Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Constituency Control of Legislators: Lessons from Nigeria

Constituency Control of Legislators: Lessons from Nigeria AJEPE TAIWO SHEHU ∗ I. INTRODUCTION It has been argued that it is ‘rather curious’ to claim that societies without a modern system of government have no government: ‘It is a rather curious hypothesis to advance that because these societies lack modern government paraphernalia, they lack government of any kind.’1 It would be rather absurd to say that the pre-colonial societies that constitute present-day Nigeria or any other African country did not have some form of constitutional arrangement or another, by whatever name it might have been known. It must be added that early Western education and military might were the only advantages that those societies lacked to advance their own cause, political ideals, ideologies and constitutional norms. In pre-colonial Nigeria there were the Sokoto Caliphate, Bornu Empire, Benin Empire, Oyo Empire, the Calabari and other societies. These territorial frameworks had their own systems of government, whether emirate or kingship, which were quite functional and satisfied the needs of their people, though there may have been a need for reforms. Some, if not all, of these empires, kingdoms and societies had their own constitutional arrangement, the executive, legislature, judiciary and system of control, whether political or constitutional. No http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png African Journal of International and Comparative Law Edinburgh University Press

Constituency Control of Legislators: Lessons from Nigeria

Download PDF
21 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/edinburgh-university-press/constituency-control-of-legislators-lessons-from-nigeria-w9Yp3u5YMg
Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
©© Edinburgh University Press 2011
Subject
Articles; African Studies
ISSN
0954-8890
eISSN
1755-1609
DOI
10.3366/ajicl.2011.0006
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AJEPE TAIWO SHEHU ∗ I. INTRODUCTION It has been argued that it is ‘rather curious’ to claim that societies without a modern system of government have no government: ‘It is a rather curious hypothesis to advance that because these societies lack modern government paraphernalia, they lack government of any kind.’1 It would be rather absurd to say that the pre-colonial societies that constitute present-day Nigeria or any other African country did not have some form of constitutional arrangement or another, by whatever name it might have been known. It must be added that early Western education and military might were the only advantages that those societies lacked to advance their own cause, political ideals, ideologies and constitutional norms. In pre-colonial Nigeria there were the Sokoto Caliphate, Bornu Empire, Benin Empire, Oyo Empire, the Calabari and other societies. These territorial frameworks had their own systems of government, whether emirate or kingship, which were quite functional and satisfied the needs of their people, though there may have been a need for reforms. Some, if not all, of these empires, kingdoms and societies had their own constitutional arrangement, the executive, legislature, judiciary and system of control, whether political or constitutional. No

Journal

African Journal of International and Comparative Law – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Mar 1, 2011

There are no references for this article.