A proposition is aboard. It’s recent but not new. It’s a proposition the Patriots, led by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, made to President Tinubu on August 9, 2024. It’s about the need for a new constitution. From the President came a polite response to the Patriots: “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.” From former President Obasanjo came another response. While, for President Tinubu, the economy, and not the constitution, is primary preoccupation, for former President Obasanjo, what matters most is not the constitution but the character of those who occupy public office in Nigeria.
If we are therefore in search of what to change, it is our character and not our constitution. Be it noted that this is one rare occasion when President Tinubu and the former President Obasanjo would agree: they both believe the constitution is not problem. But their rare point of convergence—one is tempted to call it a hapax legomenon—is philosophically unsustainable. To present the issue, as President Tinubu did, that, at this instance, Nigerians would have to choose to solve economic problems before addressing political challenges is to present a weak argument. The weakness is to be seen in the fact that we cannot address our economic problems with a constitution that is so dangerously defective.
If we follow this route, we’ll spend our time and energy fighting over the riches of the land to the point where we’ll all be losers. It’s like saying the merchants in Plato’s Republic may conduct their business without the philosopher king curtailing the excesses of the merchants and the combatants in the Republic. Economic activities are in fact political in nature. Without the ground rules that a credible constitution would provide, economic activities would be unprofitable on the long run. Equally fragile is former President Obasanjo’s assumption that we ought to prioritize character modification over constitutional modification or replacement.
It is fragile because the present constitution encourages and facilitates bad behavior and impunity of arrogant display of power. In fact, this constitution makes it almost impossible for a good character to emerge in politics. And, even if such a fine character were to emerge, his or her ethical finesse would be insufficient to navigate the muddy and stormy waters of Nigerian politics. The numerous dangerous flaws of the 1999 constitution point to the wisdom of the Patriots. This constitution is not federal but military and unitary. A unitary constitution is simply unbefitting a country that needs to constantly manage its diversity so as to experience the national integration and stability needed for economic prosperity.
Here is a country impeded from managing diversity by regional, ethnic and religious communities mutually suspicious and perpetually quarrelling over whose turn it is to control the government at the centre. It’s a constitution that places Nigeria’s wealth in the hands of the government at the centre, and places enormous powers of state in the hands of the same government. It’s a constitution that engenders an unbridled desire to control Nigeria’s immense wealth, especially the oil wealth, thus eliciting an emilokanist disposition in virtually every politician, and in every ethnic, religious and regional community within the geographical space called Nigeria.
This constitution has established a big government, and a big government, by disposition, is lethargic and prone to corruption. It’s a constitution that exposes Nigerians to poverty. It has imposed on us successive regimes that have turned out to be instruments of poverty prodigals in expenditure. This constitution is directly responsible for hunger and anger in the land. This constitution exposes the vast land that Nigeria is to insecurity by concentrating control of security agencies in the hands of government at the centre. Built into it by its redactors is a clumsy political arrangement of state and local governments with legislative capacity without law enforcement capacity.
In Nigeria’s curious brand of federalism, state and local governments are mere administrative units. In any democracy, the chances of having good characters in government are extremely slim. That is why a good constitution is needed to curtail and sanction any disposition to bad behavior. Good character is taught by virtue education. Virtue makes its possessor good. Good laws compel the vicious to be virtuous. That is why character formation and good constitution must go hand-in-hand, and good character is needed for economic activities that serve the common good. It’s not that other countries have good characters leading them.
If anything, the many character flaws of leaders in countries that present themselves as teachers in democracy are in the full glare of the international community. The difference between our clime and theirs is that whereas they have constitutions that have not completely dissolved the disposition to bad behavior, their constitutions and laws have at least made it very difficult and costly to act in ways that are inimical to the common good without being sanctioned either by law enforcement agencies or by the people at credibly conducted polls. The 1999 Constitution, identical twin of the 1979 Constitution, has established a big government with weak institutions that can be and are easily manipulated by the political class.
The executive arm of government controls the legislature and the judiciary. A sitting President appoints the electoral umpire, appoints heads of security agencies whose responsibility is to secure the credibility of elections, and appoints judicial officers whose responsibility is to interpret the laws. In patent violation of the principle of separation of powers, it is a constitution that has installed a dictatorship of the executive, which is in fact a dictatorship of the chief executive, over the legislature and the judiciary. We have been operating this constitution for the past twenty-five years. But if we would be candid, we would admit that its beneficiaries have not been the people of Nigeria but the people who have been occupying public office since 1999.
The scorecard shows indubitably that in our much-vaunted twenty-five years of uninterrupted democracy, members of the political class have been materially enriched in a land where public office is immensely lucrative, while the plebe has been materially impoverished. This dangerous trend misrepresents democracy. For reasons enumerated here, and for related but un-enumerated reasons, there is an urgent need to change this constitution. We owe the Patriots a debt of gratitude for the useful reminder that their intervention represents.
It is now up to us to accept the challenge they have thrown at us and at our political leaders. It is the challenge to embark on the tedious task of tidy thinking at this point in our history, these trying moments. Assuming that task means we must rise above the bad habit of trading insults instead of trading ideas. Shall we respond to their challenge?
• Very Rev. Fr.(Prof.) Anthony Akinwale, OP is Deputy Vice Chancellor, Augustine University Ilara, Epe
