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A former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr. Kingsley Moghalu has said that Nigerian leaders must realise it is nearly impossible to fix the nation’s economy without having a new constitution.
The former presidential candidate said this in a statement shared on social media on Monday.
He was reacting to President Bola Tinubu’s response to the recent visit to him by a group of eminent Nigerians tagged The Patriots, led by former Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku.
Anyaoku, who addressed State House correspondents after Friday’s meeting, had urged the president to forward an executive bill to the National Assembly to legislate on a national referendum that will approve a draft for a ‘pluralistic constitution.’
In a statement signed by presidential media aide, Ajuri Ngelale, Tinubu was quoted as assuring the group that their request for the convening of a national constituent assembly with the mandate to draft a new constitution would be reviewed.
However, the president added, “The avoidance of chaos is necessary to build this country and move its aspirations forward for the benefit of all of us.
“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 and other options.”
In Monday’s statement, Moghalu disagreed with the president’s remark.
He said, “I respectfully disagree with President Bola Tinubu’s response to the recent visit to him by The Patriots, led by former Commonwealth Secretary-General Chief Emeka Anyaoku, during which the group (of which I am a member) pressed for a new Constitution for Nigeria as a matter of urgency, and recommending specific steps to achieve this.
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“While PBAT received the eminent elder statesman and his colleagues with the appropriate dignity and protocols (“this is a group I cannot ignore”, Tinubu noted), the President asserted that economic reform (and the crisis that it has created in the country) is his priority right now, but that his government would of course study the recommendations of The Patriots and respond (hopefully with action and not merely words).
“What Nigeria’s leaders fail to understand is that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to bring a fundamental fix to Nigeria’s economy in the absence of a new, peoples constitution that is anchored on real federalism, and preferably anchored on a regional structure of 6-12 regions.
“The reason is that Nigeria is a country but not yet a nation. There is no unity of purpose, no cohering worldview. And this is because the country means different things to different groups. The very essence of Nigeria, what it is in reality (as opposed to the “one indivisible entity” parroted by its leaders for decades) is fundamentally contested.
“As examples of economically successful nations all over the world show, real nationhood is a fundamental requirement for an economic rise based on productivity-driven transformation. I have stressed this in many of my writings, speeches, and other interventions.”
Moghalu maintained that the longer the matter of Nigeria’s nationhood is delayed (presumably because it is a sensitive and politically challenging one), the more Nigerians as a people will continue to struggle.
“Even more fundamentally, as the eminent diplomat reminded President Tinubu (essentially), Nigeria as a pluralistic country that refuses to turn its plurality into a workable nationhood through an appropriate federal constitution, runs the risk of disintegration in the medium to long term.
“This is not “alarmism” (for those who have not studied the history of nations and resort to surface “patriotism”). It is a historical fact. Anyaoku recalled the success of countries like Canada and other real federations as opposed to the Former Yugoslavia, Sudan, and Czechoslovakia. The latter was broken up peacefully and in a mature manner into Czech Republic and Slovakia, two separate nations. The earlier two disintegrated through conflict.
“Nigeria’s economy has remained a natural-resource driven, unproductive, and rent-seeking one for decades because the absence of stable nationhood means that the contention for political power by essentially narrow groups and vested interests is for the purpose of state capture of economic rents, and not anchored on a shared vision of a common future and destiny. For as long as this motive is the driving force in Nigerian politics, the economy cannot be transformed.”
