The law-making function is one of the essential pillars of any society. No human society survives in the total absence of laws. Whatever the social system, the conduct of affairs must be defined by certain basic rules. These rules must be made by someone or some group and executed or enforced by some group. In a democratic environment, power belongs to the people who in turn elect those who are to carry out the task of law-making on their behalf. But in a despot and directly exercised by him or assigned to anyone of his choice. There are no clear lines demarcating the law-making function from the executive function. The two flow into each other and are often carried out by the same people. Therefore, the story of one inevitably leads to the other. Such is the case of law-making in Nigeria arising from its long history of military dictatorships. The story of the legislature is intertwined with that of the executive and evolves from the larger history of the Nigerian national itself. Nothing better captures this evolution than the process of constitutional engineering in Nigeria, for it is these supreme laws of the land that provide guidance for law-making.
On the whole, these supreme laws or constitutions are products of the dynamic polity, itself a part of the political history of Nigeria. Therefore, it is within this context that the development of the legislature can be traced to the beginning of British colonization of what is now know as Nigeria. The first act in the formal colonization process was the annexation of Lagos in 1961
At the
head of the colonial administrative set-up for the colony called The
Settlement Of Lagos was a Governor aided by a ten-man advisory body.
This advisory body later called the LegislativeCouncil commissioned in
March 1862 was to be the forerunner of actual law-making bodies in the
country.
February
19, 1866, the Settlement Of Lagos came under the jurisdiction of a new
British Colonial sovereignty known as the West African Settlement
incorporating the territories of Gold Coast, Lagos, Sierra Leone and the
Gambia.
Barely
one year later, Lagos and Gold Coast were severed from the larger
settlement and brought under the jurisdiction of The Gold Coast Colony
with its own executive and legislative council. In 1886, the colony was
further broken down and Lagos became a separate political unit with its
own governor, legislative and administrative council. By this time, the
rest of Nigeria had come under colonial rule with the Protectorate of
Northern Nigeria administered from Zungeru and Calabar serving as the
capital of The Protectorate OF Southern Nigerian. The year 1906 was the
turning point in the history of what is now the Nigerian state for its
was in this year that the colonial administration began the process of
creating an entity out of the disparate peoples of Northern and Southern
Nigeria. It unified the Colony of Lagos with the Southern Protectorate
and it became The Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the
Lagos Legislative Council was granted powers to make laws for the entire
entity. But it was in 1914 that the unification process was complete.
Sir F.J.D. Lugard was appointed Governor of the Colony and Protectorate
of Southern Nigeria in 1912 and tasked with the assignment of effecting
the unification of the Colony and Protectorate of Southern and the
Protectorate of Northern Nigeria.
Two
years later, this task was accomplished with both colony and
protectorates merged into what became The Colony And Protectorate Of
Nigeria. Lord Lugard became the Governor and Commander-in-chief of this
emerging nation. The Lagos Legislative Council continued to legislate
for the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, while the Governor
made laws for the Northern Protectorate.
The
emerging nation was, therefore, a product of mergers but it mergers with
tenuous links, the reason being the non-existence of a common forum for
the elite of the Northern and Southern Protectorates. Kept apart, the
natural understanding and confidence-building that flows from
interaction would elude them for 32 years until 1946 when the Richards
Constitution made interaction possible for Southern and Northern
politicians..
