POLITICAL SCIENCE

Public accountability exist when there is a relationship where an individual or body, and performance of tasks or functions by that individual or body, are subject to another’s oversight, direction or request that they provide information or justification for their actions.

Any nation whose leaders are not accountable to its citizens will find it difficult to grow and develop. Accountability is one of the cornerstones of good governance in developed nations and in leadership roles.

Accountability is the acknowledgement and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions and policies including the administration, governance and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences. 

It is disheartening today that in less developed and developing nations their leaders and public officials do not have any regards for accountability. Non accountability by the leaders of such countries has made them remain stagnant in their growth and development.

There is no doubt that accountability is one of these golden concepts nobody can be against. It is increasingly used in public discourse and policy documentation because it conveys the image of transparency ad trustworthiness.

Accountability means the commitment required from public officials, individually, collectively, to accept public responsibility for their actions and inactions. The concept of accountability on its own does not necessarily imply public accountability; public accountability goes hand in hand with representative democracy and its associated rights of the citizens and obligations for public officials.

The ultimate value of public accountability is that elected representatives and public officials are required to conduct public dialogue among themselves on what to do and not worth doing.

Public accountability is also defined as the obligation to answer publicly to report, to an acceptable standard of answering for the discharge of responsibilities that affect the public.

The concept of public accountability is the hallmark of modern democratic governance. Democracy remains meaningless if those in power cannot be held accountable in public for their actions, omission, decision, policies, including expenditure.

Types of Public Accountability

Political Accountability: this is the accountability of government, civil servants and politicians to the public and to legislative bodies such as the National Assembly that is, upper and lower house. This accountability is also used to revoke the office of an elected official if such person is not accountable through legislative bodies or agencies; this is because voters do not have a direct right of holding elected representatives to account, during the time for which they have been elected.

According to Hood (2000), constitution can empower legislature to hold their members, government and government bodies to account. This can be done through holding independent inquiries.

Inquires are usually held in response to allegations of misconduct or corruption. Though the powers, procedures and sanctions differs from country to country, the legislative body may have power to impeach the individual, remove them or suspend them from office for a period of time.

Administrative Accountability: this accountability is based on the internal rules and norms as well as some independent commissions which are the mechanism to hold civil servants with the administration of government accountable.

Civil servants are subordinates in a hierarchy and accountable to their superior. Nonetheless, there are independent “Watch dog like Economic and Financial Crimes Commission that scrutinize and hold them accountable, as to avoid conflicts of interest.

Public policy is a definite and purposeful course of an action selected or adopted by the government and its institution from among alternatives to solve or address a given societal problem. Usually societies at a given point in time are confronted with problems and government is always seen formulating and implementing policies to solve them.

Examples of societal problems that government makes and implement policies to solve includes, unemployment, insecurity, armed robbery, poor standard in education, dwindling national income, corruption, low quantity in agricultural production, inflation, low standard of industrial products, poor health system, poor access to financial services for economic activities, rising social and economic inequality, political, religious, social and ethnic violence or agitation, poor transportation system, poor housing system, drug abuse, rape and poor public service delivery.

Characteristics of Public Policy

• It outlines the pattern of solving a particular problem.
• It is goal oriented. In essence, policy is directed at attainment of certain goals or objectives.
• It is a response by political system to the challenges and problems arising from the environment.
• It is usually formulated by government authorities.
• It is usually designed to effect a given target population in a defined geographical entity.
• It is a process that runs through formulation to implementation and to evaluation and through feedback; may result to modification of an existing policy or formulation of a different policy considered to be more appropriate.
• It is generally the potent instrument for the pursuit of development.

Types of Public Policy Making Models

• Rational comprehensive model: On the basis of this model, public policy is arrived at by considering all alternatives and their consequences with aim of arriving at a more appropriate policy option. The rational comprehensive model has the merit of being thorough and scientific in approach to arriving at a policy option. However, it has the disadvantage of being impractical and time wasting.
• Incremental model: this model emphasizes small or incremental addition or modification in an already existing policy as a solution to problems or challenges. This type of policy is usually conservative.
• Mixed scanning: mixed scanning model entails a process of arriving at a public policy through adopting the features of rational comprehensive model and incremental model.
• The satisfying model: in the use of this model, a public policy is arrived at by choosing the alternative that is satisfactory, good enough and feasible rather than the optimal alternative.

Theories of Public Policy

Theories of public policy making is concerned with the identification and discussion of the source of public policy in terms of who makes or influence the content of public policy, the direction of public policy flow and the interest that public policies serve.

