similarly we could look at government as the act of governing so we said we can look at government as the Arts of governing what are we trying to say here we're trying to say that what the government basically does is govern they govern they control they guide the implements so we're saying government as a body is responsible for governing its people right so and that's why we see that we have various forms of government because there are various ways in which people countries states can be governed so we simply said government as an act as an as an act of governing simply we can define government under this as a body responsible for governing the states lastly we could look at government as an academic field of study this is very very important this is because government is related to so many areas government as an academic field of study government is related to numerous diverse areas and you cannot excel in those professions if you have not conceptualized yourself with you know what government is its elements its principles how it works you know so there are various um fields of studies that directly relate to government we have most importantly international relations we have politics you know how Nigeria is ruled all of that politics we have political pieces right so these are various fields of study that involve us learning and knowing more about what we do here in government and you know how governments govern now bringing it down to the elements of government the first thing we're going to be looking at today is what we call the arms of government now you might ask yourself what do you mean by the arms of governments what are arms of government do you mean the federal government the state government no I do not the arms of government can be seen as an organ through which you know the entire governmental body is divided into three major functions so we have the arms of government divided into three organs we have the executive we have the legislature and then we have the Judiciary the roles of these various arms of government is usually defined or confined in the constitution of that states however the components and makeup also vary depending on you know the country we're in and how exactly they make up these various amps appointments So today we're going to be looking at the arms of government we're going to look at the various definitions of these arms we're going to dissect them we look at the benefits you know the types and look at concepts are very relevant to these various arms of government like I mentioned earlier most constitutions usually set out you know the powers of these various arms of government right and that is why it's important that we look at them so that we know who is what and we classify them properly so let's start with the first which is the executive who are the executives we said the executive is an organ or arm of government responsible for the implementation of policies so we said this is the arm okay responsible for the implementation and formulation of policies so you might ask yourself what exactly are policies policies are slightly different from laws because they are sort of rules and guides given to control the Affairs of whatever it is the policy was created for so the major function of the executive arm of government is to implement and formulate this laws now you can ask yourself who makes up the executive body right so examples are the number one man in the Federation the President right so the president is a member of the executive arm of government in the UK we can have what we call the prime minister right all the governors of your various states are members of the executive body so we have governors we have ministers we have civil servants we have the police we have armed forces Etc now this is a very typical Jam question which of the following is not a member of the executive arm and then they put options various options and they put police there and then most times we always assume that boy should be maybe a member of the Judiciary since they are interpreting the law but no what the police actually does or the role of the police is to implement the laws that have already been created so we can add here implementation of laws and formulation of policies and that is why when you break the law maybe when you pass a red light it is you know police plasma that enforce those laws so another word we can use for implementation is enforcement so the roles of the executive revolve around implementing and enforcing the laws you know that have been created for the state or the country now we need to ask ourselves what are the types of Executives that we have so we have types of executive so basically there are two forms we could either have the single or plural executive or we could have the Parliamentary or non parliamentary executive please be not be reminded that in the UK right the executive is known as cabinet that's what they are called cabinets however in Nigeria in the U.S we just simply call them executives now let's break this down what do we regard as single executive for single executive who are simply saying that the control or you know the entire executive body is under the control of a single individual for example here in Nigeria in Nigeria the entire executive body is controlled by one man which is President muhammadu buhari however he has you know a body of advisors these advisors are not his colleagues rather they work for him so they are agents and advisors to the one man that controls everything that's why we call it a single executive on the other hand for there to have a plural executive um body or system it means that there is a council of Executives so so let's put that here when we talk of single executive while looking at control in one individual however when we talk plural plural executive here we said control is within a council of executives so we have control in a council of executives now those agents and advisors that we had when we're explaining the single Executives they are no longer they no longer work for this for the to the person in control