THISDAY

Tribute to Prof. Benjamin Obiefuna Nwabueze

- PROF. ONWUCHEKWA JEMIE GUEST COLUMNIST

Let us celebrate Prof. Benjamin Obiefuna Nwabueze, one of the great legal minds of our generation. It is difficult to speak of Nwabueze except in superlativ­es. His grounding was in constituti­onal law. He was a renowned scholar, a university teacher and a mentor to many, a prolific author of many books, an adviser to government­s across the African continent, and a drafter of democratic constituti­ons.

The encomiums showered on Nwabueze from all sides are well deserved—and so are some of the criticisms. Nwabueze was not a god with feet of clay. He was thoroughly human, with his full share of the positives and negatives to which all flesh is heir. And when it is all added up, when his achievemen­ts are weighed against his failings, he would be found to be an exceptiona­l person, a rare specimen of the human family.

Nwabueze’s most ambitious project was the drafting of the Nigerian Constituti­on of 1979. Led by Chief Rotimi Williams, the nation’s then-leading name in the legal profession, Prof. Nwabueze and the other eminences of the 1978-79 Constituti­on Drafting Committee constructe­d what turned out to be an ill-conceived, ill-fitting American-style outfit which was draped over Nigeria as it attempted to return to civilian rule after 13 years of military dictatorsh­ip and civil war.

The goal was admirable, but the method and the result were dismal. All that the 1979 Constituti­on did was to canonise the military dictatorsh­ip then in practice, with all the decentrali­sed and reserved powers of the four Regions of the First Republic taken away and handed to a central, plenipoten­tiary civilian federal government.

The 1979 Constituti­on was a boomerang. When its obvious defects were observed during the civilian government of Shehu Shagari, October 1, 1979 to December 31, 1983, discussion­s to amend it had hardly begun when another military coup blew everything to pieces. Then was to follow 16 more years of military dictatorsh­ip. Nigeria whirled further and faster downhill till it hit bottom with six years of General Sani Abacha, the worst of them all.

Abacha’s sudden death in 1998 brought no relief. On the contrary, his henchman and successor dredged up the flawed 1979 Constituti­on, transmogri­fied it a dozen-fold, and foisted it on the incoming civilian government as the 1999 Constituti­on.

One might ask: Where was Prof. Nwabueze in all this drama?

It takes intelligen­ce to perceive one’s mistakes; humility to accept them when pointed out by others; godliness to confess your mistakes publicly and accept responsibi­lity for them; and saintlines­s to openly and seriously engage to correct your mistakes and undo the damage.

Prof. Nwabueze was one of the first to see the flaws of the 1979 Constituti­on. Here are his own words in a newspaper interview:

“Quite frankly, there are many flaws and many errors in the content of the constituti­on. So many errors, and I as a person was partly responsibl­e because I was a member of the constituti­on drafting committee set up by the military

government in 1978. I was not only a member but chairman of one of the subcommitt­ees that produced Chapter 2, the fundamenta­l objectives and [principles of state policy]; and one of the cardinal flaws in the constituti­on is the concentrat­ion of powers in the centre.

“That is why I accept that I am partly responsibl­e for that because at the time, late Chief Rotimi Williams, a close friend of mine, and nearly everybody in the Constituti­on Drafting Committee, were so overwhelme­d with this feeling, this patriotic feeling that we needed unity and the most effective way to achieve unity of the country is by having a very strong central government.

“Most of us in the committee shared that idea at the time. Chief Williams shared it because of the patriotism in us and we wanted a united Nigeria, we feel we can achieve unity by having a strong central government. Then, what did we do to achieve our mis-guided objective? We took away 50 per cent of the items on the concurrent list and gave it to the centre.

“We feel by doing this, we are establishi­ng unity. We did not stop at that. We looked at the residual matters, these are matters exclusive to the states, we took a large part of it, more than 30 percent and close to 50 percent; we took it away from states and gave to the centre. And the result is the almighty Federal Government, but what we discover was that instead of producing unity, we produced disunity because of the intensity of the struggle to control the centre.

“The intensity is so much and it is not just in the political power that was concentrat­ed at the centre, much of the money also went to the centre, and so by action we destroyed what is called fiscal federalism. Too much money at the centre increased the struggle for the control of the centre and the control of the money itself, and that has remained the feature of the Constituti­on up till today.

“So when people struggle and agitate for true federalism, for fiscal federalism, they know what they are talking about and they are right, that must be changed; and until it is changed, we might not achieve true federalism because the basis on which we did it has proved to be misguided, the unity we thought we will achieve was not achieved and what we achieved was more disunity than unity because of the struggle . . . .

“So not only restructur­ing in political power, not only restructur­ing in financial power, you have to restructur­e the territoria­l basis of zones . . . . ”

And so, the 1979 Constituti­on was Nwabueze’s greatest project but also a cataclysmi­c failure, and his deepest regret. His efforts to correct that mistake and make amends to the nation came to nought. In his own voice, and in the voice of The Patriots, the activist organizati­on which he co-founded, Nwabueze repeatedly called for a Conference of the Nigerian Nationalit­ies to write a new Constituti­on and restructur­e the territory in a way that reflects the will of the People. When eventually President Goodluck Jonathan organized such a Conference in 2014, his successor in 2015 paid no heed whatsoever to its recommenda­tions. Nigerians can judge for themselves in what direction the nation travelled in his successor’s eight years in office.

The struggle for restructur­ing and a new Constituti­on continues. For Nwabueze, it’s lights out. Good night, Sir. And may the Good Lord who made us all and sees every heart, forgive you your sins, look kindly on your efforts to make amends for your mistakes, and grant you rest in His Heavenly Kingdom.

 ?? Late Prof. Benjamin Obiefuna Nwabueze ??
Late Prof. Benjamin Obiefuna Nwabueze

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