We want 1960 Constitution, Ikenga-Metuh, others tell National Assembly
A RETIRED federal permanent secretary has described the ongoing efforts by the National Assembly to review the 1999 Constitution as a “waste of time.”
Dr Augustine Ikenga-Metuh, while adding his voice to a host of opposition to the review of the 1999 Constitution called for the adoption of the Independent Constitution of 1960.
Ikenga-Metuh, who was the federal deputy director of Works and Housing, said members of the National Assembly should stop to dissipate their energies on the review of the 1999 Constitution.
According to him, the 1960 Constitution remains the only constitution with the genuine inputs from Nigeria’s founding fathers to uplift governance in the country. He said the formulators of the 1960 Constitution were truly committed to the task of nation building and peaceful coexistence among Nigerians.
He described the 1999 Constitution as a by-product of Decree 34, promulgated by late Maj –Gen Aguiyi Ironsi in 1966. Decree 34, he said ushered in the unitary system of government to the country.
Ikenga-Metuh said that there is little members of the National Assembly could do to bring out anything worthy in a document as defective as the 1999 Constitution.
According to him: “The only constitution that Nigerians gave themselves was the 1960 Independent Constitution. Sometimes, I wonder why our lawmakers go out of their ways to spend public funds on a defective constitution, which in practice is unitary and in name; federal. You can’t have a unitary and federal constitution at the same time and this is the problem we are facing today. We are neither here nor there and we keep saying we are operating a federal system of government. Why review a constitution that is not suitable for Nigerians?”
He described the 1999 Constitution as a unitary –federal constitution. He said there was no way either the unitary or federal constitution could have existed at the same time.
He argued that the adoption of the 1960 Constitution would bring to an end all forms of agitations like - true federalism, fiscal federalism, national conference, and the pursuit of the Boko Haram Islamic sect for Nigeria to be an Islamic state.
Ikenga-Metuh noted that rather than reverting to the format of old four regions, there was the need to adopt the six geo-political structure of North West, North East, North Central, South West, South South and South East, which was widely accepted by members of the Constituent Assembly put together by administration of former Head of State, the late Gen. Sani Abacha.
He explained that under the 1960 Independence Constitution, there were four regional governments. Northern, Western, Eastern and Mid-Western regions were independent of the government at the centre.
He said that despite the fact that there were attempts in the past to fashion out an acceptable constitution, “not much has changed as the 1999 Constitution and others before it are miniature of Decree 34 of 1966.”
He said the 36 states of the federation were mere appendages of the Federal Government under the present system. At the centre in Abuja, the President holds sway. Nigeria operates a federal system of government fashioned after the American presidential system of government.
Blaming the recurring strife’s, poverty and injustice in the polity on the faulty foundation of the 1999 Constitution, Ikenga-Metuh said if the present system subsists, Nigeria couldn’t achieve the desired growth.
He drummed support for the establishment of state police, which he said remains the most veritable means to tackle the security challenges in the polity.
Sharing similar opinion with Ikenga-Metuh, a member of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and chieftain of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye, who served in the National Assembly between 1999 and 2003, said the situation in the country is beyond the piecemeal amendment to the 1999 Constitution.
Durojaiye urged the National Assembly not to allow the country to collapse before taking the right step whether to revert to the Independence Constitution of 1960 or organise a national conference where the ethnic nationalities that made up the nation would have the privilege to sit and discuss the basis of our unity.
He said that from the way things are going Nigeria is not ready to get out of the woods: “The ongoing amendment will not lead us anywhere unless we do the right thing. It is better to have a round table discussion than war. Those who do not allow a peaceful change risk violent change. This is why we are hammering it to them that we love this country probably more than those who say they are in power. For instance, many groups in the country are beginning to ask for regional autonomy, which the 1960 Constitution recognise. Some of the people agitating for regional autonomy base their agitation on the fact that even Ghana, which is not up to a quarter of Yorubaland, is thriving. But some of us have been rebuffing such demands; that there is advantage in number and that is the philosophy of our founding fathers, like Papa Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa and the rest before the drafting of the 1960 Constitution.”