rather within the council the president would be a chairman and the advisors and agents are simply his colleagues so I hope you see the difference here it means that for a plural executive there's a group of people involved in controlling implementing and enforcing laws and policies however for single there's just one man doing that control and then he has AIDS and guide from you know agents and advisors the next one we need to look at is the parliamentary or non-parliamentary executive this is very simple in the Parliamentary executive right the head or the controller of the executive in this state maybe the president is there under the recommendation and appointment of the parliament and would lose his position when the parliament no longer has confidence in him typically this occurs in the British system so to put that in writing we could just say here the control is vested on an individual whom powers have been conferred by the parliaments and Authority remains Authority remains until Parliament loses confidence I hope this makes sense so a parliamentary executive is where you are not elected into that office rather the parliament sits and decides who is vested with that Authority and you will remain in that position until the parliament loses confidence in either your abilities or your power to continue to lead into the states so obviously if this is what parliamentary means then we already know what non-parliamentary system is so we can see an example of a country that practices this would definitely be the UK or you can say Britain that is how the prime minister is appropriate now for a non-parliamentary executive non-parliamentary executive here the parliament is not involved in appointing or determining full occupies that position so there is no Parliament involvement and the president is usually elected by electorates so an example of a country that practices this is the United States very very simple now let's highlight some of the key functions of the executive so we have functions of d executive first and foremost policy formulation policy formulation as we mentioned earlier policies are what you know guide and direct um Affairs of Estates and these policies are formulated by the executive right so they could also you know be in charge of initiating bills initiating of bills so I wanted to put this right immediately because it's very similar when we get to um legislature we can Now understand better what bills are but just know that the executive one of their functions is to initiate bills similarly what they do they also enforce stroke implements laws here we're looking at the police the Armed Forces these are one of their key rules to enforce and Implement laws also the executive is in charge of creating budgets they're in charge of creating budget I hope you know what budgets are a budget is usually a government's proposed document that contains the amount of money they intend to raise and the amount they intent to spend for that you know particular fiscal year so the the the the executive is responsible for policy formulation if they're responsible for initiation of bills enforcing stroke implementing laws creating budgets the executive in the position of the president is also responsible for appointments right there are various roles that are usually appointed and approved by the president only for example the rules of ministers I hope you know that the president appointed himself as the minister for petroleum do you understand so these are powers that have been legally conferred on the executive and they can do it without any um repercussion from the law they without any repercussion from the law another function of the executive is pardoning of criminals right this is also one of the roles that have been provided to the presidents the president could walk into a prison and then maybe at the end of every year they are allocated a specific number of prisoners that they can give pardon and that pattern is binding it means that whatever crime that they were convicted for they are now fully let go of such crimes so there are a whole lot more functions and it's important as students to always read ahead beyond what you know the teacher has provided just so we have like an idea of everything that should be here now having looked at the executive arm let's look at the next armor government which is the legislature right the legislature is one of the most important of the three arms of government because the laws are being made are what help us maintain Law and Order in the society which is also another function of the executive maintaining law and Order recall police will always tell you that they are your friends whenever you have issues whenever you have complaints it's important that you take them straight to the executive always reports to the police and therefore they can have the power to ensure that you know whoever is disturbing you know to karasi you can stop so these are one of the roles of the executive so back to the legislature I was explaining how important the legislative and government is so this is the arm of government this is the arm of government responsible for making laws this is a very important function of you know the entire governmental body because if laws are not made there will be no means of controlling citizens actions right so the legislature is responsible for making laws and those laws are usually binding on everyone including themselves there's a theory that says that there is no one that is above the law and that principle is called the rule of law no one is above the law so we need to ask ourselves what exactly are the functions of the legislature so we want to look at the functions of legislature the major function of the legislature is lawmaking so we have it here as law making here they're responsible for determining the laws that need to be enforced and then they determine you know how exactly to enforce it the next function of the legislature is amendment of Constitution I hope you remember what the Constitution is the Constitution is you know the book of laws