By Henry Uche
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Prof. Mike Ozekhome, in a monitored interview on Channels TV, X-rayed the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended, and the need for a new People-centered document, among other issues.
You have always been speaking for the interest of Nigeria…
Yes, I have been a pan -Nigerian all my life, 66 years old on earth now. I’m happy that all the conference you mentioned, I have been part of them. In 2005 Obasanjo’s political reform conference, I was there. In fact, I headed the splinter group of the civil society group that did a lot of job in this area, Senator Adam Oshiomhole, Senator Shehu Sani, Smart Adeyemi, they were some members of that my own group. In 2009, I was also at the vision 2009 as to how to make Nigeria a great country. And in 2014 at the President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan confab, I was there fully. I have been a member of the patriot group which is concerned with nation building, how to have a great country, a resourceful country, prosperous country, under a constitutional democracy; a people driven constitution, a country where mutual respect, genuine peace, social justice, not peace of a graveyard or cemetery, like late Chief M. K.O Abiola would call it, would prevail. It was this patriot group that was founded by legendary Chief FRA Williams, who died some years ago at 84. He passed the baton of office to the greatest constitutional lawyer that has emerged from the face of Africa, Professor Ben Nwabueze, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who transited last year at the age of 91 years. Then the baton passed on to our present eminent international icon, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, 91 years old, who is worried over the problems of Nigeria, a man who was Secretary General of the 56 Nation common wealth of Nations, including Britain, places like India, controlling Canada; all those countries, making about 2.4 billion people in the world. Now, to lead us to the president, worried about how the nation is going by making certain demands of the President. But I’ve heard people talk again and again, saying why are we talking about the new constitution? Is that our problem? I said hello. That is the beginning and the end of our problem.
Because a nation without an acceptable or legitimate constitution, indigenous, people -driven, can never get nationhood. As the programme goes on, I’m going to give you some examples. But first, because the Constitution is the birth certificate of the country, it’s what tells us what system of government that country practices; is it federalism, is it Unitary system, is it monarchy? What type of government? It is the Constitution that tells us about rules of engagement
So Nigeria in the last almost 70 years had been in a journey to nowhere?
Yes, to journey of no destination.
But with this crop of patriots led by Chief Anyaoku, it looks like a political..
Nooo! It’s not political, I’m not a politician.
Ok, with your submission, what are the three major problems of Nigeria
The first one we identified is lack of nationhood. Nigeria is a country still yearning for nationhood.
What does that mean?
It means that we are not united. We are still what Chief Obafemi called a piece of geographical expression. Ahmedu Bello called it a piece of historical mistake.
Because we were put together on first January 2014 by Lord lugard, the Southern and northern Confederates at the Lagos colony, after Nigeria had been given her name by young British author who wrote The London Financial Times of 8th January, 1897, calling it Nigeria, that is, Niger Area. That is first major problem. In other words, we were put together through the direct and indirect rule system that we are operating. With all of us already enjoying our independence: The Benin empire, the Oyo empire, the Kanem Bornu empire, the Ancient Ife, we were already independent having our own systems of government, and we were happy.
Is it the reason for the agitation we see in Nigeria?
It’s the beginning and the end of it. I can assure you that you were talking about three problems. I identified one major problem. You don’t have nationhood and nobody believes in Nigeria as a country. If I asked you, Seun, where are you from? You won’t say, I’m a Nigerian, you’ll first quickly mention your village and then your state, then you are filling the form, after asking you for your name, the next question is place of origin, you put, they say, town and local government, you put, they say, state, you put it and the same with religion. You already have been typified, profiled to know whether what you want here can come to you or not come to you.
Yes, we have our origins, but some people say, the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable for fear of disintegration
I’m not saying every Nigerian should not be the same person. In fact, I’ve always had argued and I’m on record to say that that of Professor Onigu Otite’s 374 ethnic groups in Nigeria, through a demographic survey that speak over 380 languages, each of them must have the place and be respected in where he comes from.
