TO correct its chronic faults, the National Assembly claims it is in the final stages of amending the 1999 Constitution. Accordingly, the NASS says it aims to repeal the offending provisions encumbering the country’s democracy by reworking and giving Nigerians a progressive document. A two-day national public hearing by the Senate on the review ends on June 4, a week after the regional public hearings organised by both chambers.
But there are reasons for scepticism. Nearly all previous NASS sessions had conducted similar reviews with no tangible result to show for the money, time and energy invested in such exercises. The current effort to amend the constitution may not be any different. The 1999 Constitution is fundamentally flawed. The model federal state is characterised by the existence of several independent and intermediate governments with a full complement of legislative, executive, and judicial powers. The 1999 Constitution turns this on its head. Itse Sagay, Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, rightly says: “What we have now is a unitary constitution parading itself as a federal constitution.” Another SAN, Afe Babalola, argues that “the 1999 Constitution is, in large measure, responsible for the problems we have in Nigeria today. The constitution has discouraged and crippled development in the states.”
To begin with, the preamble is a barefaced lie: it was cobbled together by a military dictator, the late Sani Abacha, to transform himself into “an elected president.” It fraudulently claimed that it is a constitution by the people. But at no time did Nigerians sit down with the Abacha regime to discuss the document; it was solely a creation of that brutal tyrant.
With the inputs of the people abnegated, the document foisted a unitary constitution on a natural federation. All other faults can be overlooked, but this is a major flaw. On the Exclusive Legislative List, it has 68 items, including the police, prisons, mines and minerals, insurance, railways, and stamp duties. This renders the federating units subservient to the centre. Ludicrously, the authors entrenched the 774 local government areas in the constitution. These and many other offensive and anti-federal provisions are the main reasons for the caustic agitations for restructuring and secession. Such a document deserves only one treatment: to be discarded wholesale, not given piecemeal amendments.
Therefore, the NASS is just on a wild goose chase. Like in the past, this one too is wasteful, and belated to save the document. In 2014, the then President Goodluck Jonathan ill-advisedly embarked on his own National Conference, earmarking N7 billion for the allowances of the 492 delegates. Although the confab prescribed some critical recommendations, Jonathan ignored them. Before him, Olusegun Obasanjo had extravagantly invested in the National Political Reform 2005. After a lengthy debate, the proposals were thrown out by the parliament with the suspicion of a third-term agenda for the president serving as the pretext for its death knell.
All the previous amendments had been tokenistic. At a critical juncture, the NASS intervened in May 2010 by invoking the “doctrine of necessity.” As tension engulfed the country, it enabled Jonathan to assume duty as acting president in the absence of the ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua. Three other alterations have been made to the constitution. The First Alteration in June 2010 gave the NASS and the Independent National Electoral Commission financial independence. The second in November 2010 established new timelines for the conduct of elections. The third in December 2010 established the National Industrial Court.
After that, the other efforts have failed woefully. In November 2012, Jonathan declined his assent to an amendment partly because the NASS ousted the power of the president to sign newly passed bills. Instead, the amendment vested sole authority for new laws in the NASS. This created a political stalemate between the two arms of government. Similarly in 2018, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), refused to assent to the Electoral Act 2018 Amendment Bill on four separate occasions. Despite salient provisions like the automatic transmission of results from polling units to the central server and that those who win should be sworn only after litigation has concluded, Buhari refused to sign, claiming that it was filled with errors or too close to the 2019 general election.
There is a genuine and existential threat to Nigeria’s corporate existence. It is, therefore, long past the time for a mere review of the gallingly flawed document.
Indeed, the unjust and skewed constitution has instigated deep mistrust in the polity, leading to calls to restructure or dismantle the union. There is palpable tension all over the South-East, with major attacks on the institutions of the state. The South-West is smouldering under the heat of killer Fulani herders while the Buhari regime is completely at a loss on how to keep the country together.
Nothing short of taking the country back to the pre-1966 federal arrangement will put the country on the path of political stability. Instead of wasting time and resources on the deceptive amendments, the NASS should drop the 1999 Constitution altogether. It is a hopelessly divisive document in a federal state. Rather, the NASS should midwife a platform where all ethnic nationalities can come together, adopt the 1963 Republican Constitution with slight amendments. Experts on federalism have consistently argued that the only flaw in the 1963 constitution was that one region was larger than the other three put together. In the United States, the 1789 constitution allows states to conduct elections, establish local governments and local police, among other provisions. In Canada’s federal constitution, there are two tiers of government. There, the provinces have powers over prisons, hospitals, municipalities, marriage, education, incorporation of companies, and natural resources, among others.
We have consistently argued that there are enough documents, including the 2014 National Political Conference report, to fall back on in returning Nigeria to a true federation. The peculiarities of Nigeria demand that its constitution reflects the cultural and linguistic diversity of the country. This goes beyond a mere legislative review. The NASS should drop the futile venture and work with all other stakeholders to jointly reset the country as a truly federal polity.
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