A former Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations and Chairman of the Eminent Patriots of Nigeria, a group of elder statesmen seeking a review of the 1999 constitution, has called on Nigeria to adopt a full-scale restructuring of the country now or risk disintegration in future.
He also called for adoption of State Police, saying over 614,937 persons have lost their lives due to insecurity in the last two years
Presenting a communique after a three-day seminar organized by the Patriots, Anyaoku said, “The Patriots are very concerned about the state of affairs in our pluralistic country, Nigeria. Experience all over the world has shown that pluralistic countries that have survived as political entities are those that operate truly federal constitutions. Those pluralistic countries that failed to operate truly federal constitutions have largely disintegrated”.
“If I may give just a few examples of these, those that didn’t operate pluralistic countries and disintegrated are countries like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia which broke up into seven independent states, and Czechoslovakia, but those that operated truly federal constitutions and survived like India and Canada”.
“So the patriots have been concerned that the root cause of our current problems in Nigeria is the constitution that we operate. I don’t need to go through the challenges facing our country”.
Speaking further, Anyaoku said, “These are well known because the patriots, like every Nigerian, has been aware of the challenges of insecurity in the country, the challenge of mass poverty, of unemployment, and of the dwindling sense of national unity in the country. And a host of other challenges. And so the patriots, in collaboration with the Nigerian political summit group, decided to organise the summit that met here over the last two days”.
“The first and foremost resolution is that Nigeria needs a new constitution. Nigeria needs to return to the truly federal constitution that began its independence journey. The present 1999 constitution is not such a constitution. It’s not suited to the needs of a pluralistic country like Nigeria. And the patrons, of course, discussed how to actualise the new constitution that they are advocating.
“We agreed that after the summit, these recommendations would be communicated to the presidency and the national summit, and that the president would be asked to set an executive bill to the national assembly”.
“And the executive bill should decide to have the national assembly legislate for the creation of a constituent assembly, the appointment of a constituent assembly in which all parts of the country will be represented. And this constituent assembly would have as its primary task the formulation of the new constitution for the country”.
The former Commonwealth scribe after it has formulated the new constitution, it should be submitted to the people of Nigeria in a national referendum. And it’s the endorsement of the new constitution in a national referendum that will confer legitimacy to the new constitution as against the 1999 constitution, which lacks legitimacy because it was not drafted by the representatives of the people of the country, nor was it endorsed by the Nigerian people.
According to him, “At present, the structure we have leads to overburdening of the courts and the summit thinks that each federating unit should have a court hierarchy that leads to an appeal court where most issues can be communicated on leaving the federal supreme court to deal with serious constitutional issues and issues relating to the federating units and the federal government disagreements. The summit recommended that the office as it exists now of the minister of justice and attorney general of the federation should be separate as is done in most countries. The attorney general should be an appointee on non-partisan basis as against the minister of justice who would be appointed on a party basis”.
“Again, in the rejigging of the security structure, the summit believes that the sub-national, the federating units should have their own police force, which has often been referred to as state police”.
The summit believes that in devolving powers to the federating units the power to create police force should be there. And indeed in devolving powers to the federating units the new constitution should seek to return the country to the truly federal constitution with which Anyaoku said was started at independence because there the original three subsequently four regions of the country have their own separate constitution and we’d like to see every time to that.
“The summit also recommended that we have true fiscal federalism whereby the federating units manage and control their resources and revenue because there is no part of this country that is not endowed with resources that if properly harnessed and managed to see that the country develops the welfare of the citizens they’re taking care of,” Anyaoku stressed.