that guide the Affairs of Estates however we see that the constitution needs to be amended in order to reflect current or present realities we've had numerous Constitutional Amendments and at a future time on this course would walk through all of that but the responsible party for the amendment of that Constitution is what we call the legislature also the legislature has what we call the power of Investigation power of Investigation so the legislature has been given the power to investigate actions that might be seen as unlawful does that make sense yes next we have they have another Power called The Power of questioning here this is directly to the executive body where they feel that there is a questionable action or a policy being enforced or implemented it is the role of the legislature to question Jonathan those actions and ensure that they are within the confines of the law basically everything that the legislature do is in a way to check and balance what the executive does and ensure that everything that the executive does is in line with the loss in that vein we need to look at the various forms of legislative body so we have the forms of legislature there are two in number we have one to buy camera legislature and then we have the uni camera legislature in Nigeria the legislative body is known as the national assembly right it is known as the National Assembly now the National Assembly here in Nigeria is divided into two we have the Senate house and then we have the house of Representatives we'll look at that in further detail later while in the United States their National Assembly so this is Nigeria in the U.S the legislature house is divided into the house of laws and the house of Commons so basically what the legislature is is a lawmaking body that is usually divided into Chambers from what we can see here it means that there are always two Chambers we have the upper chamber which is the chamber usually consists of sophisticated individuals and then we have the lower chamber right so as we can see the Senate house in Nigeria is the upper chamber House of Representative lower chamber for the U.S we have the house of laws and then for the for the um for the UK we have the house of laws and then we have the House of Commons right so again this bicameral system is what we are trying to identify here what exactly do we call a bicameral legislature now bicameral legislature is where they exist two Chambers responsible for the law making of a particular responsible for the law making in a particular state so if I were to look at bicameral legislature now we said this is a two two chamber is a two chamber legislative body responsible for lawmaking so this has gotten from you know Greek words by here means to and camera is getting from camera which means chain so it's basically a two chamber legislative body that's responsible for lawmaking and recall that I mentioned that we have the upper chamber comprised of individuals with high expertise and skills right so the upper chamber is a more sophisticated chamber within the legislative arm and then subsequently we have the lower chamber which guarantees representation now like I mentioned earlier the bicameral legislation is it's practiced in Nigeria here it's practice in the United States is practiced in the UK as well that is in Britain and then they have various names for their various legislative bodies now we need to ask ourselves what exactly are the benefits of this bicameral legislation should we opt for it or why not use the other one which we are yet to Define so let's highlight some key merits of bicameralism number one it's boosts d coutini of laws passed where there are two Chambers in which the laws first go through the lower chamber and then eventually get to the higher chamber he means that the arrests are sure that sufficient scrutiny has been done you know on those lost paths and the quality of laws pass will be very rich such that it does not you know oppress any party and neither does it give advantage to any another very important Merit of this system of legislature is that it provides checks and balances I hope you know that checks and balances usually boost efficiency in any organization now where there is a lower chamber you know and a higher chamber and both Chambers although acting independently have the right to you know question the the um characters the laws the bills passed from the other chamber it sort of puts everyone on their toes and ensure that no one is doing things for their own personal interest or for their own personal gain it sort of puts objectivity to things and that's why we believe that the system of checks and balances provided by the bicameral legislature is one that is very very Suited also it gives access to mature and experienced legislature mature and experienced legislators now recall we said the upper chamber is usually made up of sophisticated and you know highly knowledgeable individuals now having such high knowledgeable or experienced educations on board also boosts the quality and you know the speed of lawmaking in a particular country so you see bicameralism on its own has advantages ranging from the fact that the laws being passed under a bicameral legislature could be said to you know have better foundational roots and then in the entire process it ensures that the laws being passed were broken down and scrutinized line by line now we've identified some benefits however what are the demerits of this system number one it delays decision or law making so it delays law making so this is a major turnoff for the bicameral legislature knowing that laws have to be passed first through the lower chamber and then to the upper chain chamber sort of increases the amount of time spent on making these laws and those delays could be detrimental also we can say that having two legislative chambers that would both be paid for doing the same service can be a waste of resources so it's a waste of limited resources also this system is not suitable it is not suitable for cases of emergencies similarly this bicameralism contributes