A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mike Ozekhome, has dismissed the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution by the 10th National Assembly, stating that only a new constitution, derived from the input of Nigerians, can address the governance challenges facing the nation.
The Senate and House of Representatives Joint Committee on Constitution Review has identified specific clauses in the nation’s extant laws for amendment with a focus on thematic areas such as fiscal federalism, power devolution, state police, state creation, local government autonomy and special seats for women, among others.
According to the work plan of the committee, a new draft of the amended constitution will be ready for adoption in December 2025.
These assurances notwithstanding, Ozekhome insisted that no amount of amendments to the 1999 Constitution will make it people-centric, given the role of the military in foisting it on Nigerians.
He said, “A new constitution, which will be subjected to a referendum of the Nigerian people, is the way to go. One million amendments to a fundamentally flawed military-imposed document can never cure it of its original sin of not being people-driven. There was no Constituent Assembly for the 1999 Constitution. No referendum was done by the Midwest people to draft their constitution on August 10, 1963, which enabled them to have their regional constitution and exit from the Western Region.”
He added, “The process by which a Constitution comes into effect is as important, or even more important than its content. A people’s referendum was successfully carried out by South Africa in 1996. It has also been done in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Britain (Brexit) and Kenya, among others.”
Meanwhile, Abuja-based constitutional lawyer, Kamin Asunugie, did not share this sentiment, noting that the country had sufficient laws to regulate the behaviour of persons and institutions.
He said, “The Nigerian governance system does not suffer from any paucity of laws or legislations of any kind. No law provides the cure-all magic for all-time eventualities. The success or failure of laws and indeed of any constitution comes more from those who implement them, the people and their leadership. I do not take the view that the present constitution suffers from inadequacies of provisions or even with regard to lack of exactitude in its wordings. Our laws, inclusive of the extant constitution, are sufficiently worded and crafted to regulate any good society and its good people. They are good enough.”
The Imiakebu-born legal practitioner added, “The Nigerian, particularly the politician, is innately devilish that, irrespective of how great our constitution may be drafted or redrafted through amendments, the true intents and purposes will never live to see the light of the day.
“Changing the constitution via amendments or through a wholesale dumping will not change the inadequacies of the character of our leaders and even the followers. Be it known that, as the ignorance of the judge is the calamity of the innocent, so it is that the corrupt character of the judge is the disaster to the just! Nothing works here,” he lamented.
Although not dismissing the 1999 Constitution, the Chairman, Transition Monitoring Group, Auwal Rafsanjani, in an interview with The PUNCH, described the ongoing effort as unproductive, even as he decried the huge sums of money spent on previous efforts.
“Nigerians are tired of this unproductive constitutional review process by the National Assembly since 1999 without substantial, significant amendment to the contentious issues that Nigerians are talking about. A considerable amount of money was spent under President Olusegun Obasanjo to implement political reforms aimed at addressing numerous constitutional challenges and gaps. Nothing came out of it. Because there was no political will, the recommendations were dumped.
“In 2014, billions of naira were spent to organise a National Political Reform Conference under President Goodluck Jonathan. At this national conference, all stakeholders that matter in this country participated, including women, youth, politicians and security personnel to discuss the future of Nigeria.
“The conference simplified its work and identified areas that required policy by the president, and areas where bills could be submitted to the National Assembly to amend the constitution. Again, because of a lack of political will, the conference report was dumped,” he said.
In a veiled dig at the President, Rafsanjani lamented that those who mouthed restructuring in the past no longer remember the term now that they are in power.
“In the past, some people within this administration were always talking about the restructuring of Nigeria. Now that they are in power, they no longer talk about it. They are satisfied with statistics; they are not talking about political reforms in the country,” he added.
He, however, pledged the readiness of the civil society organisations to continue to press “for genuine political reforms in this country, because there’s no way we will continue with the ongoing wasteful spending in the name of constitutional review.”
That said, the TMG boss called on the National to dust up the reports of conferences held in the administration of Presidents Obasanjo and Jonathan and amend the constitution accordingly, rather than continue with the current exercise.
In her contribution, pro-democracy campaigner and Founder, Women Arise, Joe Okey-Odumakin, supported the call for a new constitution.
“I agree that the people deserve their constitution. This comes with a deep sense of responsibility and ownership as the people will be involved in the drafting and ratification of such a constitution. This is how a united and progressive country is run,” she told The PUNCH.
