Executive Immunity in Nigeria: A Shield for Stability or a License for Abuse?

The role of rules and regulations anywhere is to bring about orderliness and awareness of what is expected of us and individuals or citizens. And while I must say rule plays a vital role in our society, as it prevents people from doing things that, although they please them, might hurt others, yet I must say that I've come to scrutinize some of the rules we've in my country, the Nigerian constitution, and I must say that some of them are just weird. I mean, they're so weird that I can't help but wonder what those who came up with them were thinking when they did, so in light of that, I'd like to talk about one or two of such weird rules in my country's constitution.

As you must have seen above, I'm a citizen of Nigeria, and that's where I also reside. At the top of the list of things that I just can't understand and feel are weird in my country, Nigeria, has to do with the immunity granted to certain public officials, talking about the president, vice president, and state governors. What I meant by immunity granted to this set of public officials is that inasmuch as they're in that office, the rule has been put in place in the constitution to prevent them from being probed, sued, or persecuted; that's even in light of them being involved in any form of atrocities. It just doesn't make sense to me why such would be in our constitution.

I for one believe everyone should be held accountable for their actions and not be given any form of protection because they hold certain offices or positions, so seeing that these three officeholders of our public officials can't be challenged makes me believe such will give them room to abuse power and do things that they know are wrong but would continue, knowing they can't be questioned for their actions inasmuch as they're still in power. Although I know the majority of the lawmakers who agreed to this particular rule in the constitution must have had something to gain, I think such should be scrapped from our constitution and let everyone be prosecuted immediately, not until they're out of office and could easily abscond.

These loopholes in the constitution are why most governors, presidents, and vice presidents do as they like while in office. You can imagine the former governor of Kogi State allegedly using the state fund to pay for his children's school, even playing several years ahead because he won't be in office when they graduate. These examples, among many others, are why it even seems weirder having such a kind of rule in our constitution, and I really hope that in the near future, such will be crossed out for the betterment of the country so people, regardless of their position, would be held accountable for their actions at the nick of time, not shedding them and giving them more room to commit more atrocities.

All photos are taken and edited on canva.