to dumping activities I would explain that now it is a theme across countries not just Nigeria where if um an individual advice for a position or maybe a president or a minister or a governor and they lose the National Assembly is usually the topping ground for such individuals so it means that at the end of the day just because if created a niche in terms of favoritism with the people they've been able to interact with them they can easily and end up you know giving themselves that um it's like a relief package oh as I'm unable to be Governor perhaps I can just manage National Assembly regardless of the fact that they may not be suitable for that particular room and at the end of the day the people who suffer it are the citizens because it is these people that are placed within very crucial responsibility of making laws now we've looked at bicameral legislature let's look at the unique camera legislature yes we have the unicameral legislature recall we said bicameralism came from Greek words by a camera meaning 2 and chamber uni obviously means one and Camera Still Remains chamber so we thought can we find this is a single chamber right it is a single chamber Legends letting body responsible for making laws recall I mentioned that in this system we have countries like the UK we have the us we have Nigeria very few countries practice during camera legislature because the bicameral is widely popular so examples of countries practicing this we have Israel we have Bulgaria and so on and so forth so these are two countries that we see practicing the unicameral legislature now what is the feature of this unit camera legislature as we explain from the name there is only one single chamber responsible for making laws now we'll now ask ourselves what is the merits or are there any merits of unicameralism first and foremost we know that this thank you reduces time in lawmaking process because it is a single chamber legislative body right decision making in terms of law passing and bills is done in just one chamber so it means once one one session is held just with the single chamber nothing else is taken to any other chamber and abuse can be faster so significantly it is suitable in periods of emergency for example when the world was spiraled into the covid-19 pandemic numerous laws needed to be made countries like Israel and Bulgaria with a single chamber um with a single chamber legislative body could have easily passed their laws maybe within a matter of maybe hours or mid or minutes however for countries like Nigeria and the United States where we would need to pass it from one chamber to the other we have delays and those delays are very crucial simply because most times laws need to be made at the Nook of time so similarly unicameralism right does not contributes to wasted Financial resources also it's does not practice duplication of rows right it is believed that what is done at the lower chamber is quite similar to what is done at the upper chamber so why then are we duplicating these Force regardless of the fact that you know system of checks and balances are in place and the quality of this of laws made are you know superb and you know expected it sort of seems redundant that we have to hire people for roles that have already been hired for finally we can also say that it benefits of you know the unicameralism is that it is ideal for small countries right unlike Nigeria that is more Thai you know that has multiple ethnic groups multiple tribes John's right we can't really use this Munich cameras another benefit of bicameralism is that it encourages representation right in terms of the fact that all if I'm if I'm to break down the National Assembly in Nigeria right I hope you know that this Senate house is made up of 109 members here in Nigeria which is comprised of three senators three senators from the 36 States and one from the federal capital territory so once we multiply that six by three you have 108 and then the last person from fct now with this we can see that each state within this country is properly represented and that is one of the benefits of bicameralism however the house of rep is usually made up of 360 seats comprised of political parties let me give you a fun fact over 70 percent of these seats in the House of Representatives is occupied by the ruling party which is the APC so about 227 seats out of 360 is occupied by APC and then we have about 121 for PDP and then you know PMP and all the other smaller parties get to share of the rest with one vacant seat so you sort of see how the National Assembly that is the legislature is usually reflective of the current ruling party because you know that president muhammadu buhari is a member of the APC and that's why you can see that reflecting in the number of seats are located to that particular party it means that most times we can see some of the defectiveness of our Nigerian legislative system how more than half of the seats is occupied by the ruling party it means that is there really a system of checks and balances between the legislature and the executive less when we moved to Judiciary we would most likely find out so we've looked at Major merits of this um of this legislative type of legislative arm so let's look at some of the disadvantages right most of the disadvantages are quite similar to the things that we cannot get in bicamerality one it's contribute to Hasty lawmaking it could contribute to hasty law making also right we could say that the unicameral legislature gives no room for checks and balances within each chamber so we can say there is no room for checks and balances Within the chamber right generally these are some of the demerits of unicameralism and with further reading you'll probably be able to find out more things that makes this less attractive than the bicameral legislature still under the legislature there's something we need to look at which is what we call bills bills want to look at bills what are bills I'm sure I've used that word quite a number of time so let's take a look at it deals water bills bills are simply proposed