By Polycarp Onwubiko
My salient observation one year ago, still remains pragmatic and strategic but the self-styled "owners of Nigeria" would not allow president Tinubu to convoke Constituent Assembly to brainstorm on how realistic Federal Constitution similar to the First Republic Constitution which was made by the selected representatives of ethnic nationalities.
Until a new Constitution is
made while dumping the fraud-infested 1999 Constitution is dumped into the
scrap heap of history, Nigeria would not witness sustainable socioeconomic and
political growth and development.
Sunday Vanguard October 1, 2023
took pains to interview sufficiently enlightened Nigerians on the essence of
Rule of Law which the past leaderships brazenly disobeyed and flagrantly
flouted.
A legal Giant and former
Attorney General of Rivers State, Chief Joe Okocha had the rare courage to say:
'to hell with the 1999 military imposed constitution'.
Hear him:
"The 1999 Constitution has
its own difficulty because it was imposed by the military upon us. It was not
the People's Constitution. It was imposed by the military upon us but we tried
to manage it....
"Like I have always been saying, the National Assembly and all of us agree that the 1999 Constitution was not the best. It was not the people's constitution. And that is why they have continued to tinker with it.
"They came up with
amendment. I think the National Assembly should pass a law to convoke a
National Conference so that all NIgerians, all ethnic nationalities may be
adequately represented in that Constitutional Conference so that people of
Nigeria will be said to have truly made and given to themselves the
Constitution for the people of Nigeria. That is my take; and we can only hope
and pray for the best".
I am greatly enamoured because
the legal icon's pragmatic perception of the fraudulent and deeply and
fundamentally flawed unitary-federal contraption backed with the military
imposed 1999 Constitution supposedly under Amendments. Okocha's point-blank
assertion is in sync with my Book titled PEOPLE'S CONSTITUTION FISCAL
FEDERALISM AND STRUCTURAL EQUALIZATION IN NIGERIA (2022) published by Amazon
internet publishers via https://.www.amazon. co.uk , polycarp onwubiko.
Facts the world over remains
that the Legislature is not qualified to fashion Constitution under Federal
system of government. Rather, Constitution is fashioned by the ethnic
nationalities who must agree on how they want to live together otherwise they
become different countries.
It is when the Federal Constitution is properly fashioned that the Legislature has the constitutional power for amendments given the fact that the representatives of the Legislature is on equal basis and the lopsided National Assembly populated by the northern Moslems due to the arbitrary creation of states and local government councils by the military regime which favoured the northern part of the country at the expense and detriment of the southern part of the country.
This is the pith and marrow of
the nationwide clarion calls for the Restructuring of the lopsided Federation
to achieve equity, fairness and justice in the distribution of the common
wealth. Failure to do just that will not augur well for the wish for peace and
unity of the country.
By Polycarp Onwubiko, public
policy analyst.
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