“The organisation of any given society is determined by the state of its productive forces. As this state changes, the social organisation is bound sooner or later to change too. Consequently, it is in a state of unstable equilibrium wherever the social productive forces are developing,” – Georgi Plekhanov
The “state of unstable equilibrium” that seems to exist in Nigeria today has been confused with the unsatisfactory state of its normative framework which is the constitution of the country. This confusion was brought about by the tendency to discuss the country’s problems in isolation of its economic system and the level of development of its productive forces.
This ideological vacuum in discussing Nigeria’s problems and the preference shown towards concentrating on formalism and analysis of its legal framework only, has led to an overbearing emphasis on the consideration of superficial issues rather than the core problems facing the country.
It is not the “constitution” per se that makes the country. It is the constituent units of that country or its societies which make up its sum total that condition its formation and development. These societies are in turn shaped by the level of development of their productive forces or their economies. This is the objective criterion that must be used to decide if a country is fulfilling the conditions necessary for its advancement and progress or not.
The normative aspects of the country such as its constitution and laws etc., are a reflection of the advancement of its social relations predicated on the development of its productive forces and the economic system that is prevailing in the country at any given time in history.
This series of articles are, therefore, intended to put into clearer perspectives the relationship between a national constitution and the progress of a country as determined by its social organisation and economic development. The series are also intended to reply to the critics of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and place the various evolutionary trends of that instrument before the Nigerian public for its judgment.
I had reasons in the past to write several articles on governance, political order, rule of law, constitutional arrangements etc elsewhere. I am forced to return to these well-beaten tracks once again by recent (and not so recent) developments in our country, around the issue of good governance and the legitimacy of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
I must from the outset, aver that the collective consciousness of any nation is embedded in the spirit and substance of its constitution. Therefore, reverence towards the constitution and holding it as a sacrosanct document augurs well for a better society. Where this instrument is denigrated or undermined, the fabric of the society would be loosened and allegiance to any profound ideals about the nation is rendered inconsequential in the process.
This state of anomie has sadly been assiduously cultivated and fostered in Nigeria for several years now, owing to the want of better things to do on the part of so-called critics and agitators who see nothing good or right about Nigeria and its governance system. The fact that despite all the odds stacked up against its survival and continued progress as a united entity Nigeria has managed to remain a nation, seems to irk a lot of people both inside the country and outside.
The calls for the abandonment of the constitution of the country and preference for another innovated framework should be seen from the perspectives of an iconoclastic ideology that prefers instability and chaos, to a regular and stable order of things in this country.
Having a different opinion about how a country should be governed or the way and manner the instruments of the delivery of governance are arranged, is a natural order of things and should not be seen as abnormal or unusual. But insisting on displacing a system that is already in place without offering a better alternative is an exercise in polemics and a futile gesture. It is logical that credible alternatives are proffered when a system is criticised or condemned as unsuitable for the country.
Also, we must insist that the criteria by which the judgment is passed against the 1999 Constitution should be made clear to all Nigerians as well as the details of the alternative arrangements being suggested should be made known to us.
Likewise, it is absolutely necessary that the constituency, on whose behalf the demands for the alteration or abandonment of the 1999 Constitution are being made, should be explicitly identified so that there can be no ambiguity regarding the standpoints of the advocates for the deconstruction of the present arrangements in the country.
In the absence of such alternative, it all boils down to activism without purpose and a call to anarchy and disorder. Anarchism and iconoclastic posturing could be considered in themselves as a political movement or trend that could be deployed towards conceptualising and advancing a governance framework or agenda for a particular country. One feature of this ideology could consist of destroying existing institutions of state including the abrogation of the nation’s constitution as a way of bringing about the birth of the envisaged society. This is not a new trend in the history of agitation and political struggle.
In Europe during the 19th century, agitators like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon of France, Mikhail Bakunin of Russia, Ramon de la Sagra of Spain and their followers and many other advocates of revolutionary action against the state and the constituted authority, emerged to offer their ideas and support to the anarchist movements across the continent.
Today in Nigeria, this iconoclastic tendency is becoming a respectable ideology that seeks to stir up discontent against the normative framework that is holding the country’s government and state institutions together, to bring about their destruction and replacement with some supposedly better arrangements of governance. What this really represents is escaping from the realities of our being and the trivialities of our thinking that have so far held us down and rendered us immobile as a nation and a people.
What we have been able to do so far is to refuse to face facts and acknowledge that we Nigerians are the greatest enemies of our nation and no one else. We see adversaries everywhere even in inanimate substances around us, that we are supposed to make judicious use of, to make our conditions better and the organisation of our state and government institutions more productive, efficient and effective.
One such instrument is the national constitution which some are actively opposed to and calling for its destruction. The ugly visage that stares back at us while looking at the mirror on the wall, is no less the true reflection of who we are than a distorted image projected by the mirror itself.
Escaping from reality is one way of making sense of a situation beyond our immediate cerebral comprehension and analysis. This bewilderment can and does lead to radical propensities such as calling for drastic actions like the abrogation of the constitution and the blaming of the system for all our failures. It must be realised and also appreciated that all laws and constitutions are arrangements made by human beings to provide the frameworks for the regulation of their affairs and the orderly conduct of the government of their societies.
As such, what matters most in this scheme of things is the human factor itself, and not a supposedly mythical attribution of any special or supernatural powers to the constitution or the laws of the country in themselves.
Accordingly, our entire understanding of constitutionalism and the arrangement of politics and governance systems in Nigeria should be based on our correct assessment of the country’s economic development and the extent of the advancement of the country’s productive forces. This is in conformity with what Georgi Plekhanov proposed when he wrote: “Thus the law, the state system and the morality of any given people are determined directly and immediately by its characteristic economic relations.”
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