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The presence of an
opposition in a legislature makes the process of lawmaking thorough.
this is because it will always provide a check to the excesses of the
majority in the house. This is what adds to the beauty of democracy.
But going by the results of the just concluded general election in the
country, this will be lacking in many houses of assembly. A run down of
the results as released by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) shows that the ACN took all the 40 seats in the Lagos
State House of Assembly as well as all the 26 seats in Osun State.
Labour party which is the ruling and dominant party in Ondo state also
won all of the the seats in the state’s assembly. This trend in which
ruling parties completely dominate state houses of assembly has been
the trend since the country returned to democratic rule in 1999.

Bad for democracy

A gubernatorial
candidate of the National Conscience Party of Nigeria (NCP)in the just
concluded election; Ayodele Atele told NEXT that this trend is
dangerous for the nation’s democracy. “It is not good and it is
suspect” he said. “It is not good for the development of democracy
because once the house is polarised, there will be a vibrant
democracy,” he noted.

According to Mr
Atele, “what obtains in the Southwest after the 2011 election is the
irony of the ACN as a party which wants a polarised National Assembly
but sees nothing wrong in it having 100 percent state Houses of
Assembly in the states it is controlling.” The former labour leader
noted that in other parts of the world, no matter how popular a ruling
party is, the opposition parties still win some level of offices where
it is popular “even if it is in one local government area. But that is
different in Nigeria.” Mr Atele further pointed out the danger for the
democratic experience if the opposition is fizzled out saying “where
there is no opposition, there is immense danger being portrayed that
the people will be highly short-changed at the expense of the ruling
class and its cohorts, ” However, the national publicity secretary of
the ACN; Lai Muhammed, disagrees with this postulation and claims it is
the will of the people that is being displayed. The party’s
spokesperson emphasised that “we (ACN) never clamoured for a polarised
National Assembly. What we clamoured for and still call for is that let
the will of people count.” “In your area of popularity, let there be no
rigging or intimidation of voters so that the people can truly make
their choice.” Mr Muhammed noted that “given the plural nature of
Nigeria in terms of values, religion and ethnicity, if there are only
ten parties in the National Assembly as dictated by the electorate,
then so be it.” He further attributed the massive success of his party
in the Southwest region on the voting pattern of people voting for
personalities and track-record. Sighting the presidential election
where the presidential candidate of the PDP scored massive gains in the
Southwest, Mr Mohammed stated that “people voted for the personality
and never gave thought to political parties or ideology.”

Rigging and some exceptional cases

Speaking on the
issue, a Professor of Constitutional law; Itse Sagay, told NEXT that a
one party House of Assembly is not good for democracy. “The ideology of
a party dominating a state is not a good catalyst for governance and it
is anathema to democracy, it turns the state into a one party state”
said Mr Sagay. He added that“in most of those states there were rigging
that are yet to be identified.”