Joseph Bakare
BudgIT, a leading civic-tech organisation advocating for transparency and accountability in Nigeria’s public finance and OrderPaper, Nigeria’s foremost independent parliamentary monitoring organisation and policy think tank, have expressed deep concern over the weakening of Nigeria’s separation of powers, as executive overreach, legislative dilution, and judicial sangfroid undermine institutional independence and democratic governance.
Over the years, Nigeria’s parliament has struggled to assert its independence from the executive, hindering its ability to exercise robust oversight and hold it accountable.
This weak governance structure has exacerbated systemic challenges, contributing to poor crisis management and governance lapses.
Similarly, unchecked executive dominance has stifled legislative oversight, weakened accountability mechanisms, and fostered budgetary mismanagement.
This has contributed to Nigeria’s worsening economic instability, with GDP per capita declining by nearly 50 per cent and inflation reaching 31.7 per cent in 2024. The executive’s persistent disregard for court rulings and refusal to comply with legislative summons further highlight the erosion of checks and balances.
In the same vein, the National Assembly, rather than serving as a check on executive excesses, has recently looked askance at the policies and programmes of the presidency. Instead of scrutinising budgets and ensuring fiscal responsibility, legislators have contributed to poor financial indiscipline through budget insertions, with a staggering N2.24 trillion added to the 2024 budget alone. This challenge with legislative power has weakened governance and diminished public confidence. On the other hand, the Judiciary, constitutionally mandated to uphold justice and serve as an independent arbiter, appears to be aloof. Executive defiance of court rulings and allegations of judicial compromise have eroded public trust in the judicial system. Without financial and administrative autonomy, the judiciary remains vulnerable to political influence.
Commenting, BudgIT’s Head of Open Government and Institutional Partnership, Vahyala Kwaga, emphasised that the consequences of a weakened separation of powers extend beyond political maneuvering to real-life governance failures. “Over the past decade, more than 11 million Nigerians have been internally displaced—8.7 million due to disasters and 3.3 million due to violence—underscoring the severe human impact of weak institutions. To prevent further democratic decline, we call for a national conversation on restoring legislative oversight, ensuring the executive adheres to judicial rulings and legislative summons, and safeguarding judicial independence,” he said.
On his part, Uko Etuk, OrderPaper’s Programme Manager, highlighted the importance of strengthening the parliamentary accountability mechanism. “The National Assembly must reclaim its constitutional mandate as a check on executive (and judicial) excesses. Our work tracking legislative transparency and accountability has shown that ineffective oversight, executive overreach and obvious resistance to legislative oversight, is directly linked to governance failures, mismanagement of constituency projects, and lack of public trust in democratic institutions,” he said.
To this end, BudgIT and OrderPaper are set to launch a full-scale advocacy campaign for full financial autonomy for the judiciary and local governments, stronger legislative accountability, and stricter enforcement of constitutional checks and balances. As part of this campaign, a Policy Brief has been developed titled, “Nigeria’s Lost Decade: Effects and Remedies of the Weakening Separation of Powers (2014–2024)”, providing data-driven insights and actionable recommendations for reform, to be published in the coming days.
They called on policymakers, civil society organisations (CSOs), the media and citizens to support this campaign and demand a transparent, accountable, and constitutionally balanced government.