Forms and Systems of Government

What you need to know

• A unitary system concentrates all constitutional power in one central government, which may create local units and may abolish them at will. Britain, France and Ghana run unitary systems, and Nigeria itself was effectively unitary under military decrees.
• Unitary government suits small, homogeneous countries: it is cheaper, avoids duplication of offices, produces uniform policy and law, and acts quickly in emergencies. Its weaknesses are the concentration of power, the risk of dictatorship, neglect of distant areas, and the heavy workload on the centre.
• A federal system divides power constitutionally between a central government and component units, with each supreme in its own sphere and neither able to abolish the other. The division is written into a supreme, rigid constitution and disputes are settled by the courts.
• The features of a federalism to list in an essay are: a written constitution, a rigid constitution, a supreme court as arbiter, division of powers into exclusive, concurrent and residual lists, a bicameral legislature at the centre, and the equal representation of federating units in the upper chamber.
• Nigeria adopted federalism because of its size, its ethnic and religious diversity, fear of domination by any one group, the different levels of development between regions, and the administrative convenience of the colonial regional structure that preceded it. Nigeria today has 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, and 774 local government areas.
• A confederation is a loose association of sovereign states that keep their sovereignty and delegate only limited functions to a weak central body, usually defence, foreign affairs or a customs union. Members may lawfully secede. The Senegambia Confederation of the 1980s is the standard African example.
• In a presidential system the president is both head of state and head of government, is elected separately from the legislature for a fixed term, appoints ministers who are not members of the legislature, and can only be removed by impeachment. The United States is the model; Nigeria has used it since 1979.
• In a parliamentary system the head of state and head of government are separate persons, the prime minister and cabinet are drawn from the legislature and remain members of it, the executive is collectively responsible to parliament, and a vote of no confidence can bring the government down at any time. Nigeria ran this system between 1960 and 1966.
• The presidential system gives a stable fixed term, clear leadership and a strong separation of powers, but it risks dictatorship, is expensive, and can deadlock when the president and legislature disagree. The parliamentary system gives close cooperation between executive and legislature and easy removal of a failing leader, but it produces instability where there is no clear majority.
• Democracy is government by the people, directly or through elected representatives. Direct democracy, where citizens decide personally, survives only in referenda and in very small units. Representative democracy, where the people elect others to decide for them, is what every modern state practises.
• The features of a democracy are periodic free and fair elections, universal adult suffrage, more than one party, an independent judiciary, freedom of speech, the press and association, the rule of law, and majority rule with respect for minority rights.
• A monarchy is rule by a king or queen who normally inherits the throne. An absolute monarchy gives the monarch real governing power, as in Saudi Arabia; a constitutional monarchy restricts the monarch to ceremonial functions under a constitution, as in Britain, where real power lies with the elected prime minister.
• Aristocracy is rule by a privileged class considered best-born or best-qualified, oligarchy is rule by a small group in its own interest, plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, theocracy is rule in the name of religion by religious authority, and totalitarianism is rule in which the state controls every aspect of life.
• A military regime comes to power by coup d'etat, rules by decree, suspends part or all of the constitution, abolishes political parties and the legislature, fuses executive and legislative powers in a ruling council, and generally justifies itself as a corrective interlude. Nigeria experienced this for roughly twenty-nine of its first thirty-nine years of independence.