Greetings!
If there's one topic I cherished so much in the government class when we were in school, that would be democracy as a topic where our teacher, Mr. Bernard, told and taught us that democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Going by this definition, democracy should have been the form of governance in the world where the rule of law should have prevailed and supreme, however, the reverse is the case.
Having said this, I would like to delve into the topic of the prompt which says, “weird constitutional rule.”
In my country for instance, there's this rule that makes me question those who are behind the drafting of my country's constitution.
In my country, the constitution delegates so much lower to the center and the bulk of the powers in the country are in the hands of the president of the country which to me should have been decentralized.
There's even one of the many sections of the country's constitution that makes me to be pissed off and that is the selection of the electoral body chairman or chairperson.
The selection according to the Nigerian constitution is only in the hand of the president of the country who doubles as the commander in chief of the armed forces which would be subjected to the ratification of the country's legislative arm for screening.
So, to me there's a lacuna in the constitution of my country Nigeria as the fate of the over 250 million people has been placed in the hand of an individual which is the president of the country.
One thing that I have got to know here is that, the president would always do or select the person that would remain loyal not to him alone but also to his party, thereby making the person who could be his party member as well work for the success of him and his party at the various level at the poll.
So, in a situation where we have such great power concentrated in the hand of an individual, there would always be an abuse of such power as we have always seen in my country where most of the elections that have been held didn't really meet the expectations of the voters.
Apart from this, there's no way a loyal member would be the umpire or the referee in an election that he or she would not work for the success of his or her party and that's what is really affecting our electoral system in this part of the world.
So, in my own view, it's only when this lacuna in our constitution is being reviewed that we would be able to forge ahead in our electoral system and democracy and that's also when those behind the coming into existence of our constitution would be forgiven for the wrongs in our constitution.
Thanks for reading.
Picture sourced from metaAi.