Memo on Constitution Review

There is groundswell of opinion that the 1999 constitution needs fundamental amendments if the country is to survive and develop; more so as the first to third amendments looked after only narrow interests. With Nigeria fast deteriorating into anarchy, it should be obvious to the political actors, that there may soon be no country for the practice of political chicanery. Now, what the country urgently needs is a fundamental restructuring, to untangle our political economy for a meaningful progress; because the current constitution has too may booby traps and unless Nigeria is extricated from its strangleholds, the vultures may soon gather. 

To achieve that, the nation needs a constitution that drives development, not one that imperils it. In amending the constitution, first, there is the need to define citizenship, and what benefits and responsibilities come with that. Under this, we must agree as to the political, economic and social rights of every citizen, regardless or limited by residency, and provide guarantees or exclusions based on what is agreed. In the face of massive retreat to indigenity and desperate political exclusion, the fundamental dynamics of a nation state is threatened.    

The next is to determine the nature of citizens we want, patriots or turncoats. Our country has perhaps correctly, been credited with the harshest type of capitalism in the world. Currently there are no provisions for social security or safety nests, while life indignities are foisted on hapless citizens as national ethos. The amendments must therefore appropriate for the benefits of the citizens basic socio-economic rights, like free basic education, housing, and employment. The current provisions known as fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy are indeed fundamental to citizenship and humanity and must therefore substantially become secured rights protected by the constitution without equivocation. For instance what dignity lies for that jobless, homeless, uneducated and unemployable Nigeria, as currently but falsely guaranteed for in Section 34 of our present constitution. 

Next is the dispersal of power – economic and political. As things stand, power is over concentrated at the center, and unfortunately this was appropriated not by consensus, but by military fiat during the many years of military intervention. To make progress, the country must boldly seek a consensus on the decentralization of power. On the political front there is the need to create capable federating units that can appropriately negotiate, protect and preserve any constitutionally appropriated rights. That perhaps justifies the need for constitutional recognition of the six geo-political zones as the federating units, with the states as the third tier of government.

If however the states are to remain the fulcrum of federating units, then there is need for equitable distribution of political power to the geo-political zones that make up the federation. Currently the south east which has lesser number of states and local governments than the other geo-political zones deserve the creation of a sixth state. To pretend that that demand is not genuine is to gloss over the historical inequities underpinning the creation of states by the military governments. Again if the present arrangements remain, then the current legislative provisions allowing hybrid local government administration will have to be redefined. We will either have the councils as the third tier government, or as in other federations operate it under the apron of states. 

Now the most important of the needed constitutional amendments is the dispersal of economic powers. There is the urgent need to whittle down the contents of the second schedule to the constitution, so that states can explore the resources in their domain. As things are, many states are poor despite their substantial endowments, and the result is the increasing extreme desperation by all the stakeholders to seek an increased portion of the available resources. There is also a disincentive to work for state’s prosperity, as the bureaucracies at the states concentrate on feeding from its share of the forcefully appropriated Niger Delta resources, instead of creating wealth at the local level. On their own part, the federal authority, with too much loose money, attract and dispense enormous resources and influence, and consequently has turned into the amphitheatre of corrupt enrichment and a thriving rent economy.

To complement the dispersal of economic power, the coercive prerogative of the state to protect and enforce the rules of economic engagement, through policing needs decentralization. The controversy over state policing is uncalled for, if proper delineations and control measures are put in place. To complement this will be a decentralized judiciary. Exhaustive and independent judiciary to adjudicate the economic, social and political issues bordering the ordering of rights and duties within the states or zones would harm nobody or the federal judiciary. Instead the federal courts will continue to deal with matters of federal interests, leaving the sub national interests to the sub national courts.

An interesting perspective to creating a functional country came penultimate Saturday from Prof Chidi Odinkalu, the Chair of Council, National Council on Human Rights at the installation of the Rotarian Victor Achuonu, and board of Rotary Club of Festac Town. The erudite Professor said: “Three processes are essential to the effective functioning of a country. These are: the process of legitimating public power (elections); the processes of quantifying the democratic coverage/composition of the country (census); and the process of estimating and distributing the commonwealth (public accounts, including revenues and appropriations).” 

He further said: “The rationales for these and relationships between them are obvious. Through the votes validly counted, government acquires its legitimacy to rule; through the census, it knows the number of people it needs to cater for and among whom the resources need to be distributed; and in the public accounts’ it knows what it needs to manage in the interest of these people …”