The System Theory: this theory states that input in form of demand and support comes from the environment into the political system that process them and bring them out as output in form of goods and services. In essence, according to this system theory, public policies are responses of the political system to the problems, challenges, aspiration which their solutions are made as demands on the political system by the environment. The political system in specific terms that process these demand (inputs) consist of the public institution like the legislative arm of government, the executive arm and the judicial arm.

The Elite Theory: this theory sees the source or the makers of public policies as well as the interests that policies are meant to serve as the elites. This assumption is a consequence of the fact that the elite’s theory believes that the society is divided into two – the masses and the elites.

The elites are the few in society that wield power and influence governance and policy making. The masses on the other hand are the majority that is governed and controlled by the elites.

The Group Theory: the group theory of public policy assumes that public policy is the equilibrium or compromise reached in group struggle or competition for favourable allocation or re-allocation of values in the society. This group theory assumes that public policies are usually made in the interest or favour of the most influential groups in the society.

In order to ensure greater influence and more favourable allocation of values, groups all work to enhance their access to the key points of policy making. Usually the level of influence of any group depends on its leadership, resources and strategic position.

Groups in this context refer to social, political, economic, religious or occupational groups in the society. Groups as source of public policy by this theory is a consequence of the theory assumption that the society is a mosaic of groups and that these groups continue to interact and compete for the authoritative allocation of values by the political system through policy pronouncement.

The Institutional Theory: this theory assumes that public policy is often initiated, formulated and implemented by government institutions. Consequently it assumes further that institutional analysis concentrating on structures, procedures and relationship with each other can help in understanding policy formulation and implementation. Using this theory, the focus on policy analysis would be the executive, legislature and judicial bodies or arms of government.

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Professor Harold Alderfer classified types of local government into four basic types namely, the French type, the English type, the Communist type and the Traditional type.

The French Type: in the French type, the local government is an extension of the central government. The staffs of the local government are part of the staff of the central government and therefore civil servant. The local government has a council headed by a Mayor. The council is subordinated to the Prefect who is civil servant and the central government representatives.

The prefect has powers to direct and control the council. He must approve the council policies and bye-laws before they can have any effect. He has the power to veto any decision of the council. The Prefect is an experienced professionally qualified administrative officer.

An example of the French type is the French system. Here in Nigeria, the divisional administrative system of the former East Central State is a very good example of the French type.

The English Type: the most important characteristics feature in the English type is local autonomy. The council has control over its entire staffs that are in fact local government staff. The local government staff in order to ensure this autonomy is either recruited directly by the local government as in Britain or by the local government service commission as in Nigeria.

However, the autonomy of the local government which is exercised by the elected council is never absolute. The central government has some measure of control, which varies from country to country. This type of control is not intended to remove the autonomy but to serve as a system of checks and balances.

An example of this type is the British local government system. The country council system of the former eastern Nigeria and the local government system under the 1976 local government reform are further examples.

The Communist type: the communist type is characterized by ‘democratic centralism’. Democratic centralism is a socialist principle that policy making should be made by few leaders at the top after proper debate and agreement between them and then imposed on the rank and file below.

The communist type is also characterized by party leadership and direction. More importantly, the communist type is characterized by planning for social and economic development of the local government area which forms part of the national planning. In the communist type therefore, there is no local autonomy.

Every local government should work in conformity with the socialist ideology, principles and values. An example of this type is the USSR local government system.

The Traditional type: the traditional type of local government is the local government system that adopts entirely indigenous political institutions and culture. It is system, which is neither western nor eastern Europe. The traditional type is one, which does not copy from any of the modern local government system.

Such type operates with a traditional ruler – Emir, among the Hausa/Fulani of the Northern Nigeria. The Oba with his Chiefs among the Yoruba people of Western Nigeria and Chief with his Council of Elders, Age Grades and Popular Assembly in Igbo land of Eastern Nigeria; however, there is no place where the traditional type exists today without any influence from the modern types.

These are the four types of local government according to Professor Harold Alderfer.

Traditional rulers and local government in Nigeria: Traditional rulers are those who possess traditional authorities in their respective communities. They are referred to as traditional heads of their communities. They are the custodian of the custom and traditions of the people. Traditional rulers have the highest authorities in their communities.

Traditional rulers in Nigeria are known with different names and titles. In the Northern Nigeria you have the Emirs, Sarki, Shehu and Lamido in Hausa-Fulani communities. In Yoruba traditional society the rulers are known as the Alafins, Ooni, Oluwo, Alake, in Benin kingdom they call their traditional rulers Odionwere or Enogie.

