The fault is in us, not in the constitution

The headline screamed at me from an online newspaper: “Nigeria operating an illegal constitution.” I halted the steaming cup of black coffee on its way to join my lips. Haba, has our pronounced honesty deficit become this bad that the supreme law of our land, known to the denizens of the bar and the bench, […]

The headline screamed at me from an online newspaper: “Nigeria operating an illegal constitution.”

I halted the steaming cup of black coffee on its way to join my lips. Haba, has our pronounced honesty deficit become this bad that the supreme law of our land, known to the denizens of the bar and the bench, as the ground norm, could be an illegal contraption? Is it possible that under four successive presidents with a battery of senior lawyers, no one detected that the 1999 constitution bequeathed to us by the General Abdulsalami Abubakar is not what it purports to be?

I rushed into the story in search of evidence for this monumental conclusion. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I should not have bothered, really. There was nothing to the screaming headline. It was all in the line of a political discourse as usual in search of a scapegoat. The poor creature needs to be sacrificed occasionally to mollify our personal and tribal frustrations with a country that promises so much but delivers so little to the majority of the people.

Our constitution, whatever might be its inadequacies, is not illegal. The online publication reported that three prominent Nigerians joined by some relatively lesser men, engaged in a robust discussion via the new mass or social media called video conference last week. Chief John Nwodo, president-general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Afenifere leader and Dr Olusegun Mimiko, former governor of Ondo State, were assembled by Governance Index, an NGO, I presume, to discuss the topic: “Coronavirus Pandemic: is it time to re-evaluate the political structure of the country?”

I find it intriguing that some of us believe that while we are struggling to survive the global killer pandemic, we might as well see these times as good an opportunity as any for us to conclude the long-running restructuring debate. Several people have made a case for this as if we would lose the chance to restructure again once man defeats the virus and reclaims our world. But the idea that if we get back to the round table now, even as we fight off Covid-19, Nigeria would emerge from it a healthier and a restructured country, is both naïve and funny. Killing two huge birds with one small stone always seems like good logic. But this is not about killing birds.

In all public debates on moving the nation forward as we like to put it, we cast the first stone at the constitution. The discussion under reference followed that well-beaten path. Nwodo’s grouse with it is that the military “wrote the constitution for us and abandoned the agreement that our forefathers had with the British when we got independence, for a regional-based government in which every region has security, its own economic development, with each exercising sovereignty over its resources and paid taxes to the federal government to run common services for the federation, but today it is no longer the case.”

Chief Adebanjo could not agree more. He said, “If we are serious about keeping this country together, it is time to restructure back to true federalism. The present constitution is an imposed constitution by the Muslim military in the north. Nobody contributed to it.” And Mimiko believes that “restructuring is an idea whose time has come.”

Is the constitution an obstacle to restructuring? Every time the constitution is bashed in what passes for our national conversation, I feel sorry for us and our country. Nigeria is obsession with finding the perfect constitution, a supreme document that meets everyone’s idea of law, order, justice and good governance, is sickening.

We have been in search of the people’s ideal supreme law of the land since the generals threw out the republican constitution of 1963 and gave us the 1979 constitution that reflected their ideal of a perfect democratic system sans the encumbrance of institutionalised opposition. The Nigerian leader as the father of the nation equipped with executive powers thus emerged in the new executive presidential system, a melange of democracy and autocracy.

All our constitutions midwifed by the generals have followed the 1979 model. But our faith in the executive presidential system, once touted as the solution to all our political problems, continues to face the crises of faith. It was bound to happen in a country ringed with 37 executive authorities. Too many cooks may spoil the broth but I supposed that too many executive authorities make for a powerful, progressive nation.

Still, our political problems remain confused, confusing and complicated. I have repeatedly made the point in this column and elsewhere that we do not even seem to know what system of government we are operating – a federal system, a unitary system or military federalism with a military command system with the president assuming the right to resort to extra-constitutional powers with executive orders as it suits him.

Is the constitution to blame for our failure to restructure the country? It only serves as a scapegoat. I can find nothing in the constitution that expressly or impliedly forbids restructuring. I think we have to accept that the fault is in us, not in the constitution. Somehow, some of us believe that restructuring is a political weapon in the contest for the locus of power between the north and the south. A constant demand for it afflicts the comfortable.

We need to pause. The belief that restructuring is the one solution to all our political, social and economic problems is a naïve attempt to stretch the point. No single solution is the solution to a country’s myriads of economic, political and social problems. We should see it as one possible solution to some of our political problems, rather than the solution. I support restructuring and have said so here and elsewhere. There are, as I have often argued, two sides to restructuring, namely, physical and administrative. Should we choose one or the other or both at the same time? I support both because it may cure the critical ailment in our political system, to wit, the structure of our federation and the nature of our federalism.

My fear is that we are going about it the wrong way. Constantly talking about it represents neither motion nor movement; just noise, political noise in perhaps the most politicised nation in the world. Adebanjo made the point that “…Buhari has never found an occasion to address it, even his military colleagues have now agreed that we should restructure; all his predecessors have agreed, all political parties have agreed, even his political party has agreed, yet Mr President who says he is sincere has not said anything.”

It means, does not it, that the constitution is not to blame. An unrestructured Nigeria serves vested political interests. Politics is actually all about protecting such interests. If, as Adebanjo claimed, all these groups cannot make the president address restructuring, then perhaps, just perhaps, “restructuring is not an idea whose time has come.”