2010 - JAMB Government Past Questions and Answers - page 1

Nation-State is synonymous with sovereignty. This is so when we realize the fact that sovereignty is the absolute power of the state to exercise supreme legal authority over its own affairs within its territory without any form of external control.

A state has a definite geographical territory in which it is situated and has boundaries. It is sovereign, independent and a republic. It has also a human population who inhabit the given area.

On the other hand, a nation, like a state is a collection of people who live in a definite geographical area and has a sovereign government.

A fundamental component of political culture is social values.

The Components of political culture are as follows:

1. Cognitive Orientation

2. Evaluation Orientation

3. Affective Orientation.

A form of oligarchy in which gifted people are at the helm of affairs is aristocracy.

Aristocracy is seen as a form of government in which the best citizens rule. In most cases people of noble birth or wealth usually rule. It is believed that they possess the best qualities for leadership.

A state that is ruled by an elected citizen is a republic.

A republican form of government is that which has a head of state elected by the people. This means that a sovereign state is referred to as a republic if the country has no traditional ruler of his representative as its head of state but by the one chosen by the people with a fixed term of office. Such head of state is known as a President in a republic. The President may be an Executive of Ceremonial President.

Some of the characteristics of a republican form of government is that the head of state known as the President is elected by the people.

In a republic, members of the legislature are directly elected by the people etc.

A true democracy in a modern sense exists where the elected representatives rule.

Democracy is a government where people exercise power of governance through representatives. Such representative must come in to govern through popular, periodic free and fair elections.

1. Periodic Elections

2. Open Franchise

3. An Independent Judiciary

4. Free and Fair Election, etc.

In a parliamentary system, when the legislsses a vote of no confidence on the executive.it means that the executive is required to resign.

One of the features of parliamentary system of government is use of vote of no confidence. Here, it is seen that the parliament can use ''vote of no confidence'' to force the Prime Minister and his cabinet ministers to resign en-bloc.

The legislative body of the United States of America is the Congress.

According to Ade Fasuba (1972) '' All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representative.

Unicameralism is a feature of the legislature in Israel.

The upper house in most federal systems is created to prevent excesses of the executive.

Bicameralism makes it difficult for the executive to dominate the two chambers.

It is in the Confederal systems that the power of the component units is found to be more than that of the Central government.

Confederation is an association of countries for a particular purpose or some purposes. It is the type of government with a weak Centre and a strong component units. The Central Government depends on the sovereign states (components units) for her existence.

Some characteristics of a confederation are as follows:

1. Strong component units and weak centre.

2. Freedom of secession

3. Citizens loyalty to only the component unit

4. The Confederation deals only with the various units and not with individuals.

5. The central government can only exercise power with the consent of the confederating units.