In Igbo traditional society, the traditional ruler is called Eze or Obi, in Kalabari, Igala, Tiv traditional communities, their rulers is called Amanyanabo, Atta, Tor and Obong respectively.

Traditional rulers can exercise political, judicial and religious authority over the people of his community depending, however, on prevailing prescription for the office as provided by custom and tradition. Before the colonialism, the traditional rulers exercise significant authority in local administration.

However, with the coming of the British, and the introduction of modern form of local governance, the traditional ruler’s roles significantly changed. The role of traditional rulers in local administration has been undergoing changes or reforms that sometimes reduces or increases the roles.

The 1950 local government ordinance of eastern Nigeria, for instance, excluded even entirely the traditional rulers from local government. The ordinance, in the place of the traditional rulers in the local government, introduced councilors and chairman that were democratically elected to administer the local government.

The local government law of 1952 in the Western Region of Nigeria also provided a democratically elected local government system which removed the place of the traditional rulers and their role in local government system drastically.

However, in the Northern region of Nigeria, the traditional rulers, within the same period, still played prominent roles in the local government administration as the region still built its local government system around the traditional rulers.

In 1976 local government reform, there was an increase in the roles played by traditional rulers in the local government. Specifically, the 1976 guidelines for local government reform prescribed that every state must establish traditional council for each local government areas.

The traditional councils were to be composed of appointed traditional rulers. The key functions of the council included formulation of policies proposed however, as advice to local government; planning of local government activities by joint discussion and advice, assistance in tax assessment and collection, support for art and culture, advising on chieftaincy matters, control of traditional titles and offices, determination of traditional laws and practices et cetera.

Presently, the traditional rulers do not have any formal or constitutional executive and legislative roles in the local government system. However, the traditional rulers still plays roles that enhance the effective performance of certain functions by the local government even though those roles are in advisory capacity.

In conclusion, traditional rulers are the people custodian and are closer to the people than the local administrators. In order to ensure effective local government administration the traditional rulers need to be consulted in matters affecting their respective communities.

1999 constitution of Nigeria like the 1979 constitution and 1989 constitution adopted the presidential system of government with executive power. The constitution observed the creation of 36 states and 774 local government areas in Nigeria. The National Assembly was enlarged with 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives.

Members of the National Assembly are directly elected. The executive council was modified though its functions remained, as it were under the 1979 constitution. The members of the executive council include the ministers.

In the 36 states, the governors retained executive power while the House of Assembly remained the only legislative arm of government. The state government conducts election into the local government. The constitution created state electoral commission for the conduct of the local government elections.

The local government is vested with an executive chairman under the constitution. It also has a legislative arm with a speaker. The relationship between the state and the local government is not clear. The local governments are not fully independent of the state government.

The 1999 constitution has been criticized on several grounds among them are the unspecified powers of the local government, contradictions of some sections in the constitution, etc.

Nevertheless, it is important to point out that so many sections, which have been unclear in the 1979 constitution have been expounded. The constitution is seen by some people as an improvement on the 1979 constitution.

The call for constitutional reform conference led to the establishment of a constitutional reform conference in 2004 under the chairmanship of Justice Niki Tobi another in 2014 under the chairmanship of Justice Idris Kutigi and the amendment of the 1999 constitution by the National Assembly in 2011.

Highlights of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria

• The constitution maintained the presidential system of government.
• The constitution adopted bicameral legislature, consisting the House of Senate and representatives and house of assembly for each state and councilors for local government.
• The National Assembly is made up of 109 senators and 360 members of House of Representatives.
• The constitution provided for 36 states and 774 local government areas.
• The constitution provided for revenue allocation formula.
• The constitution retained federal system of administration with the sharing of power.
• The constitution provides for the Federal Character Commission, Code of Conduct Bureau, Independent National Electoral Commission, Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Council of States, Federal Judicial Service Commission, the Federal Civil Service Commission, National Defense Council, National Economic Council, National Judicial Council.
• The 1999 constitution of Nigeria provides for multi party system to be registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
• The chapter 4 of the 1999 constitution provides for the fundamental human rights of the citizens.

Summary of the 1979 Constitution

• The constitution created the post of an executive president
• The federal legislature was named National Assembly made up of House of Senate (95 members) and House of Representatives (450 members).
• The creation of 19 states with state house of assembly.
• Establishment of council of states and National Youth Service Corps.
• Provision of fundamental objectives and directives principles of state policy.