Since the return of democratic governance in the country, Nigerians have been clamouring for a constitution that will truly reflect the wishes and aspirations of the people. The 1999 constitution which was inherited from the military was charcterised by so many contradictions and sufficiently deficient of democratic ideals. As a result some sections of the Nigerian populace have been calling for sovereign national conference to discuss and decide the essence of their union as a nation.
But the National Assembly has repeatedly disagreed with this school of thought, saying that the legislative arm which is an embodiment of representative democracy is qualified and competent to tackle the issues bothering on the unity and progress of the Nigerian state.
Therefore, an attempt was made by the National Assembly in 2005 to review the Nigerian constitution to address some of the grey areas that were identified by the legislators and the Nigerian public in general. The Constitution Review Committee under the leadership of the then Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu, having traversed the length and breadth of the country to canvass for people’s opinions and contributions came up with 120 recommendations, including the vexatious issue of tenure elongation for former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Because of the selfish interest of the proponents of tenure elongation for Chief Obasanjo as they failed to ascertain the mould of the Nigerian masses who were yearning for a better and responsive leadership, the National Assembly was tense and polarized to the extent that it was naturally reasonable to throw out the entire bill on the proposed constitution review.
But the need for the constitution to be reviewed came up stronger and received the attention of the last National Assembly. Consequently, a Constitution Review Committee, headed by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu was set up to address the salient issues. At the end of the exercise there were positive outcomes such as, making primary election mandatory for political parties; the granting of financial autonomy to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), fixing of specific time-frame for treating of election petitions etc. The amendments of these constitutional provisions actually played significant role in sanitizing the nation’s electoral system to considerable extent in the last two years.
Although there is much to be done in this regard, we must start from somewhere in our quest to build a solid electoral system as a basis for a virile and credible democratic culture.
Again, in a bid to do a thorough job the 7th National Assembly constituted another Constitution Review Committee under leadership of the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekwerenmadu to draw up a bill on proposed amendment of the constitution.
It is interesting to note that the committee has carried out its assignment within the time-frame and Nigerians are waiting for the Senate to commence debate on the bill.
Speaking in Abuja, at a symposium on “The review of the 1999 constitution and its impact on much-needed judicial reforms,” organised by a group known as Rule of Law Foundation, the chairman of the Constitution Review Committee, Senator Ike Ekweremadu gave snippets of some of the recommendations of the committee which include, the separation of the office of the Attorney-General (AG) of the federation from that of Minister of Justice, seven years tenure for Attorney-General; financial autonomy for the AG as funds for the office will be made available from the consolidated revenue fund; conferment of powers on the AG to investigate certain crimes and removal of the Chief Justice of Nigeria and other serving judicial officers as members of the Federal Judicial Service Commission.
The committee’s recommendations also cover the devolution of powers, creation of more states, recognition of six geo-political zones in the constitution, constitutional role for traditional rulers and local government councils as well as the need to expunge the Land Use Act, the National Youth Service Corps Act and the Public Complaints Act from the Constitution.
Others are single term of six years for the president and governors, fiscal federalism, financial autonomy for local government councils, state electoral bodies and assemblies, the immunity clause, Nigeria Police, rotation of executive officers, gender and special groups, mayoral for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), residency and indigene provisions.
Ekweremadu explained that the constitution would not be subjected to referendum, noting that the constitution specified how it should be amended and that did not include referendum.
He stressed the need for urgent reform of the judiciary.
“With a morally upright and well-reformed judiciary that applies the letters of the law fairly and timely, the systems manipulation, over-heating of our polity, reign of impurity in high and low places, the blatant disrespect for the law and rape of public treasury would abate considerately.
He said that the proposal for judicial reform submitted by former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mustapher was being considered.
In his key-note address, Justice Musdapher stated that the breakdown of law and order in the North-East might not be unconnected with the fact that people had lost faith in the nation’s laws and the justice delivery system.
He said that there was an urgent need to pass the bill for amendment of certain provisions of the constitution that affected the judiciary.
But one issue that has continued to attract national discourse since the recommendations of the committee became public knowledge is the single tenure for the president and governors. Majority of Nigerians that have criticised  this recommendation are of the view that it will increase the rate of corruption in the country.
According to them, for a political office-holder who knows that he has a single term the chances are that he may not be useful to the people who elected him into office. They have argued that the country will be worse off in all facets of its national life as little attention will be paid to developmental needs of the people.
Moreso, the lawmakers who are constitutionally empowered to check the excesses of the chief executive will not muster the courage to initiate impeachment proceedings against them since they are equally interested in the spoils of office.
However, there are other issues that should occupy the minds of Nigerians apart from the single tenure. Devolution of powers and fiscal federalism are some of these issues that should be properly addressed by our elected representatives. A situation where so much powers are concentrated at the centre is not in the interest of the federating units.
The president of the country is so powerful that his action or inaction has a multiplier effect on the destiny of this nation. It is an axiom that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Therefore, it is imperative for the National Assembly to critically examine the need for devolution of powers to strengthen and deepen the nation’s democracy.
Another issue that should be given adequate attention is fiscal federalism. It is not justifiable that the federal government should be receiving over 50% of the monthly allocations from the federation account while the 36 states and 774 local government councils in the country should have something less to attend to their numerous financial obligations. It is obvious that the burden of development lies with the second and third tiers of government that are visibly closer to the people. It is morally sound that the states and local government areas that generate these resources should have greater chunk of the revenue. We cannot continue to run a system where federal institutions and projects are poorly funded, abandoned or in deplorable state in spite of the huge budgetary allocations that are available to the federal government to address these problems.
Mighty glad, Nigeria has experienced over fourteen years of uninterrupted democracy, it is incumbent on the law-makers who are major beneficiaries of democratic governance in Nigeria to rise to the occasion by tackling some of these issues headlong and dispassionately.
Therefore, it is expected that the National Assembly will grab this opportunity with both hands and come up with a constitution that will reflect the wishes and aspirations of greeter majority of Nigeria.