WITH
the National Assembly turning the latest opportunity to amend some
sections of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution into a farce, it is
imperative for all citizens interested in a stable democratic future for
this country to urgently come together and stoutly resist the subtle,
yet flagrant, manipulation being foisted on them by the federal
lawmakers. Once a legislature has gone from bad to worse, where does it
go next? To the realm of the absurd, no doubt. That is exactly what the
National Assembly did when it dumped the crucial issues that gave rise
to the constitution review and immersed itself in patently self-serving
issues that do not offer any lasting benefit to the Nigerian people.
The dubious package should be rejected.
While citizens entertained hope that our
parliamentarians would consider the clauses hindering democratic growth
and economic development in the exercise, feelers from the latest
sessions of the National Assembly give cause for concern about the
future of the country. At the outset of this new attempt at constitution
review in 2012, we had argued, “What Nigeria really needs is a complete
overhaul of the constitution. It is very doubtful if the National
Assembly will be able to achieve this. To make this possible, Section 9
of the Constitution, which spells out the mode of altering provisions of
the Constitution, should be amended in order to pave the way for the
creation of a National Conference that will be tasked with crafting a
new document. Nigeria must come out of its self-delusion. Our current
system that is federal in name but unitary in practice is not working
and cannot work. What can hold Nigeria together is a constitution that
truly reflects the aspirations of its diverse ethnic nationalities.” No
doubt, we have been proved right, given the National Assembly’s
unimaginative handling of the exercise.
Less critical but divisive issues have
now taken centre stage. For example, the National Assembly has
surreptitiously opened the window for the creation of more states in the
country by giving it an undeserved attention in the scheme of things.
How can conscientious legislators even entertain such proposals in the
first place? It is irresponsible of them to consider this proposal at
this stage of our history, when the nation is battling with an uncertain
economic future arising from the predicted decline in earnings from oil
imports, unwieldy bureaucracy at the federal, state and local
government levels, high level insecurity and an unsustainable recurrent
expenditure brought on by a large army of legislators, executive members
and public officials at the three tiers of government.
Why is a small, self-serving clique in
the parliament bent on throwing the whole nation into financial jeopardy
by moving to create more states when only one, Lagos, out of the
existing 36 states, is viable? It raises N20 billion internally each
month, and is the only one that can survive without statutory
allocations from the centre. The rest depend on monthly revenue
allocations from Abuja to survive, including the oil-rich states that
cannot sustain their bloated bureaucracies without the monthly
derivation funds.
Another absurd — even incongruous —
clause getting unmerited consideration is that of the tenure of
executive public office holders, that is, the president, his deputy,
governors, and their deputies. Why is the National Assembly toying with
the fate of the country by introducing a single tenure of six years — or
seven years depending on which side the proposal is coming from — when
it has already been settled in many polities that it is a healthy
practice to contest office twice in a four-year cycle determined by the
electorate? This is a proposal that is bound to worsen governance in the
polity, as “in the single tenure system, there are no incentives,
motivation and reward that can inspire for excellent performance.” The
National Assembly should heed the voice of Nigerians, who also rejected
this clause during the public hearing sessions in the 360 federal
constituencies, and voted to stick with the renewable four-year term
through elections.
Though no constitution is perfect,
whether written or based on conventions, yet ours is a disjointed
document that failed to capture the distinctive peculiarities of our
society. Worse still, patriotic leaders and a high-minded judiciary that
largely determine the success of every legal framework are lacking. Our
politicians and the judicial officers have not shown the kind of
high-principled and strong patriotic zeal to make the current
constitution work, in spite of its flaws.
For the current review not to end
disastrously like the previous one during the second term of President
Olusegun Obasanjo in 2006 that was headlined by the ill-conceived Third
Term saga, the National Assembly has to jettison the omnibus approach it
has adopted. The critical areas of the Constitution crying for
amendment have to do with provisions that will return Nigeria to the
path of fiscal federalism and true democracy.
Those manipulating the ongoing exercise
for selfish ends should instead be seriously concerned about how to make
the electoral system work so much so that all litigation can be
resolved before candidates are sworn in; how to punish electoral
thieves, and ballot box snatchers; how to modernise the system through
e-voting; how those who are suffering environmental degradation because
of oil exploration activities can enjoy the perks that come with the
resource; how to rework the patently harmful, bastardised and lopsided
federal system; and how insecurity can be tackled through state police.
No comments:
Post a Comment