CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
The co-ordination of the system, people, and the polity is the responsibility of government who is the  custodian of the sovereignty of the entire citizenry which collectively and willingly they have submitted to it in return for peaceful and meaningful co-existence propelled by law and good government.  It is therefore pertinent to say that  the responsibility  of the government is to provide effective and efficient framework and enabling environment to enhance the social, physical, financial and general well-being of the populace or efforts of the components of the state especially human beings are effectively and efficiently galvanized towards productive activities and in the best interest of the state and the citizens determines the extent of the “goodness” or otherwise of its government. It is again not dubitable that a critical instrument for the organization of the state is law which government relies on day in, day out to ensure societal equilibrium. Legislation which is a product of institutionalized law-making process is by far the most important arsenal from which government derives its laws. The foregoing, therefore, lends credence to the avowed roles and responsibilities of legislation as a source of law in any society and by implication, on the Legislature which is wholly and constitutionally responsible for making these laws. The task of this research is to examine the extent to which legislation can promote good governance and sustainable development and to analyze, against the idiosyncrasies of the law, the constitution and constitutionalism in Nigeria, the extent to which good governance had been promoted through legislation. This task, as daunting and challenging as it may appear, is best navigated by citing concrete illustrations from Nigerian jurisprudence.
Good governance involves far more than the power of the state or the strength of political will. The rule of law, transparency, and accountability are not merely technical questions of administrative procedure or institutional design. They are outcomes of democratizing processes driven not only by committed leadership, but also by the participation of, and contention among, groups and interests in societal processes that are most effective when sustained and restrained by legitimate, effective institutions. Never have these concerns been linked to more momentous opportunities. In the Fall of 2002 the 191 Member States of the United Nations committed themselves to eight Millennium Development Goals: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development. 1 As daunting as these goals are in technical and resource terms, they are no less challenging to Member States’ abilities to mobilize people and resources, to make and implement difficult policy choices, and to involve their citizens in initiatives that will shape their futures. In this paper I suggest that good governance, the rule of law, transparency, and accountability embody partnerships between state and society, and among citizens— partnerships sustained not by good intentions alone but by lasting, converging incentives and strong legislative institutions. Governments provide the legal and policy frameworks that are necessary for successful and sustainable natural resource and landscape management programmes. Community-based approaches can only be effective if the institutional setting in a given location has in place policies, laws, regulations and fire management agencies that provide a contextual framework for participatory approaches, rights and benefits. The successful implementation of any program, including CBFM, often requires changes to the supporting policy, rules and regulations at three distinct levels of administration: the national level, the local/district level and the intermediate/provincial level. At the national level, policies and supporting legislation need to create an environment that enables CBFM and makes it attractive to local communities. At the provincial level a model of decentralized natural resource management needs to be promoted that is most likely to work under the relevant political circumstances (Treue and Nathan, 2007). In Cambodia, for example, government policy, laws and regulations all influence villagers regarding their use of fire. According to the Cambodia Forest Sector Review (2004), government field staff, specifically cantonment (district) offices of the national Forestry Administration (FA) often enforce specific laws at the district and commune levels. As a result, the government and its policies are seen to be explicitly linked to traditional fire use and, in broader terms, to the socio-economic situation in many rural villages. Community involvement in natural resource management is also a priority in Mozambique’s existing policy on forestry and wildlife resources. This focus is reflected in the government’s efforts to manage natural resources in partnership with rural communities and the private sector. This approach represents a policy shift both in Mozambique’s agricultural and natural resource sectors, which results in the potential for significant impact in economic development (Nhantumbo, Dent and Kowero, 2001). The development and the eventual implementation of relevant policy and supporting legislation require, at a minimum, good governance. The term “governance” is used extensively and in many contexts, but is difficult to capture in a simple definition. In a natural resource context, governance is used to refer to the body of formal and informal policies, and the arrangements developed between relevant stakeholders, to manage and to make decisions about a particular resource. Governance provides the framework by which groups, such as communities, define their interests, rights, responsibilities and the ways in which they will interact with each other and with institutions of authority to manage a particular resource.