Serial constitutional breaches in Nigeria

Even though all the said breaches started occurring before this current administration took over power, they are nevertheless still being perpetrated, much to the danger of the survival of ourdemocracy, rule of law, transparency and due process.The first of such fundamental breaches is the subversion of our budgetary process, by centralising all budget collations, analyses […]

Even though all the said breaches started occurring before this current administration took over power, they are nevertheless still being perpetrated, much to the danger of the survival of our
democracy, rule of law, transparency and due process.
The first of such fundamental breaches is the subversion of our budgetary process, by centralising all budget collations, analyses and final preparation in the hands of an illegal contraption called the Budget Office of the Federation. Even though this office has been
existing for several years now, has handled many of our annual federal budgets; and even though it has a director general and staff who handle assumed ‘official’ duties with respect to the budgeting process, the office has not been established by any law. It is also not one of the bodies established by the constitution. A visit to its website and inquiries from the Legal Department of the National Assembly and the office of the Clerk of the National Assembly will
clearly show that this very important office has not been established by any law in force in Nigeria!  It is a subversion of Section 81 of the constitution, which requires the President to “cause to be prepared and laid before each House of the National Assembly” each financial year’s budget for the Federation of Nigeria.
Even if the President claims he has delegated the preparation and collation of such budgets to the Budget Office of the Federation, this will not be correct for the following reasons: (a) the Budget Office of the Federation which is not a natural human being but a supposed institution is not established by any law in force in Nigeria, which in legal parlance means it is not a body known to law; (b) from its website, this body is independent of the Presidency and the Federal
Ministry of Finance. Since it claims ‘independence,’ it can only function lawfully or legally by the instrumentality of either a federal statute or the constitution.
Another serious constitu-tional breach, this time, not just by the Presidency, but by all major players in our body polity, is the subversion of the offices of the Chief Justice of Nigeria and chief judges of the respective states. Call this subversion of the judiciary.
Under Nigeria’s constitutional democracy, there are three arms of government  –  the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. Under the settled doctrine of separation of powers, these three arms are independent and equal in the eyes of the law. This can be seen from sections 4, 5 and 6 of the constitution, read together with chapters V, VI and VII of the constitution. However, major players in the Nigerian body polity rank the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the respective State Chief Judges 5th in terms of official recognition and placement. This unconstitutional practice owes its origin to the National Order of Precedence of Public Officers and Other Persons Bill, 2008, which has not been signed into law till date! Even if signed into law, it will impinge upon the express provisions of the constitution cited above. As if this is deliberate, the executive arm has refused to enforce several judgments of superior courts of record in Nigeria that the judiciary be financially independent. And to cap it all, there has been systemic reduction of the annual budget of the Judiciary.
 I must state straight away that with these breaches, administration of justice is almost grinding to a halt now! No nation, including even one run by the most brutal government, toys with its
Judiciary the way things are in Nigeria now.
There are several other constitutional breaches carried out by high officials of government in Nigeria; but these are the ones that pose the gravest danger to the survival of our democracy.
I call on the President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, and the National Assembly to urgently redress these issues, to avoid a further slide to constitutional interregnum.

Sebastine Hon SAN is an author and a practising lawyer