WAEC Government Past Questions & Answers - Page 267

Decentralization—the transfer of authority and responsibility for public functions from the central government to subordinate or quasi-independent government organizations. The governmental powers in a federal system of government is decentralized in a way that, authority and reponsibilities are shared among the federal, state and local government .

Baron de Montesquieu in in his book titled '' The Spirit of the Laws, argued for a constitutional government with three separate branches, each of which would have defined abilities to check the powers of the others. Thii=s is to prevent cases like arbitrariness.

Arbitrariness; is the quality of being based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

Popular sovereignty is the principle that the authority of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (Rule by the People), who is the source of all political power.

The state has four essential attributes, Population, Territory, Government and Sovereignty. Population and territory constitute the physical basis of the State while government and sovereignty constitute its legal basis or political basis.

Illiteracy is a state whereby one is unable to read and write. In its simplest form, it can be defined as lack of any or sufficient education. Sometimes people who have had very basic education also experience challenges in reading and writing. When majority of the electorates are illiterates, electoral malpractice prevalent, making  representative government difficult