He said the present sets of people in power are not showing much concern about the development of the country “they are rather interested in their selfish gain.”
Durojaiye said Nigerians are at a point where we need to persuade those in power to let us come together, to really discuss the Boko Haram issue. What are the things we will do? The people in that area want the Sharia system of government. Fine! But they should control their own region. In a truly federal system, you can say what you want to do. Religion is free; you can decide which one you want. Maybe you want theocracy in your area. The constitution will allow it. Or you can go and practise what you want. We also have what we want in our own region. We have no more than six regions we operated three regions and Nigeria was a better country. Then, we had true federalism. We had concurrent powers in certain areas, but residual power lay with the region. Now that our population is about four times what it was in the 60’s, it is not bad to have six regions, and fortunately, those regions are easy to recognise. The Constitution recognises six geopolitical arrangements in the country with three in the North and three in the South.
“Let’s reorganise ourselves in such a way that there will be six governors — one for each region, otherwise we should hold a conference.”
A member of ACN, who is representing Epe Federal Constituency in Lagos, Lanre Odubote said that rather than condemning the effort of the National Assembly to review the constitution, the people should know that the situation the country is today needs urgent attention. According to him, “this is the reason the National Assembly is looking quickly into some critical aspect of the constitution that are needed to be amended.
“In our present circumstances, the best option to move forward is what the federal legislators did by organising the public hearings, which accorded Nigerians the opportunity to contribute towards the amendment of the constitution.”
On the fate of the national conference, Odubote said Nigerians should not wait for the government or the National Assembly to convene it “I feel it is the responsibilities of Nigerians to convene a conference because I don’t foresee the present National Assembly or government organising any conference under the present circumstances.”
The lawmaker noted that in the face of the ongoing review of the constitution, advocates an adaption of the 1960 Constitution, which gave autonomy to the regions. His justification is based on the fact that demand for state creation would not bring solution to Nigeria problem “state creation has become very lopsided. How are we going to fund new states when we are still finding it difficult to maintain the present ones? It is not wise to continue to use the resources from the Niger Delta to fund states that are not viable.”
But the former governor of Old Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa said the ongoing review would not achieve anything.
Musa said: “No amendment to the constitution has ever worked in the past and the process leading to the ongoing amendment has shown that it would fail.”
According to him, the level of decadence in the country is so much that “we do not need to start amending the constitution in bits but to rather go for a national conference where all the ethnic nationalities would have the chance to discuss and iron out issues and come up with a reasonable constitution.”
The Pro-National Conference (PRONACO), which has always held a strong view on the need for Nigeria to convene a conference, also faulted the review, which they said, would fail because it is against the yearning of majority of Nigerians.
The spokesman of PRONACO, Mr. Wale Okuniyi, said: “That was not what Nigerians are yearning for. It will fail and not yield any meaningful result to the provision of a people’s constitution that we have been agitating for since 1999. The town hall arrangement is a cosmetic approach designed by the National Assembly to prolong the constitutional crisis affecting the nation.”
He described the 1999 Constitution as a military documents which was forced and decreed on Nigerians by only 26 men and there is no amendment to it that would result into a people’s constitution.
Okuniyi said what is expected of the National Assembly is to make a law that would allow Nigerians to meet at a Constituent Assembly or a National Conference where representatives of all ethnic nationalities would meet to address their differences. He added that: “what the National Assembly has done was a mere waste of resources and time.”
The Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Millennium Development Goals, who represents Ekiti North Federal Constituency 1, Bimbo Daramola said the recommendation to replace the 1999 Constitution by the 1960 Constitution is not relevant because the 7th National Assembly had already taken a bold step by sending its members out for the public hearings across the senatorial districts and the federal constituencies with the aim of having a more inclusive constitution after the amendment processes embarked upon.
Daramola said: “Whatever amendments we make in the new constitution is borne out of the participation of the people because calculated attempts have been made to involve Nigerians in the process that will bring about a new constitution. The only reason this giant stride can be put aside is if the people of this country come out to say they have disowned the legislators representing them at the National Assembly.”
