SINCE the advent of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal administration there has been lingering controversy on how the principle of separation of power is practiced. The executive arm of government headed by president Buhari has come under increasing focus for displaying what seems like overwhelming emasculation of the two other arms of government namely the legislature and the judiciary. Sadly, those heading these arms of government have yet to stand their ground and defend their place in the constitution so as to stop Nigeria from evolving into a totalitarian regime. The lack luster attitude of the hierarchies of the legislature and judiciary reminds me of the allegory of an appeaser who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last as told by one of Europe’s most respected politicians- Winston Churchill (1874-1965), who was a powerful premier of Great Britain in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
From “The politics Book” published by Jonathan Graham we read the following essay on the allegory of the appeaser whom as I earlier pointed out feeds the crocodile with the fatal faith of enjoying the misfortune of been consumed last which in the overall calculation is projected towards finding a way out or what is called soft landing.
Winston Churchill wrote that an appeaser believes he is not powerful enough to defeat a tyrant. Therefore the appeaser makes concessions in order to avoid going to war. But his concessions make him weaker and in the same vein the concessions make the tyrant stronger. Much of continental Europe as observed by Mr Winston Churchill played the politics of appeasement with Adolphus Hitler of the then Germany and before they realised the futility of their collective gamble, the tyrant from Germany had overran much of Europe and undertook the Holocaust which saw over 6 million Jews killed.
You may wonder why I had to deploy the post -world war 1 experiences of continental Europe to equate to happenings in our contemporary political epoch. These are my reasons: the executive arm of government headed by President Muhammadu Buhari took exceptions to the emergence of the leadership of both chambers of the National Assembly with very specific reference to the emergence of the firer two terms governor of Kwara State Mr Bukola Saraki as the President of the Senate- thus positioning him in a good stead to run for a possible Presidential slot in 2019.
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Muhammadu Buhari an erstwhile military ruler, made it clear that he was not comfortable with the independence exercised by the national legislators in picking their principal leaders and he hinged his opposition to the extraneous fact that the political party with the majority members of the National Assembly -All Progressives Congress had a different list from those officials who were freely chosen by the legislators but instead of the legislators to vigorously maintain its independence the hierarchies of both the Federal House of Representatives and the Senate eventually capitulated half way and placated their political party by nominating into powerful offices candidates sponsored by the forces that control the All Progressive Congress and the leadership of the Senate thought it could use this capitulation to negotiate soft landing from the prosecution by the office of the Federal Attorney General of the Senate president for alleged falsification of assets declaration whilst he was a state governor in kwara many years ago. Most Nigerians are notorious for false assets declaration and since the Freedom of information Act may or may not be cited to gain access to such declarations of assets not a lot of these lying politicians have faced prosecution. Bukola Saraki is thought to be persecuted by the political powers that be because he towered above the dictates of controlling forces within his party to become the Number three citizen of Nigeria as the Senate President. The executive arm of government has continued to remain resolute to use the pretense of prosecuting the Senate President for alleged false declaration of assets to settle scores over the emergence of the current National Assembly leadership which some forces within the party in power at the center felt offended and insulted because their ordained foot soldiers in the National Assembly couldn’t emerge as the hierarchies of both chambers.
The consequences of the appeasement process initiated wrongly by the Senate leadership with the executive arm is that Nigerians have continued to witness the unleashing of centrifugal and centripetal forces of instability especially in the upper chamber …