Recently, a group of eminent Nigerians who go by the name “The Patriots”, led by a former Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, met with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja with a proposal urging the president to convene a national constituent assembly to produce a people’s democratic constitution for the country.
Giving a background to the proposal during a meeting with the media after engaging with the president, Chief Anyaoku said that, at a well-attended colloquium in March, this year, the attendees, who included representatives from various sections of the country, unanimously agreed that the country needed a new people’s constitution which would address the identified gaps in the 1999 Constitution.
Chief Anyaoku said, “Nigeria, we affirmed to Mr President, is a pluralistic country, and we know that pluralistic countries exist all over the world. Those of them that addressed their pluralism by having a true federal constitution have survived. The examples are India and Canada. But those that failed to address their basic challenge of pluralism through a federal constitution have ended up disintegrating.”
Chief Anyaoku further stated that the group had forwarded some proposals to President Tinubu to send an executive bill to the National Assembly to implement two essential measures: “One, the convening of a national constituent assembly that should be mandated to produce a new draft constitution….And we concluded that the draft constitution should be subjected to a national referendum in order to give the people of Nigeria a chance to determine their new constitution.”
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In response to the request put forward by the group, President Tinubu, through his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, said “I am currently preoccupied with economic reform. That is my first priority. Once this is in place as soon as possible, I will look at other options, including constitutional review as recommended by you.”
The issue of constitutional reform has been a recurring issue in Nigeria over the years. Since the advent of the current democratic dispensation, the trio of presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan arranged constitutional conferences in one form or another in response to the yearnings for a review of the present constitution. Indeed, let us not forget that all the National Assemblies from 1999 to date have made it a ritual to embark on constitutional amendments on which billions of naira were spent with very little positive results; if any.
We at Daily Trust, like many Nigerians, are firm in the belief that the issue really is not with the type of constitution we operate. In the course of Nigeria’s political history, we tried the parliamentary model in the First Republic, and the presidential system, which we now operate, both of which we have not been satisfied with. We further believe that essentially, it is due mainly to the failure of the operators of the constitution to observe the necessary democratic tenets and temperament of democratic practice as obtained in democratic climes that have led us to this situation. Having seen enough examples of such breaches of compliance with democratic requirements over the years among our political elite, we make bold to conclude that the fault does not lie with whatever constitution we adopt, but rather with the political class that operates the constitution.
In this regard, we observe with irony that several of The Patriots are persons who have contested and operated under the same constitution they are now condemning and seeking to change wholesale. If they had operated the constitution under which they contested, won elections and operated the public offices they occupied in an exemplary manner as required of them in democratic practice, there would probably be no need to change the constitution in the manner they are now requesting.
It must also be stated that Nigerians are not comfortable with the proposals which would require that the National Assembly be set aside or have its constitutionally recognised powers whittled in favour of a temporary and unconstitutional body to conduct an exercise that should be within its purview. And as the constitution does not allow for a referendum, how then can the National Assembly be expected to deliberate on an issue that is unconstitutional?
It is clear that the group did not take cognisance of the constitutional and legal limitations of its proposals, which if accepted by President Tinubu, would likely lead to a constitutional and political crisis and possible anarchy in the country.
That said, we agree totally with President Tinubu that what is of utmost priority now for the country is the economic reform that his administration is pursuing. As the president told them, Nigeria is presently undergoing painful economic challenges, and it will be insensitive and imprudent to embark on a convoluted process likely to gulp billions of naira that may ultimately go the way of similar exercises in the past.
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