Akuns: Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution Requires Total Overhaul By N’Assembly
Former Central Bank of Nigeria’s Director of Banking Supervision and Regulation and Peoples Democratic Party’s governorship aspirant in the 2023 election in Plateau State, Da Jonathan Sunday Akuns, in this interview explains why Nigerians should take special interest in the current constitution review exercise embarked upon by the National Assembly. Folalumi Alaran brings excerpts:
You seem to be upbeat about the planned review of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution and the call for memoranda by the National Assembly Committee On Constitution Review, what explains your optimism?
Thank you. I believe the constitution review effort provides a golden opportunity for rejigging of not only our nation’s democracy, but above all the foundation of our statehood.
In fact, I think Nigerians from all walks of life should participate in the exercise, because of the democratic exigencies that call for a reset in the constitution review exercise entirely. That is a paradigm shift away from reviewing the 1999 constitution created by a military decree, to a review of the 1963 constitution enacted by the sovereign consent of the elected representatives of our people that assembled in Parliament.
What do you consider as the major thrusts of your plan?
A - Two weeks after the House of Representatives published the call for memoranda, I put together my thoughts and various public interventions on the subject matter. I was able to send in the proposal, which I e-signed, by the first week of April to beat the deadline.
I must tell you that the submission was in exercise of my citizenship’s right to contribute to nation building and the search for good governance in a Nigeria that works for all.
Having said that, a look at my past media interventions would show that I subscribe fully to the tenets of federalism that emerged from the Lagos constitutional conference of July 25-26, 1963. It was upon that conference that the 1963 republican constitution was enacted by “we the people,’ represented by our elected members that assembled in Federal Parliament. I am a strong advocate for the restructuring of Nigeria on truly federal tenets, where the federating units play significant roles in fiscal federalism.
However, it is regrettable that the development and maturity of the tenets of federalism in democracy was truncated in Nigeria by the military coup d’état of January 15, 1966, leading to prolonged interregnums, which are incongruous to operating a federal system.
And, as a result, a military unitary system of government churned out decrees, including the creation of the 1979 and 1999 constitutions. Obviously, the hue of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), is glaringly of a unitary and un-republican origins.
So, you talked about one being upbeat, yes. I sincerely wish the Constitution Review Committee well and urge it to pay careful attention in stitching the democratic tenets of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in order to build a truly federal system that works for all.
So, you are among those that fault the 1999 constitution?
Yes, the 1999 Constitution was not enacted by a constitutionally recognized process, but by the promulgation of a decree by a military interregnum. This negates the assertion of “We the People” in the preamble of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Every constitution or statute defines the method by which it shall be altered. Obviously, the novelty of 1979 cum 1999 Constitutions is worn out and has thrust forth both documents as grafts and offshoots that are lacking of democratic republican attributes of sovereignty.
To bypass the method of altering a sovereign legal code is a tangent to the republican attributes of such a code and particularly so, when it is done by the elected members of parliament that are part of a governing administration of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The republican choices of Nigerians via partisan electoral processes are the legitimate corporate body such as the 10th House of Representatives of the National Assembly that is vested with the powers to alter a sovereign legal code such as the constitution.
This is the natural process to convey the consent of the constituent autochthones of the ethnic territories from which Nigeria was created as a single territorial entity bounded by the 1963 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In this regard, the 1999 document titled the CFRN isn’t the right focus for a constitutional amendment exercise due to its unrepublican origins.
It is the 1963 CFRN that holds the republican ace for a review, because it was enacted by the representatives of, We the People, as Honourable Members of the Federal Parliament that emerged from a partisan electoral process of 1959 elections.
Consequently, a reset by the House of Representatives is a necessary and sufficient condition that will rightly return the FRN to the path of democracy and foster a parsimonious constitutional amendment process. This will safely deflate the political bubbles that becloud democracy in Nigeria.