. Reaction against the abuses of the parliamentary system: The fusion of powers under the parliamentary system had enabled prime ministers to become dictatorial and had contributed to crises and military coups. States turned to the presidential model hoping to correct these defects.
6. Influence of the American and French examples: The success and prestige of the presidential systems of the United States and the French Fifth Republic served as models copied by West African states.
7. Clear division of loyalty and a fixed tenure: Because the president cannot easily be removed except through impeachment, the system promised continuity of policy and freedom from the frequent government changes of the parliamentary system.

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An electoral system is the method by which votes cast in an election are counted and translated into seats or into the choice of a winner. The four systems named are explained below.

(a) Simple plurality system (First-past-the-post): Under this system the candidate who scores the highest number of votes is declared the winner, whether or not that number amounts to more than half of the total votes cast. The winner needs only a plurality (more votes than any other single candidate), not an absolute majority. For example, if in a constituency candidate A polls 30,000 votes, B polls 25,000 and C polls 20,000, A wins even though A's votes are less than half of all votes cast. It is simple and produces quick results but may allow a candidate to win with less than half of the total votes.

(b) The repeated ballot: Under this system, if no candidate obtains the required absolute majority (more than half of the votes) in the first round of voting, the election is repeated over and over again, using the same set of candidates, until one candidate finally secures an absolute majority. Weak candidates may withdraw between rounds. Its weakness is that voting may have to be repeated many times, making it slow, tiring and expensive.

(c) The second ballot: Here, if no candidate wins an absolute majority in the first ballot, a second and final ballot is held. In the second round, only the two candidates who scored the highest votes in the first ballot are allowed to contest (or, in some versions, only candidates who passed a stated threshold). The one who wins the second ballot is declared elected. It guarantees that the winner enjoys majority support without endless repetition, but it requires the expense of organising two separate elections.

(d) The alternative vote (preferential voting): Under this system the voter does not simply mark one candidate; instead the voter ranks the candidates in order of preference (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on) on a single ballot. If a candidate obtains an absolute majority of first-preference votes, that candidate wins. If not, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are transferred to the remaining candidates according to the second preferences marked on them. The process of eliminating the lowest candidate and redistributing votes continues until one candidate secures an absolute majority. It produces a majority winner from a single ballot, but the counting is more complex.

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Before colonial rule, traditional rulers in West Africa (obas, emirs, chiefs and natural rulers) exercised wide executive, legislative, judicial, military and religious powers over their peoples. Colonial rule greatly reduced these powers in the following ways:

1. Loss of sovereignty to the colonial power: Once a territory was annexed, ultimate authority passed to the colonial government. Traditional rulers ceased to be independent sovereigns and became subordinate agents of the colonial administration.
2. Subordination through indirect rule: Where indirect rule was applied, chiefs governed only as instruments of the colonial power, under the supervision and direction of colonial officers (Residents and District Officers) who could over-rule them.
3. Deposition and appointment of rulers: The colonial authorities acquired the power to appoint, depose, suspend or exile rulers. A ruler who resisted could be removed, so kingship depended increasingly on colonial approval rather than on custom alone.
4. Loss of military power: Colonial governments disbanded the traditional armies and monopolised the use of force through their own police and soldiers, stripping rulers of their war-making and defensive authority.
5. Loss of judicial powers: The establishment of colonial courts and the introduction of English (or French) law limited the jurisdiction of traditional courts. Native courts operated only under colonial control, and appeals lay to colonial courts.
6. Loss of control over taxation and finance: Colonial governments took over the assessment and collection of taxes and controlled public revenue, so rulers lost their former financial independence and were often reduced to salaried officials.
7. Reduction of legislative power: Law-making authority passed to colonial legislatures and governors, so the customary law-making role of the rulers and their councils was curtailed.
8. Erosion of religious and spiritual authority: The spread of Christianity and Western education, together with colonial disregard for traditional religious sanctions, weakened the sacred aura on which the authority of many rulers had rested.
9. The French policy of assimilation and direct rule: In French territories, chiefs were reduced to mere administrative agents (chefs de canton) who could be transferred at will, and traditional institutions were largely disregarded.