A few days ago, the leadership of the Abia State PDP announced the constitution of a Shadow Cabinet in the State, naming specific persons into specific shadow positions. The flurry of reactions that have trailed that move, especially from e-rodents of the ruling party in the state have been totally bereft of any form of intellectual depth.
Their only argument is that the idea of a Shadow Cabinet is only permissible in the Westminster or Parliamentary System of Government. Nothing more. One of them even displayed intellectual rascality by likening the action to a treasonable felony and asking the Governor to “deal with those involved”.
These arguments are shallow and are clear evidences of intellectual laziness.
While it is conceded that Shadow Cabinets started with the Westminster model of government, there is absolutely nothing restricting it’s application outside of it.
I have analyzed the arguments of those who have written against this move by the PDP in Abia State and none of them has pointed to any law broken by that action.
On the contrary, what the PDP has taken is a novel and revolutionary step that will expand the frontiers of opposition politics in our state. Is there law anywhere that stops the use of Shadow Cabinets in a Presidential System of Government? Is there any law that criminalizes the setting up, by an opposition party, of a Shadow Cabinet in a presidential system of government?
What does it mean to have a Shadow Cabinet? If the State Government has a Commissioner for Education, the opposition will have a Shadow Commissioner for Education whose main job will be to “be on the neck of the Commissioner”, asking crucial questions on the education sector of our State. The Shadow Commissioner will ask questions and hold the government to account in that area.
For instance, the Otti administration had claimed that it had spent billions of naira to renovate schools in the State. It will be the duty of the Shadow Commissioner for Education to ask specific questions on the location of those schools they claimed to have renovated. How is that a problem in a democracy?
As Shadow Commissioner for Youth Development, Chinonye Mba is expected to engage the Government on issues like Youth Unemployment. How many young people have this administration given jobs to? How many have lost their jobs to the draconian policies of the State government? From endless staff verifications, to the outright sack of thousands of workers? He is expected to present facts and figures to show that this administration has done the youths of our state dirty.
The Shadow Commissioner for Project Monitoring will ask questions and demand answers on phantom projects like the ICT CENTER which they claimed to have built but is nowhere to be seen. The issue of costs of projects too will be in focus.
This will apply mutatis mutandis to all ministries and agencies of government.
This move by the PDP will increase political consciousness in our State and put government officials on their toes because they now know that there is someone assigned specifically to watching their backs.
Opposition in a democracy is a desideratum and the government in power has no business telling the opposition how to operate, provided that no law has been broken. Its also an opportunity to proffer alternative ideas.
What the people who speak and write for the government in power in Abia State, including those who hired themselves don’t know is that the concept of a Shadow Cabinet is expanding. In the US, after the election of Donald Trump, an elected member of the US Congress has called on his party, the Democrats to consider forming a Shadow Cabinet.
Rep Wiley Nickel from North Carolina has challenged his party to form a Shadow Cabinet with a view to ” having an effective tool to challenge the incoming administration “. According to him, “a Shadow Cabinet is a team from the opposition that mirrors the ruling party’s cabinet members. The Shadow Cabinet has a point person for every cabinet position to challenge their counterpart in the ruling cabinet”.
If in the US, which is the headquarters of the Presidential system of government, an elected Member of Congress is already thinking this way, then I see nothing wrong in what the PDP has done.
Progress is made when stereotypes are broken and archaic traditions are sidestepped. Things must not continue to be done in a particular way when there are better ways to do them.
In the area of the law, great judges of old have shown courage to change the course of history. In the 1944 case of United Australia Ltd V. Barclays Bank, where proper forms of action were in issue, Lord Atkin said “When forms of action, like ghosts from the past, stand in the way of justice, clanking their medieval chains, the proper cause for a Judge is to pass them undeterred”.
For those who are worried that this has never been done before, I will leave you with a historic dictum of Lord Denning in Parker V. Parker (1954) All ER 22, “What is the argument on the other side? Only this? That such a thing has never been done before. That argument does not appeal to me in the least. If we do not do things that have never been done before, we will never get anywhere. The law will stand still while the rest of the world moves forward, and it will be bad for both “.
I believe that this audacious move by the PDP will set the tone for further deepening of our democracy and give the opposition more impetus to hold the party in power to account. After all, it has been seen that a party in opposition today could become the ruling party tomorrow and vice versa.
Imaging having Ururuaja as a Shadow Commissioner for a particular ministry, the Commissioner there is in big trouble. He won’t sleep again. Hehehehehehhe.
Instead of panicking about the Shadow Cabinet which is really none of their business, the ruling party in the State should go and put their house in order and have ready answers to questions that will surely come.
Even a good Shadow chorister can help improve the performance of the main choristers.
Ururu Aja , a Shadow Akpor man, writes from Umule.
