Constitutionalism: Another look at Confab ’94 Report

Here we go again! Over the past several weeks, some members of the Federal House of Representatives have been drumming support for a return to the parliamentary system of government. In the Senate, a committee has been set up to tinker with the presidential system in a way that will make it, in the opinion […]

Here we go again! Over the past several weeks, some members of the Federal House of Representatives have been drumming support for a return to the parliamentary system of government. In the Senate, a committee has been set up to tinker with the presidential system in a way that will make it, in the opinion of its promoters, responsive and people-oriented. While we pray that the exercises do not turn out to be another jamboree, it is important to point out that we could have achieved something close to a people’s constitution at less cost and devoid of any razzmatazz by adopting a hybrid of the two systems.

In the absence of a widely accepted alternative, it is best to stick to the word, restructuring, that much-abused word in our political lexicon which some see as the cure-all elixir to purge Nigeria of all its ills. It is interesting to note that restructuring was not the word used when General Abacha convoked the National Constitutional Conference in 1994. But, from the outcome of deliberations, it is safe to say General Abacha was, consciously or unconsciously, on course to consign the hot air of restructuring to the trashcan of Nigeria’s political history.

The reference here is to the draft report of the 1994/1995 Constitutional Conference, a hybrid of the parliamentary and presidential systems, which contained some revolutionary proclamations which, in a manner of speaking, would have given Nigerians something close to a ‘people’s constitution. Rather sadly, it was expedient for General Abdulsalami Abubakar who succeeded General Abacha to shred any document that had the tag of his predecessor on it.

Without any doubt, General Abacha who was nudged into snatching power by the same people who turned around to become his implacable adversaries was a divisive leader. When, therefore, he died after holding the country together for five impossible years, survival instincts compelled his stop-gap successor to disown him as a convenient way of healing wounds and, more importantly, wooing the aggrieved, predominantly Yoruba Southwest geopolitical zone, back into the fold. The strategy worked!

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Even in death, Abacha’s professional colleagues felt the need to sidestep him and his legacy!

Members of the (late) Justice Niki Tobi Committee, set up by General Abubakar to explore the way forward were not oblivious of the emergency at hand. Typical of giving a dog a bad name to hang it, members of the committee hastily threw out the Report of Confab ’94 after curiously labelling it the ‘product of a disputed legitimacy’ which ‘suffered a crisis of identity in the public consciousness.’

In its place, the Niki Tobi Committee members performed a cheap and hasty plastic surgery on the 1979 Constitution which they claimed ‘had been tried and tested’! In the haste to bury the ghost of Abacha, a cheap ‘Tokunbo’ constitution was foisted on Nigerians in 1999!

Still, all is not lost. If the six geopolitical zones we inherited from General Abacha have served us well, we can swallow our pride and revisit the Report of Confab ’94 with a view to adopting other provisions that provide answers to some of our pressing national questions. The way they are constituted, the six geopolitical zones were envisaged to be the building blocks for the stillborn 1995 draft Constitution which made provision for six principal offices of five-year single-term duration to rotate among the zones. The document made provision for the offices of president, vice president, senate president, house speaker as well as the position of prime minister and deputy prime minister.

The ‘Abacha document’ had something for everybody. Had death not taken General Abacha off the stage in 1998, all six geo-political zones would, by this year, have produced a president for the country! In other words, had political exigencies not influenced General Abubakar to throw away the baby with the bathwater, by now, Nigeria would have experimented with the Abacha formula for 26 of the ‘30-year transition period’ which would have terminated in 2029 after which merit and competence would replace rotation to determine who gets what.

It is interesting to note that the 30-year transition was to ‘promote national cohesion and integration’ and give each geopolitical zone a sense of belonging.

As envisaged by the Abacha document, at no point in time would any of the six geo-political zones had cause to complain of marginalization since there was always going to be one ‘juicy’ office to be vied for every five years.

What this means is that, by this year, each of the six geopolitical zones would have produced a president, a vice president, prime minister, deputy prime minister, president of the Senate and speaker of the House of Representatives for a single term of a five-year duration!

This unique provision eliminates the incumbency factor and its attendant abuses. Since the draft report envisaged its replication at state levels, the president and other principal officers as well as state governors stood disqualified from standing election for the same office after their one-term five-year tenure!

As a matter of fact, the Abacha document is so comprehensive to have anticipated solutions for the hot air marginalisation and the wrongheaded agitation for breakup that comes with it. Now, can and, should Nigerians continue to play the ostrich and allow lawlessness to dominate the political scene? Are we to allow a rambunctious few to continue to stampede us and dominate national discourse?

The Abacha draft took care of these and more. For instance, the document suggested a single term of five years for elective posts. To make lawmaking inexpensive and effective, another battle cry of proponents of restructuring, the Abacha draft provides for part-time lawmaking!

What should excite Nigerians is the type of restructuring that will keep looters from the treasury. The restructuring we must promote is one in which looters will not get dubious clean bills from regular courts or where they will be shielded from prosecution in the name of immunity. It may interest Nigerians that there is no provision for the much-abused immunity clause in the Abacha document for the president, his deputy and governors and their deputies as is the case now or, for principal officers of the National Assembly, as has been canvassed by some members and principal officers of the National Assembly.

It is 26 years since we threw away the baby with the bath water and Nigerians should begin to overgrow their disdain for General Abacha! Many who concede publicly today that Abacha was not the black-faced devil he was made to look, now allude to the uniqueness of the report of Confab ‘94. Amid the current euphoria, Nigerians can only hope and pray that the 10th National Assembly will get it right and set the nation on the path of true greatness.

It’s all about Nigeria and, though this may not be sweet music to the ear of those who hold the levers of power, tinkering with the report of Confab ‘94 is a good starting point.

 

Magaji  is based in Abuja and can be reached via [email protected]