2001 - JAMB Government Past Questions and Answers - page 1

Power differs from influence in that it is coercive while influence is persuasive.
G. A. I. Ofoegbu (1999) defined power as the ability of a person or a group of persons to enforce his or their decisions on other people by use of sanctions, punishment or penalties against disobedience. On the other hand, through persuasion and conviction an individual could be made to accept and to obey the views of other persons.

The standing committee of a legislature is one that performs adhoc functions.

In the Presidential System of Government for instance, the bill is sent to the appropriate standing committee for study and report to the House. The committee also reports back to the House for the second reading to take place. It is the duty of the committee to study and report and not to pass the bill

Where the constitution is supreme,unconstitutional acts of the executive and the the legislature can be checked by the courts through judicial review.


Judicial Review is judicial power to declare any actions of the executive and the legislature unconstitutional, null and void.

The central decision-making organ of a confederation is made up of politicians nominated by governments of member states.

There is even no central because the legislature of the whole country because the legislature of the confederating states remain and make laws for the units.

Adherence to majority rule is true of a parliamentary system of government.


This is so due to the fact that the party having a majority in the legislature controls both the executive and the legislature from where the Prime Minister and ministers of his cabinet are chosen. The stability of this system also depends upon the ruling party controlling a reasonable majority in the parliament.

A major feature of authoritarianism is that government is centralized.


It should be remembered that authoritarianism is a form of government in which the state controls or directs everything.

The central point of capitalism as expounded by Kari Marx is that capitalists' profit is the surplus value obtained from workers' labour.


According to Marx, workers produce more than what they get employers. The capitalist employers buy the services of labour cheap, but they sell the goods produced by labour at a rate higher than the amount spent for the payment of wages and up keep of the factory and they appropriate this excess as profit.
According to D.N.Ghosh (1959) Karl Marx described profit as nothing but legalized robbery.

A constitution that requires a plebiscite or a referendum to be amended is rigid.

An important function of a constitution is that it serves as the fountain head of authority for the exercise of power, Constitutions prescribe how the power of the sate is to be allocated between the various organs of government. Most constitutions define the limits of a government's authority thereby establishing the various rights of a state's citizens.

When a bill passed by the legislature is vetoed by the executive the action underscores the principle of checks and balances.

The doctrine or principle of checks and balances advocates the use of one organ of government to check the activities of the other organs. When the executive vetoes the bill passed by the legislature, and the executive has checked the activities of the legislature, thereby putting the principles of the checks and balances into practice.