actions that are being laid before the legislative body that upon approval become laws in summary bills are proposed laws so before a law is enacted it usually starts from what we call a bill so to Define this we can say bills are proposed actions raised in the legislature or legislative body upon approval they become lulls so you can say of which giving approval they become laws simply put deals are proposed now the process of drafting a bill or turning a bill into law in Nigeria it's quite a lengthy one this is because for starters bills could come from various bodies it could come from the different arms of governments nonetheless it still goes through the same process the bill will be drafted it will be it will have its first reading it will have the second reading it will be taken to the commission committee stage and then it will now pass through all the arms of the National Assembly before it is approved by the president please note Bill to be passed into law for a bill to be passed into law right it's most be approved by the president so this is very important and that's why when we're listing you know the functions of the executive we put approval because it's one of the functions of the president's um or the presidential Rule now what are the types of bills that we have what are the times of bills basically there are three types of view one we have public bills two we have private member abuse and three we have money views now let's explain it first off we have the public bills public bills are bills that are initiated by the executive body and usually I am sick to address issues confronted by the entire country so we said public views these are bills initiated by the executive and usually confront National issues by national issues we mean issues faced by members of the country so we have that as public bills now on the other hand private views are bills initiated by members of the executive and you see that that's why it's called private member bills that's why it's called private member bills because they are initiated by members of the legislature finally money views this is another bill that is initiated by the executive it is a bill that includes the amount of money that the executive intends to raise and spend for a particular period so basically money bills are budgets so how budgets work right the budget is created by the executive and then given to the legislature it would pass through the two chambers of the legislative arm scrutiny will be done adjustments questioning you know they would interrogate and then upon recommendation from the National Assembly the president can now approve the budget so basically money bills are initiated by the executive and contain proposal for amounts to raise and spend for the countries physical fiscal yeah it is basically as we said it is basically a budget so these are the three major types of bills we have and as we mentioned it is part of the primary duties of the legislature to ensure that bills are passed into so now that we have looked at the executive and and the legislature before we move to the final arm of government which is the Judiciary we'll take a 10 minutes break at this point yeah advice to you know look at things that we have learned today if you have any questions feel free to drop them in the comment section and then when we get back in the next 10 minutes feeling refreshed get a drink of water if you want to drink just relax and then we look at the final arm of government and then we can complete this model for our break we looked at the arms of government we looked at the executive and then we looked at the legislature right now we want to look at the final arm of government the Judiciary now who are the Judiciary we said the Judiciary is the arm of government that is responsible for interpreting laws and then applying existing ones so basically when the legislature makes laws right it is the responsibility of the Judiciary to interpret it and please note that this interpretation does not occur like maybe or they'll go on the news and then they say oh Lord number one this is what it means no we interpret laws by means of Institutions set up called courts so the courts or the court system is the institution by which the Judiciary you know performs their core duty of interpreting laws so putting that into definition this is the arm of government responsible four for the interpretation and of new law so they're responsible for the interpretation of new laws and the application of existing laws so recall I said the Judiciary is or performs their core functions by means of court systems right so in Nigeria right courts range from the Apex cuts which is the Supreme Court then we have various appeal cuts have you cuts we have high courts or state cuts and then we have magistrates courts and customary Cuts so these are the various courts that have judges please note in the Judiciary we have what we call judges these are the persons that are vested with the knowledge skills expertise and power to interpret the laws what it means that must have gone through law school they must have a highly degree in law come to law school barristers and then they cannot be appointed as judges right so we have them in different ranges of cuts and maybe when we look at Cuts in a future model we'll see how these various Cuts works the powers that they have and so on and so now there's a popular saying that goes to judiciary is the last hope of the Common Man this is because they perform very unique functions and as such we must look at the functions of the Judiciary first function or role of the Judiciary or the judicial system is the interpretation we have the interpretation of laws let's assume that shagun steals a goat from his neighbor and his neighbor then sue Shogun to court obviously the first thing they will do is to go to the police recall we talked about the executive and we mentioned that the role of the executive is to enforce laws obviously stealing is a crime and as such it shouldn't be done so it means check will be taken to the police station and then