But when we want to rough or ruffle it over others, for example, a former President Buhari, calling a whole ethnic group, one of the three largest ethnic groups, the Igbos, South East a dot in a cycle, what will you call me, a minority within a minority from Ijukwe, near Agenegbude, Isako-East local government of Edo State, what are you going to call me? But in America for example, they first ask you, what’s the name? You tell them? Where are you from? They would ask you what do you mean, you mean where I work, or where I schooled or where I live now, or where I was born. Because each of them would have been different, but they regard themselves as Americans so they have what is called faith in their country. We do not have faith in our country, that is why when you go out on a Sunday, if you go around, you will see different town unions, where would you see a Nigerian union holding a meeting. So, it’s like the Bible. It says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all things shall be added.” If we get it right constitutionally, because the present foundations are fundamentally damaged; for example, if you have a house that the walls are cracking, how do you repair the walls? You go to the walls, you take a hammer to begin to chisel it? Then you get cement mortar, You call it bricklayer and say, help me patch this wall, he patches it; in one or two months time, more chaos, more gulllies, more cracks appear on the wall. You have to look for the cause of that wall cracks. You discover there is a big tree in your compound. Both trees have sprouted, they have become so big that they have gone towards the foundation of the house and is what is actually trickling it to fall. What do you do to that tree? You don’t go to the tree or cut of the branches because the branches will grow anyway again and the walls would continue to crack. You go to the roots of the tree and uproot it. So, the position of the Patriot is getting to the root of Nigeria’s problems, with three representations of every ethnic group. That’s what they said. The Patriots have looked at it again after further discussion and said that look, we have suggested three representation elected on no party basis. Now, the Patriots suggests three from each state, we have looked at it again that the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria must be represented to own a people constitution so that no person can say he was marginalized. And that is why the patriots told the President that he needs to look seriously at the 2014 Confab. The reason is that, there were 492 members representing every aspect of the Nigerian society. Elder statesmen and women, the youths, students, the market women, the manufacturers, the physically disabled, the police, the military, professional groups, the traditional institutions, civil society, judges, lecture, we were all there. Different organizations have different ways of throwing up their own representatives. Like the students, they have to go for their own elections, the NGOs, everybody that came to Abuja for those six months was a representative of certain people. But the Federal Government then looked at it from a critical angle. For example, I was thrown up to represent my people in Edo State. But somehow, by Professor Pella’s Abracadabra magic, my name vanished from the scene. And when the matter went to the then President, who by the way, I have never met as the President when he was in office, or vice president or Acting president, I never met him, people don’t know, google me and see my criticism of his government, as I did Buhari, as I’m doing now. He said, why is his name not there, put his name as a federal government delegate addendum. That is why till tomorrow, when I hear someone say “Addendum’, I know that the person must have been at the 2014 Confab. So, the government nominated some few people. That was all, and we made over 600 recommendations, which if the Buhari government had looked at or the present government looks at as we told Mr. President, we are not saying that all Nigeria’s problems will evaporate in one day, but you would have tackled them head-on. And I tried to, some of us who are nation builders, I’m not a politician. I regard myself as a nation builder, human rights activist, a pro- democracy campaigner. I sit down to think about the problems of Nigeria; do you know that as far back as 1986, I had taken the then President Ibrahim Babangida, the Armed Forces Ruling Council, AFRC, and the Attorney General to court, against removal of petroleum subsidy, the judgement was December 29, 1987 by justice Agoro, just google National Concord, Mike Ozekhome/Babangida, 37 years ago, this oil subsidy we are still fighting over today. My argument was that, you cannot be made to pay for a product that you are having like other people who do not have it. That is what Prof. Cloud Ake described as a disarticulate economy- when you produce what you don’t consume and consume what you don’t produce. That thing I saw 37 years ago is what we’re still fighting over today. Guess what! I was the first proponent that June 12 should be our democracy day, and not May 29, which is a mere handover. I fought this over the years. Later in 2018, General Mohammed Buhari as president made June 12, a democracy day. The same way at the 2014 national conference, I moved a motion that Nigeria should go back to the first national anthem, though a lot of people disagreed. But the entire 492 members, one of the few instances in which there was mass consensus, they all bought that motion, and all stood up and sang “Nigeria we hail thee”…
What triggered the Patriots to storm Aso rock?
After we had a colloquium in March this year, attended by past and present governors and lawmakers, members of the diplomatic, civil society groups, and others, most humbly, I presented the lead paper/ the keynote address, the Patriots came to the conclusion that Nigeria was in a dangerous precipice and we cannot continue to pretend. You have a sore and you put on it a kind of perfume and you pretend the sore is not there, no it’s there!
