Many argue that the preamble to Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, “We, the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria: Having firmly and solemnly resolved… Do hereby make and give to ourselves the following Constitution,” is a lie, foisted on unwary Nigerians by the military.
But the bigger beef is that the constitution skews voting and revenue allocation structure in favour of the old Northern Region, that hitherto preferred to be single and monolithic, but is now a combine of 19, or 20, states, and 439 local government areas, if you regard Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, as part of the political North.
Interestingly, even the North, supposed beneficiary of the constitution, is complaining. Which suggests an urgent need to review a constitution that is of no use to anyone. Coronavirus promises to be a game changer, as Kano State deports almajiris to Jigawa and Katsina states, to exercise its privileges as a federating unit of Nigeria.
In 2014, the Shehu of Borno, Abubakar Ibn Umar Garba, told the National Conference set up by former President Goodluck Jonathan to review the constitution, that he would return his people to Cameroon if the Nigerian state wouldn’t accommodate their needs.
Clearly, there are things that a central government, in a federation, cannot provide at the local level. And, all politics, as Tip O’Neil, former Speaker of America’s House of Representatives, used to say.
One may ask, why did Southerners, who became President, Vice President, Senate President, and Speaker of the House of Representatives not find a way to collaborate with Northern Nigerians, who also complain to change the constitution?
Well, here’s the lame excuse of Jonathan: “It was obvious we did not have (the) time before the end of my administration.” Before that, he had shifted the blame to the National Assembly.
He implied that the National Assembly failed Nigerians, without quite saying so. They had the “duty to consider and validate the process,” but didn’t do so, because they “were preoccupied with political survival,” a euphemism for the 2015 General Election.
Some cynics, however, insinuate that an oligarchy, of Northern and Southern Nigeria elements, use the excuse that they are making concessions to the North, only to serve their selfish, non-exactly Northern Nigerian, interests.
Anyway, Southern Nigerians think the 1999 Constitution so stacks the odds against them that they can’t live the kind and quality of life they would have preferred. They feel held down by a document that will not allow them be all they can be.
So, they demand that the constitution be reviewed, to reconfigure the Nigerian polity, if some people do not like the word, restructure, that allows people to maintain their identity. The Yoruba have a way of handling such things through the protocols of ifá divination.
When the ifá priest throws the tokens, and the divination is not acceptable, the priest will rake up the tokens, and cast them on the board the second time, hoping for the desired or preferred divination.
If that doesn’t happen, he often manually rearranges the tokens to read the desired revelation. This is a perfect example of man creating his god in his own image. The Christian God, on the other hand, created man in His own image.
The Yoruba mean that if fate dealt them a wrong hand, they would change it. When Chief Priest Ezeulu, and Ulu, his god, would not give what the Igbo community in China Achebe’s epic novel, “Arrow of God,” wanted, they created another god!
Southern Nigerians want the 1999 Nigerian Constitution changed because it locks up their destiny, and no one was consulted to consider and ratify it, clause by clause. Somebody took advantage of the rush to end military rule to prepare a lopsided document.
But Southerners may never get their wish, if a monolithic political North insists on using the cumbersome mechanism for the restructuring of the political realm as contained in Section 9(2) of the constitution.
That section says: “An Act of the National Assembly for the alteration of the Constitution… shall not be passed in either House of the (National Assembly), unless the proposal is supported by the votes of not less than two-thirds majority of all members of that House, and approved by resolution of the Houses of Assembly of not less than two-thirds of all States.”
Protagonists of restructuring are quickly reminded that the constitution can only be amended with provisions in the extant constitution. That stalemates the argument of those who want to revert to the 1963 constitution on regionalism.
They often argue that the 1999 Constitution, creation of states and local government areas, and revenue allocation formula among the three tiers of government, were done by military fiat, though there may have been some pretend public hearings.
The argument that the stringent amendment clause of the 1999 Constitution must be used to restructure Nigeria frustrates those who want a change that will enable them to progress at their own pace.
Protagonists of the undemocratic argument that the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable quite forget that negotiation guarantees acceptance and commitment. The opposite are wrangling and disagreements that delay progress. Ask any professional manager.
You should remember the callous annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, handily won by MKO Abiola and Baba Gana Kíngibe. That saddening event is another reason that southerners distrust the Nigerian state, and prefer to work with the notion that their needs are better addressed at the local level.
The continued blockage of the will of Nigerians has an overwhelming negative effect on the political and economic progress of the nation. It freezes progress, by permanently holding back the hand of the clock.
If nonagerian Ayo Adebanjo, an elder statesman, Yoruba Afenifere political pressure group chieftain, and dyed-in-the wool follower of Obafemi Awolowo, Western Nigeria’s first Premier, thinks President Buhari, and indeed Northern Nigeria, were using the 1999 Constitution to cheat the rest of Nigeria, then there is cause for the political elite to pay attention.
In addition to the reality, optics also matter. American sociologist W. I. Thomas suggests that “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences,” just as former American President Barack Obama thinks that elections have consequences.
Wilful denial of the will of the people can only lead to frustration, and frustrated people often act in ways that are irrational. Now, irrational people can do the kind of things that caused nations like Yugoslavia to splinter.
Many Nigerians would rather have one united nation under God. Nigerian military officers, who went on peacekeeping missions to the war theatres of Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, will tell you that wars are no good.
When the war was finally over, even the dead could find no rest. It took a yeoman’s effort to rebury people who had ended up in nondescript mass graves. Nigerians should not have to watch the dreadful movie, “Hotel Rwanda,” before they can sit down and talk to one another.
When generally law abiding citizens begin to ask of their government, “Between disintegration and restructuring, which do you want?” you know it’s time to give the lesser evil of dialogue realistic thought.
Nigerians must never resort to war; it kills people dead, excuse the redundancy. But the constitution needs a review.