the police will now are in Shogun to court and then he will now stand for trial now he's at that point the judge within the judicial system will now interpret the laws for your crime this is what your crime entails and this is your social punishment also the Judiciary is in the business of settling disputes so one of the core functions of the judicial system settlement of disputes many a Time rather than fight physically or um you know take violent measures usually individuals take their problems to the courts and this is what we call mediation here the judge is standing as an independent body that will be responsible to listen to both parties understand their Grievances and help them amicably resolve their disputes another um another function of the Judiciary is also to interpret the Constitution interpret the Constitution remember the Constitution is the most binding law in every country or state and as such is the role of the judicial system to interpret the Constitution they also are in the business of safeguarding safeguarding the rights of Citizen rights of citizens whenever a human right has been violated your first place of recourse is to go to the judicial system right function of the Judiciary protection against violence I'll explain in more advanced Society whenever an individual feels threatened by another they could go to court and request properties training order restraining order is an instrument of the judicials that can help ensure that so you can just generally call this protection our lens or protection of individuals because there are curious Spirits mandates that could be issued by the law court that in general protects the interests performs and so many more which I encourage you to read up and expand your knowledge you see what we say that the Judiciary is the Last Hope of the Common Man however for them for execute or perform this function the judicial system must have certain characteristics so while looking at the characteristics of features of the judicial system another Cherry has is what we call the power of review they can't even members of the executive can be charged to court and that started features that the judicial system must have ensure that in their capacity has lasted first in so this I think the most important uh that's what we call Independence of full form yes right so that they are judicial system that is politically which we have a record car neutrality foreign this is because these political parties are called interest groups and their major role is the interests of their members however for the Judiciary to indeed be independent they must at first be political politically neutral shouldn't be a member of any political foreign is what I call relative relative just for the flow of you know activities for continuity they should not even about to just change the judicials um or a judge simply because judges may be putting things in their favor so they must have relative permanence so that they can always secure the last Super common it all means that how they interpret laws the manners in which they interpret laws must be relatively permanent another very important feature is immunity immunity it is very important that the judicial system is provided with some sort of immunity this is because when or for a judge to act independent or impartially it means that it will make decisions that are likely to affect you know High Powers executive members legislative members however when they have that diplomatic immunity it absconds them from the personal effects of their judgments so it sort of the the judgments they make down to the rope and it cannot be against them these are honesty due process called of conducts it means that at every point in time where George is making you know is placing people it must follow it means that is most Ensure follow that duplicate and act Equity practice of we have looked at the majority of the what each child system must have for it to be a woman look at something the independence [Music] [Music] foreign bodies that is the executive and the legislature so we said Independence please note without Independence the judicial system cannot be impartial remember that one of these come made because he's evil the laws are not made because he's my brother the laws are not made because he is this the laws are made because this is what the law is right so where executive and the legislature cannot influence and where the Judiciary can be independent in this decision making can say sorry is impartial and it is free form now the last concept need to look at as it relates to the executive tradition is what we call parliamentary parliamentary Supremacy this is very similar to the independent we said this is where the legislature is able to make and on make laws without the influence of of external factors okay we can say that the Parliamentary said the legislative house in states are always called the parliament but the result for making laws so we said where we can make an Omega laws without interference of many external party that's International or national then the parliament is supreme however some limitations have limitations to parliamentary Supremacy the first one we have is called constitutional limitation whatever it is that whatever laws that I want to be made or whatever policies that are about to be enforced huge if the Constitution limits the fact those powers are deemed whatever actions whatever policies that we made and you're going to teach elementary Supremacy because the law probably measure dictionary is the inter weather applying it a law judgment was executive judicial you're right stop you know the executive Parliament what we call interest groups these are [Music] foreign is international laws and treats the arms of government are very fundamental however there are other elements that we would need to take through in this course I really hope that we enjoyed today's class I look forward to seeing you in the next class where we'll be looking at basic concepts in government thank you so much for listening I hope to see you in the next class