Posted on Mar 19, 2020
Democracy is founded on the time-tested principle of majority rule, by which it is accepted that the electorate is sovereign. Whenever there are serious issues of state to be settled between elections, the government turns to the people for a decision through referendum.
But, when an issue comes up during the electioneering campaign, the electorate settles it through the ballot box. By the same token, all institutions of state are run along the democratic principle.
The legislature, in particular, comprising elected representatives from constituencies, takes decisions by ascertaining the majority position. This, however, has been violated many times in Nigeria as is the extant case in Edo State.
Governor Godwin Obaseki has turned democracy on its head by running a legislature of 24 members with only nine members for almost a year. This is patently indefensible. In effect, the people from 15 constituencies have been shut out of the process by a governor who has turned himself into a Leviathan.
Against the letters and spirit of the 1999 Constitution, the governor chose who to recognise while proclaiming the House of Assembly in June, last year. He carefully ensured that the Clerk of the House shut out those he believed to be loyal to his predecessor, Adams Oshiomhole.
Since then, despite intervention by the National Assembly and the ruling party, Governor Obaseki has been illegally using the minority to run the state legislature – passing the Appropriation Bill into law and making essential appointments requiring legislative affirmation.