By Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN

A. CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF THE ‘TOOLBOX’:

IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF LAW AS A TOOL FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH AND NATIONAL SECURITY:

If our corpus juris may be likened to a large toolbox, then the various aspects of our laws including the Constitution, Legislations, Case law, Executive Policy Instruments, etc will translate to the various tools of critical importance. It therefore becomes necessary to examine the condition of certain key aspects of our laws with a view to determining how their application effectively promotes economic growth and National Security.

1. THE CONSTITUTION:
Whoever desires to see the eyes of a beast must get to its head. In appraising law as a tool for economic growth and National Security, it is a sine qua non that we begin from the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) as amended (“the Constitution”) which is the fountainhead of all laws, the Grundnorm, the fons et origo, and the highest law of the land (at least in theory going by section 1 (1)-(3) thereof). Woven into the entire fabric of the Constitution’s big picture are provisions which touch base with economic growth and national security. To begin with, it is the Constitution that establishes and gives validity to the various arms of government as well as providing the foundation for the enactment of other laws that regulate the activities of institutions as well as individuals in the country. Thus, the Constitution provides the functions of the three arms of government which regulate and checkmate the activities of the nation (see sections 4, 5 and 6 of the Constitution). The legislature, executive and judicial arms of government work independently and harmoniously together to regulate national security. This is done by the legislature enacting the laws, including those regulating national security, while it is the function of the executive to execute or implement the laws. The judiciary is to ensure that offenders of the law are tried in accordance with the law, interpret the laws and generally ensure that the rule of law is adhered to by both the lawmakers and the common citizens. But the Constitution does more than provide a general outline for the three arms of government. It also provides, where necessary, for what should be done in a grave situation which poses danger to national security, whether from external sources or from internal conditions. It is not within the purview of our discourse to examine in minute details all such provisions. However, we shall appraise the implication of some key aspects of the constitutional provisions as touching economic growth and National Security:

a. Fundamental Objectives:

Chapter Two of the Constitution contains elaborate provisions on the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy. For our present purpose, we train our probing proboscis on Sections 14 and 16 thereof. While Section 16 outlines, in extenso, the Economic Objectives, we can only glean “the Security Objectives” from the broad overarching context of the Chapter.

i. Section 14 of the Constitution on Security:

With respect to Security Objectives, Section 14 (1) (2) (b) provides:

(1) The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice.
(2) It is hereby accordingly declared that:
(b) The Security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of the government.

Clearly from the above constitutional provision, the government of Nigeria has the responsibility to cater for the security and welfare of Nigerians, and also to ensure that Nigerians freely participate in governance. The above declaratory (rather than justiciable) provision on security stipulates principles that underlie and form the substratum of security in every democratic system of administration. Except for other constitutional provisions empowering the establishment of certain bodies to primarily execute national security, it is unarguable that the provisions of Chapter II of the Constitution, like a big bulldog possessing only gum and no teeth, are in themselves non-justiciable, and thus unenforceable, at least according to section 6 (6) (c) thereof.

ii. Provisions for Civil Crisis:

It is known that in most third world countries like Nigeria, more of the threats to national security are internal or civil insurgencies. Sections 214 and 217 of the Constitution make provisions for the establishment of the Nigeria Police Force and the Armed Forces of the Federation.

Derri and Popoola have observed that Nigeria has experienced a lot of internal crises which threatened the security of the country. Most of these crises are religious and ethnic. The big question is, how and through what means has the Nigerian State been able to quell these situations? Besides the constitutional provisions clearly establishing the Police and Armed Forces, there are provisions which indicate that the National Assembly can legislate on all other aspects involving them. This position is buttressed by Section 4 of the Constitution which empowers the National Assembly and the State Houses of Assembly to legislate for the peace, order and good governance of the country or state or any part thereof respectively. It is in respect of the aforementioned provisions that the Nigeria Police Force has a law enacted for its creation, operations as well as of the Armed Forces, sequel to the power of the National Assembly to legislate for the peace, order and good governance of Nigeria. In the same vein, other security outfits belonging to the states have also been created by law, such as the Amotekun Corps, the Neighbourhood Security, Hisbah, Eastern Security Network, etc.

b. Economic Objectives:

As already observed, the economic condition of any country without doubt has a direct relationship with its national security. The economic situation of Nigeria determines the citizens’ spending power, the income, as well as dictates the crime rate. In this regard, Section 16 (2) of the Constitution is very important. That provision was made to ensure:

i. The promotion of a planned and balanced economic development;
ii. That the material resources of the nation are harnessed and distributed as best as possible to serve the common good;
iii. That the economic system is not operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hand of few individuals or group; and
iv. That suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care and pensions, unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens.

How well the Nigerian state has complied with these directives is yet to be seen and this explains the level of youth restiveness, increasing corruption, high crime rate arising from massive unemployment as well as directionless economic policies. Worse still, the petroleum industry which is the major sector of the country’s economic activities has been managed in such a way that the people who own the land from which the petroleum resources are exploited are neglected while their land and rivers are exposed to constant pollution and their means of livelihood threatened or extinguished. No doubt, economic imbalance has led to insecurity in Nigeria and this illustrates how a failure to implement a just and fair economic policy can translate to national insecurity. As it is said, when the poor get unbearably hungry, he may consider eating the rich.ad

2. LEGISLATIONS:

Legislations are laws made by that organ of government vested with the power to make laws, namely, the legislature. Section 4 (1) and (6) of the Constitution provides:

(1) The legislative powers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be vested in a National Assembly for the Federation, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.
(2) The National Assembly shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of the Federation or any part thereof with respect to any matter included in the Exclusive Legislative List and shall, save as otherwise provided in this Constitution, be to the exclusion of the Houses of Assembly of States.
(6) The House of Assembly of a State shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of the State or any part thereof…
(7) The House of Assembly of a State shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the State or any part thereof with respect to…
(a) any matter not included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part 2 of the Second Schedule to this Constitution;
(b) any matter included in the Concurrent Legislative List set out in the first column of Part II of the Second Schedule to this Constitution to the extent prescribed in the second column opposite thereto;
(c) any other matter with respect to which it is empowered to make laws in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.

An examination of our body of laws – in the context, legislations to be precise – leaves us with an innumerable amount and volumes of enactments or statutes in the form of Acts of the National Assembly and Laws made by Houses of Assembly, including bye laws. These legislations define and make provisions on specific principles that govern various areas of the life and operations of governments, non-governmental organizations, citizens, etc. With respect to economic growth and national security, which are our focal point in this discourse, we shall examine some of the factors that engender practical application of law (in this case legislations) as a tool for economic growth and national security.

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