Contrasting the British Parliamentary system with the Nigerian Federal structure

 Contrasting the British Parliamentary system with the Nigerian Federal structure, to what extent does Ministerial Responsibility ensure accountability to government?

INTRODUCTION

People often elect or chose  representatives for several reasons. It includes voices in the decision that affects them, for the provisions or the creation of an enabling environment to achieve some material well-being such as food, shelter, education security and protection from violence or discrimination, recognition and respect as individual and as a community. The government on their end, due to the cumbersomeness  of this mandate will decide to appoint other individuals to be responsible for the execution of its policies in different ministries. These other appointed individuals are termed within this context the “Ministers”

Quite understandable, that those set of individuals who has been directly elected by the peopleare answerable to the people from whence they derived authority to rule, but to whom are these other set of individual (the appointees) answerable to? To the appointer or to the peoplethe source of their Principal's authorityI.e., who are they responsible to?and how has this helped in the actualization of the initials reasons of the whole exercise of governance is the knot of this question. Thus, In the succeeding paragraphs we have examined who a minister is, the term “Ministerial responsibility”- collective or individual, The Britishparliamentary system of governanceand the operation of Ministerial responsibility and lastly, the Nigeria federal system of governance and how the concept of ministerialresponsibility also operate to ensure government  accountability.

 

 WHO IS A MINISTER?

  A minister is a person who is the head of a ministry or department of the state and also a member of the cabinet.  A minister is a political appointee and he remains in office at the pleasure of his appointer, who may be a president or  a prime minister. Almost all actions of government are done through ministers and their ministries, department offices and other parastatals. A minister vacates  his or her office on the change of the government that appointed them except they are reappointed by another government.

CONCEPTUALIZING MINISTERRIAL RESPONSIBILITY

  Ministerial responsibility can be defined as the responsibility of the entire cabinet to the parliament and ultimately to the people, for the polices and conduct of the executive arm of government during their tenure. This means that every member of the cabinet who does not resign is collectively responsible for all the decisions  of the government at the cabinet meetings and their   actions during their tenure . Ministerial responsibility promotes and encourages  responsibility and accountability on the part of government for their actions and it prevents the blame shifting game on the part of the  members of the executive as they are held responsible for their actions.  The concept of ministerial responsibility is said to be in  existence  in the two most practiced political systems of the world which are the  parliamentary and presidential system of government and it consist of two main features which are collective responsibility and individual responsibility.

COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY

 The term collective responsibility is majorly used in a parliamentary system of government. It means that all members of the cabinet are collectively accountable or responsible for all the decisions and actions taken by the cabinet. The cabinet is therefore collectively responsible to the people and the parliament and must present and defend their actions in unison. All ministers must be ready and prepared to support and defend all the polices of the government. Any minister who is not willing, able and ready  to support and defend the actions  policies of the government must resign his or her ministerial appointment if not the  minister is said to be a party to the decisions of the cabinet and cannot exonerate his or herself from the blame if there are any faults. Members of the cabinet share in the praise and the blame as a body for either  good administration or  mal- administration. And if there is any  disagreement  on a policy by some minority of the ministers and they do not step down or resign, the prime minister has the power to relieve  them of their duties and appoint new ministers. The collective responsibility of the cabinet to the parliament may be enforced by the parliament by passing a vote of no confidence.

 When the parliament passes a vote of no confidence on the cabinet which means that the cabinet has failed, all the members of  the cabinet including the prime minister must resign. Such obligation of the cabinet to resign is not based on law but on conventions. Collective responsibility is desirable in that; Collective responsibility makes members of the cabinet to work together as a team and speak in one voice. The term encourages a collective action which makes for efficiency in government, It prevents buck passing or shift of blame 

, It leads to the settlement of inter- ministerial dispute at the cabinet level instead of at the floor of the parliament. Collective responsibility has also been criticized on the ground that It does not allow a minister or his ministry to be assessed individually  A minister or his ministry cannot be singularly held responsible for any action or policy  It makes it difficult for the blunders of a minister or ministry to be exposed and criticized by parliament. It ties the resignation cum survival of a minister to the collective performance of members of the cabinet

INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY