RESTRUCTURING, NOT CONSTITUTION REVIEW

RESTRUCTURING, NOT CONSTITUTION REVIEW

The ethnic nationalities must sit down and agree on how to live together, writes Sonnie Ekwowusi

The on-going purported amendment or review of the 1999 Constitution by the National Assembly is illegal and unconstitutional. It is anti-people and therefore a futile exercise. Only the people of Nigeria who are the repository of power under our presidential democracy can rightfully enact, review or amend a constitution. However President Buhari and some others argue that the restructuring of Nigeria can be met and achieved under the on-going constitution review. With the greatest respect, this argument is fundamentally flawed. Constitution review is not restructuring. The mandate given to the President and members of the National Assembly by the people of Nigeria to govern is a limited mandate which does not empower them to review the existing 1999 Constitution let alone enact a new constitution. Only the sovereign, that is, the people, can review or enact a new constitution for the good governance of Nigeria. If Nigeria is a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and multi-national society, her constitution must reflect the shared visions and aspirations of the variegated interest groups and nationalities that constitute Nigeria. This is why the Nigerian people (not a handful power-drunk and failed messiah) should be allowed to enact a constitution that should govern the affairs of the people. Therefore the National Assembly cannot usurp the power of the Nigerian people to review or enact a Constitution which ought to protect the people’s interests.

This is the view being canvassed by the late Chief FRA Williams SAN, Prof., Ben Nwabueze SAN, Afe Babalola SAN and other eminent lawyers over the years. I completely agree with them. Without prejudice to the constitutionally-recognized role of the National Assembly in law-making under the 1999 Constitution, a constitution review is a very important task which cannot be successfully done without first eliciting the views/reactions of the people of Nigeria through referendum, or through constituent assembly or others means of assessing the will of the people. In any case, the 1999 Constitution (which is substantially similar to the 1979 Constitution) which the present National Assembly is trying to amend is not the people’s Constitution. There was no time the Nigerian people met in 1999 to enact for themselves a constitution. The 1999 Constitution is General Abdulsalam Abubakar’s military constitution. It is not an autochthonous constitution. It is not the much-vaunted people’s constitution. The fact that Abdulsalam Abubakar used some civilian legal experts in enacting the constitution does not confer legitimacy on it. The Preamble to the Constitution, “We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria…do hereby make, enact and give to ourselves the following Constitution” is a big lie because there was no time the Nigerian people met either directly or indirectly to enact for themselves a constitution. Simply put, the 1999 Constitution is an inconvenient inequitable constitutional contraption being used to perpetuate injustices in Nigeria. To the extent in which the constitution is a mere contraption it lacks the people’s mandate and legitimacy and therefore it is illegal, null and void. Therefore the National Assembly should not be seen to be amending or reviewing a contraption which in actual fact is nothing. You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand.

Apart from being a military constitution, the 1999 Constitution over-concentrates power (as could be gleaned from the long list of federal powers in the Exclusive List of the Constitution) in the hands of the federal government thus leaving the federating units at the mercy of the federal government. This is the main reason for the consistent clamour for a people’s constitution and, by extension the restructuring of Nigeria. You will recall perhaps with special poignancy that in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/367/2007, Chief Anthony Enahoro, Prof Wole Soyinka, Ikemba Odimegwu Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, Chief Ralph Uwazurike, Yerima Shetima, and others had dragged the federal government to the Federal High Court in 2007 to, inter alia; challenge the legitimacy of the 1999 Constitution. In fact, one of the declarations being sought by the plaintiffs in the aforesaid suit was a declaration that “We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria…do hereby make, enact and give to ourselves the following Constitution” is a scandalous lie.

Given the increasing secessionist agitations and demands for restructuring of Nigeria, it is obvious that the Nigerian people are looking for an opportunity to discuss how they want to live together as a people in one country. Call that opportunity anything; the fact remains that the Nigerian people are looking for an opportunity or forum to express their views about the goings on in the country. Whether we like it or not, this meeting of minds of the people of Nigeria shall come to pass one day. It is not possible to force people with pent-up grouses about the injustices meted out against them to live together without giving them an outlet or opportunity to express their anger and views. Some don’t like to call things by their real names. Others prefer to sweep things under the carpet. Considering the lopsided nature of our federalism, fiscal indiscipline, imbalance in the sharing of the wealth of the country, long years of sorrowing under military rule and all that, the National Assembly cannot now singly-handedly review the 1999 Constitution without opportunity given to the ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria to express their views on how they should be governed. If democracy still means “government of the people” then the people must always have the final say in matters affecting their interests. Since the representatives of the people exercise power on behalf of the people, they cannot impose their will on the people. You see, we must guard against the deliberate shutting out of the people in the making of the constitution which affects their interests. We should not think of the government only in terms of the scope it has left for each individual to enjoy his/her freedom: we must think of the capacity of the government to govern according to the will of the people.

This is the true meaning of presidential democracy. This is why the people are clamouring for restructuring of Nigeria. At the moment Nigeria is facing probably her worst fractionalization since her independence. The common strands that cut across the different divides at the moment are mutual distrust, mutual suspicion, pent-up grouse, enmity, hostility and fear of domination. The ugliest aspect is that President Buhari does not listen to the people. Dialoguing with this president has become a herculean task. President Buhari’s nepotism, incompetence and cluelessness are producing the Nnamdi Kanus and Sunday Igbohos of the world and secessionist agitations in Nigeria. As a remedy, the ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria must sit down, discuss and agree on how to stay together as one country. President Buhari cannot be imposing his Fulanization Policy on the country at the same time preaching that the unity of the country is not negotiable. If Mr. President is really and truly keen on fostering Nigerian unity he should allow all the ethnic nationalities that make up Nigeria an unfettered participation in restructuring Nigeria in order to enthrone equity, fairness and communal justice in Nigeria.

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