Application of 1999 constitution can resolve agitations ―Tabai

Justice Francis Tabai.

The correct application of the 1999 Constitution contains provisions that can address the growing agitations for self-actualization by various ethnic nationalities in the country.

This was the position of a jurist and retired judge of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, Justice Francis Tabai, weekend in Warri, Delta State.

Justice Tabai noted that the ongoing clamour for restructuring would not have arisen if successive governments had implemented the constitution accordingly in the day-to-day running of governance.

According to him, the 1999 constitution was explicit on the issue of how true federalism should be run in a democratic dispensation.

The constitution, he said, also contains federal character policy and meant to tackle the discrepancies in political appointments among various ethnic groups in the country in order to strike a balance in the socio-political and economic structures of the nation.

“The Nigerian constitution contains provisions that accommodated the various national issues presently agitating ethnic nationalities across the country but the problems we have had was in its implantation as leaders who assumes position of authority at the centre choose to abandon or neglect these constitutional provisions to do things at their prerogatives”.

“Take the issue of federal character for instance, this is a provision that was clearly spelt out in the constitution to address the issue of political appointments and locations for the establishments of federal institutions in the country but it had been jettisoned by successive governments who preferred doing whatever pleases them while in power”.

“These are some of the issues that prompted the current agitations by various ethnic nationalities for restructuring in the country today and until we have leaders who are ready and willing to implement the constitutional provisions to the letter, then there might not be an end to the growing agitations across the six geo political zones in the country”, he stated.

Meanwhile, in his lecture titled, ‘Roadmap to Sustainable Peace in Niger Delta’, Professor Patrick Muoboghare, canvassed a return to true federalism to save the country.

He noted that when the country was run under true federalism, the federating units were resourceful in the mineral resources they were endowed and only paid royalties to the centre.

He, however, note with dismay that after the discovery of oil at Oloibiri in Bayelsa State, the federating units had become very lazy in harnessing the mineral resources in their localities and rather concentrated on the allocations of oil revenues shared by the federal government.

He therefore called for a genuine restructuring of the country to return the country to the path of growth and progress.