Constitutional Review: Matters Arising

In apparent response to the genuine wishes of Nigerians, the National Assembly has resumed the  review of the 1999 Constitution often described as a product of the military that fall short of certain democratic tenets.

Since the attainment of civil rule in Nigeria, several calls have been made for the constitution to be reviewed. In fact, before the bold attempt at reviewing the constitution under the constitutional conference of 2006 the call for a Sovereign National Conference was eminently canvassed.

But while Nigerians reduced the matter to a mere political discourse, the deficiency of the constitution became a source of embarrassment to the country until 2010 when the National Assembly commenced a comprehensive review of the constitution beginning with the electoral provisions. The question is no longer whether the constitution should be reviewed. It is now to what extent the review can go.

While the proposal for a Sovereign National Conference continues to gain legitimacy, many Nigerians fear that given recent security challenges in the country, Nigeria will not come out the same from any such conference.

Therefore, if the constitution must be reviewed to meet the varied and various interests of Nigerians, the elected representatives of the people must remove politics from the  exercise and put before them the greater good of Nigeria and Nigerians.

They must look at Nigeria beyond the interest of any or some of the major ethnic groups. The National Assembly must see Nigeria beyond the context of African monarchical leadership model or base decision only on the realities of today.

Similarly, those who are in positions of authority must not forget that they are first and foremost citizens. If they construct the constitution to favour the current status quo, they will not be there forever, they will join the rest of the citizens to face the consequences of the anti-people decisions that maybe taken today. These are only some of the issues that should drive the review of the constitution.

Just recently, the Senate committee working on the constitution rose from a meeting at Asaba with discordant tunes. Sadly, the issue of state creation has continued to generate controversy even among the lawmakers which should not be. However, we advise that Nigerians should be cautious about demand for state creation in order not to abuse the privilege.

As a way out, some eminent Nigerians have suggested that the country should rather adopt the six geo-political zones as states. Similarly, others have also wondered if the Presidential System of government fashioned after the United States of America model, was not too expensive for Nigeria.

Recently, some issues have been floated as contentious in the process when they actually should not be. This is because if a  people decide to adopt a federal system of government the features of a federal state are very clear. They cannot assume a different meaning in Nigeria.

Some of the features of a federal state are that the constituent states are autonomous to a large extent. This autonomy includes controlling their own resources and paying taxes to the central government. The states also have their own police that bow to the federal police on specific cases.

Incidentally, we borrowed the system of government from the U.S and that is how it is done there. Why Nigerians should oppose state police and resource control by states is what we cannot understand. If any group expects Nigeria to move forward, and under the path we have taken, these issues should be taken as done.

Nigeria cannot continue to avoid positive change in how things are done and expect transformation and functionality as experienced in other lands. It is sad that while the U.S had to spend hundreds of years to get it right, Nigeria has a model to copy  from and should be able to do so.

On state creation, Nigeria cannot be just. In fact, if there is any area that deserves an additional state to be created, it is the long marginalised Niger Delta. A lot of the people are still in-accessible in the deltaic terrain and for them a state could do the trick as suggested by the Willinks Commission before the independence of Nigeria.

While the National Assembly would need to revisit this issue in the context of progress, we hope that even the practice of using Local Government as a rational for the allocation of resources in this country will stop. Let the states be free to create their sub-units and fund them, period.