He noted that the 43 items considered for debate would address most areas Nigerians have been expressing dissatisfaction about. According to him, the new constitution will address important issues like fiscal federalism, autonomy of the local government and other areas that will directly affect the people.
Dr Augustine Ikenga-Metuh, while adding his voice to a host of opposition to the review of the 1999 Constitution called for the adoption of the Independent Constitution of 1960.
Ikenga-Metuh, who was the federal deputy director of Works and Housing, said members of the National Assembly should stop to dissipate their energies on the review of the 1999 Constitution.
According to him, the 1960 Constitution remains the only constitution with the genuine inputs from Nigeria’s founding fathers to uplift governance in the country. He said the formulators of the 1960 Constitution were truly committed to the task of nation building and peaceful coexistence among Nigerians.
He described the 1999 Constitution as a by-product of Decree 34, promulgated by late Maj –Gen Aguiyi Ironsi in 1966. Decree 34, he said ushered in the unitary system of government to the country.
Ikenga-Metuh said that there is little members of the National Assembly could do to bring out anything worthy in a document as defective as the 1999 Constitution.
According to him: “The only constitution that Nigerians gave themselves was the 1960 Independent Constitution. Sometimes, I wonder why our lawmakers go out of their ways to spend public funds on a defective constitution, which in practice is unitary and in name; federal. You can’t have a unitary and federal constitution at the same time and this is the problem we are facing today. We are neither here nor there and we keep saying we are operating a federal system of government. Why review a constitution that is not suitable for Nigerians?”
He described the 1999 Constitution as a unitary –federal constitution. He said there was no way either the unitary or federal constitution could have existed at the same time.
He argued that the adoption of the 1960 Constitution would bring to an end all forms of agitations like - true federalism, fiscal federalism, national conference, and the pursuit of the Boko Haram Islamic sect for Nigeria to be an Islamic state.
Ikenga-Metuh noted that rather than reverting to the format of old four regions, there was the need to adopt the six geo-political structure of North West, North East, North Central, South West, South South and South East, which was widely accepted by members of the Constituent Assembly put together by administration of former Head of State, the late Gen. Sani Abacha.
He explained that under the 1960 Independence Constitution, there were four regional governments. Northern, Western, Eastern and Mid-Western regions were independent of the government at the centre.
He said that despite the fact that there were attempts in the past to fashion out an acceptable constitution, “not much has changed as the 1999 Constitution and others before it are miniature of Decree 34 of 1966.”
He said the 36 states of the federation were mere appendages of the Federal Government under the present system. At the centre in Abuja, the President holds sway. Nigeria operates a federal system of government fashioned after the American presidential system of government.
Blaming the recurring strife’s, poverty and injustice in the polity on the faulty foundation of the 1999 Constitution, Ikenga-Metuh said if the present system subsists, Nigeria couldn’t achieve the desired growth.
He drummed support for the establishment of state police, which he said remains the most veritable means to tackle the security challenges in the polity.
Sharing similar opinion with Ikenga-Metuh, a member of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and chieftain of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye, who served in the National Assembly between 1999 and 2003, said the situation in the country is beyond the piecemeal amendment to the 1999 Constitution.
Durojaiye urged the National Assembly not to allow the country to collapse before taking the right step whether to revert to the Independence Constitution of 1960 or organise a national conference where the ethnic nationalities that made up the nation would have the privilege to sit and discuss the basis of our unity.
He said that from the way things are going Nigeria is not ready to get out of the woods: “The ongoing amendment will not lead us anywhere unless we do the right thing. It is better to have a round table discussion than war. Those who do not allow a peaceful change risk violent change. This is why we are hammering it to them that we love this country probably more than those who say they are in power. For instance, many groups in the country are beginning to ask for regional autonomy, which the 1960 Constitution recognise. Some of the people agitating for regional autonomy base their agitation on the fact that even Ghana, which is not up to a quarter of Yorubaland, is thriving. But some of us have been rebuffing such demands; that there is advantage in number and that is the philosophy of our founding fathers, like Papa Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa and the rest before the drafting of the 1960 Constitution.”
He said the present sets of people in power are not showing much concern about the development of the country “they are rather interested in their selfish gain.”
