By DebbieMuse
There are republics where governments fall because of coups, others where they fall because of scandals, and then there are republics where nobody is quite sure whether the government has fallen, risen, divided itself or merely issued a notice saying that it has not authorised the government to do whatever the government is doing. The Republic of Great Ibadans belongs proudly to the last category.
It is an old republic, famous for its Constitution, its legislative chamber and the extraordinary number of occasions on which its Constitution must be summoned from the archives to settle arguments between people who presumably read it before entering office.
The Constitution is treated with the reverence usually reserved for sacred manuscripts. It is quoted at meetings, invoked in disputes and remembered whenever somebody discovers that another somebody has already done something.
Yet for all its authority, it has acquired the peculiar reputation of a national referee who is always called after the match has become interesting.
The Republic has two great houses of government. There is the Executive Palace, where the President and his officers conduct the affairs of the nation, and there is the Grand Chamber, where legislators sit beneath solemn ceilings and represent the interests of the provinces.
The Constitution recognises both, and both recognise themselves. What is occasionally less certain is what happens when both houses become equally convinced that they are the one speaking for the republic.
This has produced a peculiar political culture. A decision may be made in one chamber, questioned in another, discussed by the press and eventually defended by everyone involved as though the Constitution itself had attended the meeting and taken minutes.
The ordinary citizen is left to determine which version of the republic is currently in operation: the one described by law, the one described by officials, or the one contained in the latest communiqué.
The Grand Chamber, meanwhile, has perfected the art of making government business wonderfully dramatic.
A proposal may begin as a conversation, become an announcement, acquire a controversy and eventually arrive before the chamber for formal consideration, where it emerges looking remarkably similar to the thing everybody had already been discussing.
In Great Ibadans, chronology is not always a straight road. Sometimes it is a circular road with a sitting somewhere in the middle.
Earlier in the year, the republic had already demonstrated its ability to turn arithmetic into public entertainment.
A major student programme came with a budget running into millions, only for later examination to produce a different calculation, with discrepancies appearing across some of the line items.
The figures did not establish that anybody had stolen anything; the numbers merely refused to remain as originally presented.
The citizens watched patiently. They had learnt that figures in Great Ibadans possessed a curious temperament. A total might be one thing in the budget and another when somebody actually added the numbers.
Nobody accused the calculator of treason. Still, the calculator had become one of the republic’s more trusted opposition parties.
Then came the Grand Chamber’s Summit.
A distinguished visitor offered a substantial sum to support the great gathering, and the republic suddenly discovered that generosity could be a constitutional event.
The visitor was welcomed with legislative honours, while questions travelled through the corridors about whether the proper procedure for such an honour had been followed.
The Constitution, naturally, was consulted. It had provisions concerning honorary membership and the procedure for conferring it.
Some legislators objected, others defended the arrangement, and the matter eventually reached the chamber, where the honour was formally ratified.
The leadership maintained that major gatherings required external financial support and that inviting public figures to educational programmes did not automatically make those programmes partisan.
Critics, meanwhile, continued to question the wisdom of attaching the identity of an active political figure to an official legislative programme.
Thus the republic discovered a useful principle of modern governance: when a man brings money, everyone discusses the programme; when the programme brings questions, everyone discusses the Constitution; and when the Constitution brings inconvenient questions, everyone discusses the programme again.
By September, the summit had acquired buses, banners, dignitaries and enough anticipation to suggest that absolutely nothing could stop it.
Then the Head of the Executive Palace issued a notice on the day of the gathering advising citizens to refrain from attending. The notice said the palace had not authorised representation at the programme, stated that Supreme Management had not endorsed it and urged citizens to exercise caution.
For a brief moment, Great Ibadans entered a state of constitutional meditation. Then the buses moved.
The Grand Chamber proceeded with the gathering at the International Conference Centre. The programme held, the guests arrived, and the event went ahead despite the earlier presidential notice.
This was a remarkable achievement even by republican standards. Two branches of government had managed to disagree about whether something should happen while the thing itself, displaying impressive independence, happened anyway.
By evening, the citizens had acquired two official realities without a single election taking place. One reality had a notice, the other had a summit. Both remained in existence.
aThe Constitution remained where it had always been. The only institution that appeared to have lost jurisdiction was confusion.
The press, naturally, was having a time.
Great Ibadan has developed a particularly energetic press because its journalists have learnt that government memory can sometimes be shorter than government tenure.
While officials issue statements, reporters keep documents. While committees deliberate, reporters count. While leaders explain that something is merely administrative, reporters quietly check the dates, figures, signatures and wording.
The press has therefore become the republic’s unofficial Department of National Memory. This has not always been welcomed by the government.
But the press, being constitutionally allergic to forgetting, continues to remember. A budget is published; somebody adds it. An election process is delayed; somebody counts the weeks. A constitutional question appears; somebody finds the relevant article. A notice is issued; somebody asks what happened before the notice became necessary.
And so the citizens have learnt the ancient survival skill of Great Ibadans: wait for the next communiqué.
If the Palace says one thing, wait for the Chamber. If the Chamber says another, wait for the Constitution. If both invoke the Constitution, wait for the press. If the press asks questions, wait for the committee. If the committee schedules a sitting, wait for the notice. If another notice arrives contradicting the first, congratulations: you have just witnessed another ordinary day in the republic.
The strange thing is that Great Ibadans does not lack institutions. It has a President, a legislature, committees, officers, rules, budgets, auditors, constitutional provisions and enough official titles to populate a small monarchy. What it occasionally lacks is the luxury of allowing these institutions to remain quietly within their respective rooms.
They keep walking into one another’s chambers. The Executive knocks on the Legislature’s door. The Legislature peers into the Executive’s window. The Constitution sits between them like an elderly relative summoned to settle a family argument and beginning to regret accepting the invitation.
Outside, the citizens watch their phones, waiting to discover whether the next message will announce a new decision, a clarification of an old one or a clarification that the previous clarification was never the decision.
Yet perhaps this is the republic’s greatest tradition: nobody is ever completely without an explanation.
There is always another statement, another sitting, another committee, another document and, somewhere in the distance, another constitutional provision waiting patiently to be remembered.
So Great Ibadans continues. The Palace governs, the Chamber legislates, the press watches, and the citizens refresh their phones.
The Constitution waits patiently for its next summons. Somewhere, another notice is probably being drafted, and the republic might explain itself shortly.
