You Can’t Succeed with Nigeria’s Defective Constitution, Afe Babalola Tells Buhari
Victor Ogunje
A legal luminary and owner of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Chief Afe Babalola(SAN), has advised President Muhammadu Buhari to initiate process of reworking the constitution to remove the lacuna in the country’s legal system.
He said the current Nigerian Constitution can’t address the socio-economic challenges bedeviling the country.
The university administrator stated this yesterday during his conferment of Africa Role Model and African Union (AU) Agenda 2063 Ambassadorial Award held at the Alfa Belgore Multipurpose Hall in the school.
Babalola said it would be an Herculean task for President Buhari and his cabinet to succeed in making meaningful differences on the country socio-economic landscape with the 1999 quasifederal constitution which he said does not suit the peculiar nature of the country.
He said bold steps should taken to change the 1999 Constitution, which he said is falsely described as a federal constitution when in fact it’s unitary in all facets
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), however, called on the Buhari-led government to convene a sovereign national conference, whose membership would be elected on zero party system, to design people-oriented constitution.
Expressing his gratitude to family and friends for the honour, Babalola said with the award, Africans need transformational leaders that could work for an integrated, prosperous and peaceful continent.
According to him, “The award is a good omen to millions of youths in Africa particularly those who belong to the lowly class. I affirm that no matter your lowly status in life, if I, whose formal education stopped in primary six can make it, then you can make it faster and better.
“It is a tragedy that Africa today is bereft of transformational leaders such as Ghandi, Kwame Nkrumah, Nmamdi Azikwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Mandela and Ahmadu Bello. For Africa to move forward, we need transformational leaders and not operators of 1999 Constitution.
“The renaissance has started in ABUAD. ABUAD is the clear leader in reformation of education. We have succeeded in nine years to transform education in the country.”
The African Union ECOSOCC, Nigeria Representative, Dr. Tunji Asaolu, in his remark, said Babalola’s contribution to human capital development was worthy of commendation and emulation.
Asaolu said the continental award was conferred on the legal icon based on his legendary impact in all sphere of human life to the benefit of Africa.
According to him, “Babalola is a continental role model whose work and activities are serving as veritable implementation platforms of the AU Agenda 2063.