Durojaiye said Nigerians are at a point where we need to persuade those in power to let us come together, to really discuss the Boko Haram issue. What are the things we will do? The people in that area want the Sharia system of government. Fine! But they should control their own region. In a truly federal system, you can say what you want to do. Religion is free; you can decide which one you want. Maybe you want theocracy in your area. The constitution will allow it. Or you can go and practise what you want. We also have what we want in our own region. We have no more than six regions we operated three regions and Nigeria was a better country. Then, we had true federalism. We had concurrent powers in certain areas, but residual power lay with the region. Now that our population is about four times what it was in the 60’s, it is not bad to have six regions, and fortunately, those regions are easy to recognise. The Constitution recognises six geopolitical arrangements in the country with three in the North and three in the South.
“Let’s reorganise ourselves in such a way that there will be six governors — one for each region, otherwise we should hold a conference.”
A member of ACN, who is representing Epe Federal Constituency in Lagos, Lanre Odubote said that rather than condemning the effort of the National Assembly to review the constitution, the people should know that the situation the country is today needs urgent attention. According to him, “this is the reason the National Assembly is looking quickly into some critical aspect of the constitution that are needed to be amended.
“In our present circumstances, the best option to move forward is what the federal legislators did by organising the public hearings, which accorded Nigerians the opportunity to contribute towards the amendment of the constitution.”
On the fate of the national conference, Odubote said Nigerians should not wait for the government or the National Assembly to convene it “I feel it is the responsibilities of Nigerians to convene a conference because I don’t foresee the present National Assembly or government organising any conference under the present circumstances.”
The lawmaker noted that in the face of the ongoing review of the constitution, advocates an adaption of the 1960 Constitution, which gave autonomy to the regions. His justification is based on the fact that demand for state creation would not bring solution to Nigeria problem “state creation has become very lopsided. How are we going to fund new states when we are still finding it difficult to maintain the present ones? It is not wise to continue to use the resources from the Niger Delta to fund states that are not viable.”
But the former governor of Old Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa said the ongoing review would not achieve anything.
Musa said: “No amendment to the constitution has ever worked in the past and the process leading to the ongoing amendment has shown that it would fail.”
According to him, the level of decadence in the country is so much that “we do not need to start amending the constitution in bits but to rather go for a national conference where all the ethnic nationalities would have the chance to discuss and iron out issues and come up with a reasonable constitution.”
The Pro-National Conference (PRONACO), which has always held a strong view on the need for Nigeria to convene a conference, also faulted the review, which they said, would fail because it is against the yearning of majority of Nigerians.
The spokesman of PRONACO, Mr. Wale Okuniyi, said: “That was not what Nigerians are yearning for. It will fail and not yield any meaningful result to the provision of a people’s constitution that we have been agitating for since 1999. The town hall arrangement is a cosmetic approach designed by the National Assembly to prolong the constitutional crisis affecting the nation.”
He described the 1999 Constitution as a military documents which was forced and decreed on Nigerians by only 26 men and there is no amendment to it that would result into a people’s constitution.
Okuniyi said what is expected of the National Assembly is to make a law that would allow Nigerians to meet at a Constituent Assembly or a National Conference where representatives of all ethnic nationalities would meet to address their differences. He added that: “what the National Assembly has done was a mere waste of resources and time.”
The Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Millennium Development Goals, who represents Ekiti North Federal Constituency 1, Bimbo Daramola said the recommendation to replace the 1999 Constitution by the 1960 Constitution is not relevant because the 7th National Assembly had already taken a bold step by sending its members out for the public hearings across the senatorial districts and the federal constituencies with the aim of having a more inclusive constitution after the amendment processes embarked upon.
Daramola said: “Whatever amendments we make in the new constitution is borne out of the participation of the people because calculated attempts have been made to involve Nigerians in the process that will bring about a new constitution. The only reason this giant stride can be put aside is if the people of this country come out to say they have disowned the legislators representing them at the National Assembly.”
He noted that the 43 items considered for debate would address most areas Nigerians have been expressing dissatisfaction about. According to him, the new constitution will address important issues like fiscal federalism, autonomy of the local government and other areas that will directly affect the people.
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