Faculty of Management Sciences
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Item Political leadership, corruption, and the crisis of governance in Africa : a discourse(Adonis and Abbey Publishers, 2021-03-15) Fagbadebo, Omololu; Dorasamy, NirmalaCorruption is a common word often identified by scholars as a major barrier to growth and development. Every society condemns corrupt practices and often holds the leadership responsible. Across the globe, there are anti-corruption advocacy mechanisms aimed at promoting ethical leadership in government. The African Union, for instance, has adopted a series of continental anti-corruption protocols to assist member states curb the rising tide of corruption and its consequences on human security. Using a qualitative method of data collection and analysis, this paper interrogates the leadership-corruption nexus in relation to the prevailing crisis of governance in Africa. It argues that the nature of political leadership in Africa engenders the proclivity towards abuse of power. We find that entrenched vested interests of the political elite have promoted corruption and abuse of power as the instruments of governance, and has reduced requisite statutory institutional oversight structures, to ineffective mechanisms. While the crisis of governance dominates society with the attendant consequences, the political elite lives in opulence. The paper submits, therefore, that the crisis of governance occasioned by mismanagement of public resources by political leadership will continue to fester if citizens continue to support unethical practices by the political leaders.Item Judicial review as an accountability mechanism in South Africa : a discourse on the Nkandla case(Durban University of Technology, 2022) Fagbadebo, Omololu; Dorasamy, NirmalaSeparation of powers among the three branches of government, in most Constitutional democracies, is a design to avert the tyranny of a personalized rule. With specific roles, in relationships characterized by separated but shared powers, each branch of government is a watchdog against the other in case of any abuse. In the South African governing system, the Constitution guarantees functional power relationships among the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary branches of the government. Nevertheless, the dominant party system, in practice, has weakened the legislative oversight and accountability powers to tame the excesses of the executive, contrary to the intendments of the drafters of the Constitution. Judicial review of the various legislative and executive actions, however, has created precedents that seek to reassert legislative capacity to hold the executive accountable. At one time or the other, the judiciary had indicted the legislature and the executive of dereliction of duties. Using primary and secondary data from judicial pronouncements, constitutional provisions, and other public documents, with extant literature, respectively, this paper reviewed the environment that prompted the activist posture of the South African judiciary. An entrenched culture of party loyalty and the incapacity of the legislature to enforce accountability have bolstered the need for assertive judicial review in ensuring accountability. The failure of the legislature to exercise its oversight power has provided the platform for the judiciary to rise as a formidable accountability instrument. Judicial independence, guaranteed by The Constitution, would continue to sustain the tenets of South African representative democracy.