So, the sore represents the current danger of Nigeria losing it, in the sense that, Nigeria is a pluralistic society. Pluralistic societies are governed by constitutions that take into consideration the peculiarity of the people usually through federal constitutions, not this unitary system of government we are operating. The patriots gave example of India, Canada, and Switzerland. Pluralistic societies that have their constitution subject to the people in referendum, and they’re United. The patriots gave example of Yugoslavia which was under former Tito, they have broken up into seven countries- independent states. The patriots gave the example of Czechoslovakia, after living together for one hundred years that broke up into Zech and Slovakia. Coming home, we gave the example of Sudan here, they have lived together for 3000 years, few years ago, they broke up into Sudan and Southern Sudan and the wars have not ended. The patriots therefore felt that there is the need for the urgency of yesterday for the president now to introduce a president executive bill to the national assembly; the fear of the national assembly has always been that, they are trying to be side-lined, noo! Although the present constitution militarily imposed as a schedule attached to decree N0 24 of 1999, is not a people’s constitution lying in its preambles that we the people of Nigeria made it when it was never subjected to a referendum through a plebiscite, we still know that it’s the constitution we are using. This was done by the Old Midwest region on the 10th of August 1963 for them to break away from Western region to become the fourth region in Nigeria. Now on this issue, you must have the national assembly participating because they are in place, their job is that they can only amend constitution under section 9. A national assembly cannot make a new constitution, it’s the constitution that makes a national assembly because the tail cannot wag the dog, but the national assembly under section 4, and various sections of the constitution have the power to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of Nigeria. One of the laws the Patriots advised Mr president to make an executive bill on was convoking a constituents Assembly. You can call it a constitutional assembly or congress or constituents congress. Make a law conveying it and allow people to be elected on non political partisan basis while allowing ethnic nationalities to be there. This assembly will now take into consideration the problem we are having, of course they will call for a memorandum from the Nigerian people, they will look at the problems and then make a brand new constitution. It’s not ended. That brand new constitution must be subjected to a referendum of the people because the process through which a constitution come into being is even more important than the content of the constitution. When the people vote for Yea or Nay, and they agree finally, then you have a people’s constitution, indigenous Constitution of the people, because the people knew that they participated. They own it, believe in it and how they would take Nigeria forward.
Now the people are saying they don’t want a bicameral legislature(cuts in)
And that is how it will be. The meaning of democracy as defined famously on 19th of November 1863 by Abraham Lincoln during his declaration, is government of the people for the people and by the people. That’s why we call it democracy.
What if the people say, we do not want states, we want regions, how do you now transit?
These are matters to be in the law to be promulgated by the national assembly. There are so many details.
Do you think president Tinubu has the political will to make that happen?
He should have it because these problems will not go away!
Is the new constitution an antidote to poverty, killings in the northwest…
Yes, it is. The killings, poverty, corruption etc, they are all symptoms of a larger problem which is the basis of what we are talking about; when we solve it, other things will fall in place. If the people decide for instance that we do not need a wasteful national assembly of 109 senators, 360 members of House of representatives, each of them has special advisers, the special advisers have special assistants, the special assistants have personal assistants, the personal assistants have special aides, then you have one position carrying up to 50 persons, drilling the little money that we have. If the people decide that we need one unicameral legislature, and the 360 legislators will go or if they will stay, it will be part-time basis, they are actually operating on a part-time basis, under Constitution, if you attend for six months in a year, you have passed, so it’s on part-time basis, you will see it’s only those who have the interest of Nigeria at heart will come up, not those who are going to Abuja to make money for themselves. And let me tell you, this national assembly have to agree because the problem will not go away. By the way, why are we still distancing these problems? Why are they still with us? We have been discussing this for a very long time. And the way forward is fundamental. And political elites must agree. Let me tell you, if you are driving a car, and the car has a knocked engine, is it not the engine you look at? Do you need to start panel beating the car? Spraying the car with new paints, buying new tyres, will that car move? I’m saying that the engine of the Nigerian state is knocked, are you seeing religious intolerance, why we did not protest against Tinubu, why we did not demonstrate against Buhari for eight years he was there, why did the Igbos quietly excuse from this last protest? Because they said they would be targeted! Why are some ethnic groups more involved than others? It’s at the heart of what we’re talking.
Permanent fix.
We must come together through this constituents’ assembly, make a new constitution, owned by the people subjected to a referendum, so as to get their buy in.
Does president’s body language show he will do this
He was receptive. He felt that economic reforms are his priority, but Mr president sir, that is where you are missing it because the economic reforms cannot take place under a super structure that is fundamentally flawed.