As OBJ stirs controversy on constitution review, restructuring

As the ripples elicited by the views voiced by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the state of the nation spread, KUNLE ODEREMI reports on how other stakeholders perceive the fundamental reforms advocated by the former leader.

 

SATURDAY, February 29, 2020 provided yet another auspicious moment for former President Olusegun Obasanjo to dissect vexatious national issues and take a firm position. That occasion was at the first annual Fredrick Fasehun Memorial Lecture instituted by the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) under the leadership of Prince Osibote. Held at the NITEL premises in Cappa, Oshodi, Lagos State, the event attracted prominent citizens, including representatives of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, as well as professional bodies.

Osibote had in his welcome address set the ball rolling, with a remark that the OPC remained the veritable bridge builder across the various ethnic nationalities in the country. While given credit to Dr Fasehun for his foresight and vision that led to the formation of the organisation, Osibote advocated a new Nigeria where each component can have a true sense of belonging and fulfilment.

The general secretary of the ACF, Mr Anthony Sani, reinforced the importance of unity, amity and patriotism among Nigerians. According to him, there is strength in Nigerians keeping faith to the bond of friendship and nationalism that dates back to Nigeria’s evolution.  However, the lecture of Obasanjo with the theme: “Walking the talk: OPC Yesterday. Today and Tomorrow,” created more passion and interest. The former president, who was accompanied to the event by a former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola and other eminent persons, was blunt about the state of the nation, which he believed was scary and precarious. For long, many had looked forward to the possibility of the former president writing yet an open letter to the presidency on the challenges confronting the country.

But it seemed Obasanjo elected to use the occasion of the memorial lecture in honour of Fasehun to expressed total disgust with the prevalent situation in the country, the lack of capacity and will by the authorities to detonate what he perceived as a time bomb, as well as the queer approach to retooling the 1999 Constitution. ‘He was convinced that Dr Fasehun would have been on the same page with him on all the issues if the OPC founder were still alive. Thus, Obasanjo warned that the country was perching precariously on the tether, whereas the cardinal duty and responsibility of a leader is the security of life and property of all citizens.

“There is no doubt that the national security architecture, apparatus, system and arrangements in Nigeria today have failed to measure up to the needs of the citizens in different parts of the country,” he stated. With all the major stakeholders acknowledging the frightening state of insecurity in the country, Obasanjo said the quest for more proactive measures to tame the scourge of insurgency to farmers/herders conflict, banditry, kidnappings, ethno-religious conflicts, cattle rustling, confronting Nigeria  unparalleled in its history had become imperative.

According to the former leader, “These measures vary from paying off bandits, to hunting them down with vigilantes and hunters and to innovative joint efforts like Amotekun. What these governors have shown was that they were concerned and they cared. I would not know if any of them was shocked but most of them took steps as they deemed fit to enhance the security of lives and property for their citizens and to augment the failing and inadequate security provided at the national level.”

Citing strident calls by senior citizens like the Sultan of Sokoto, for the declaration of a state of emergency on insecurity and the gruesome killings and wanton destruction of property with many displaced, Obasanjo regretted the perceived pretentious disposition of those he called the apologists of government to the current awesome scenario. It was his view that: “The questions the apologists of Buhari’s administration must answer honesty are as follows: Are these points not true? Are all these people speaking the truth enemies of the government? Are apologists just telling the president what they believe he wants to hear? Do they believe that they are being fair to Nigerians and indeed to President Buhari? Do they remember that there is a day of judgment when they have to render account before God? I know for sure that God has the best in stock for Nigeria. And do they consider the present situation as the best for Nigeria?”

The second issue the former president dissected bordered on the subsisting political structure and arrangement in the country, which remains a subject of debate predating Nigeria’s return to civil rule on May 29, 1999. It is recalled that during his second term as president, Obasanjo initiated a botched bid to rejig the current constitution midwifed by the military. With the benefit of hindsight, he said with the agitation for true federalism has graduated to the advocacy to restructure the country by a Constituent Assembly to produce a constitution that the people can truly own, and not a job for the National Assembly as being contemplated by the Senate.

“Today, the agitation has moved up to restructuring. Thanks to Buhari’s administration and its impunity and all. With the fractional political division, poor management of the economy, the non-protecting security and the politics of uncertainty in the land, we should not allow the restructuring agitation to degenerate to self-determination agitation. There is still a window of opportunity for us to nip in the bud a possible and indeed likely agitation for self-determination that will be violent, destructive and all-empowering,” he cautioned.

But, Obasanjo felt that the move by the National Assembly to initiate the process of amending the constitution was preemptive of the lurking danger in the country. However, he said the constitution does not empower the National Assembly to write a new constitution but the power to amend existing one. What is required, Obasanjo said, is a new constitution to meet the agitation and aspiration of all Nigerians and to allay all fears. The executive and the legislature need to work together to establish a constituent assembly. The exercise must not be compromised like the present constitution; it must have full legitimacy of ‘we the people.’ He went further to propose a hybrid Constitution of President and Prime Minister sharing executive power in a presidential cum parliamentary system.

 

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The call for restructuring by Obasanjo has continued to elicited mixed comments from individuals and groups like the pro-establishment group, Buhari Media Organisation (BMO). “Obasanjo as president had the opportunity to work with the National Assembly to bring about the reforms he is suggesting today. But rather than do this, he chose to manipulate the National Assembly at every point for his selfish ambitions,” BMO stated. Similarly, the national secretary of the ACF, Mr Sani, slightly differed with Obasanjo on the issue of restructuring. He said: “While I do not oppose restructuring, the problem might not be restructuring and I am not sure that restructuring, at a time when there is so much distrust, will be the solution.”

Nonetheless, Second Republic presidential adviser, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, said though technically speaking, the National Assembly had no power to make a constitution for the country, the same document empowered the legislature to initiate the process for amending the constitution subject to a number of conditions.

He added: “There is however a contention between the Executive and Legislative alms of government on in this issue. While the National Assembly is contending that once the stipulations provided in the constitution for amending the constitution are met, the National Assembly can change the constitution by a resolution passed by two third majority of members of the National Assembly without recourse to the Presidency.

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But the presidency argued that the National Assembly must passed a bill that will require a presidential assent for the changes to become law. That debate has not been put to test in order to resolve the matter. In the present circumstances President Obasanjo is correct as long as the matter remains untested in the Supreme Court.”

A rights activist, Ebun Olu-Adegboruwa (SAN), was partly on the same page with the former president on the desirability of Nigerians determining their own constitution. He had a caveat to his position because of expediency. He stated: “The 1999 Constitution is a fraud on the people of Nigeria, in that it was written for the people by the military government. We had no input in that constitution and it has caused our nation so much in backwardness and retrogression. But as it is now, we are bound to follow that constitution until it is amended or discarded. The National Assembly, as it is currently constituted, may not be in the best position to amend the constitution but it is the one empowered by law to do so.

“But if you have been observant right from 1999, the ruling elite truly don’t want any amendment to the constitution simply because they are profiting from the rot that has been created by the constitution. For now, the best that we can get from the constitution is to decongest the Exclusive Legislative List and allow for true devolution of powers. There is too much concentration in the Federal Government to the extent that the state and local government structures practically don’t exist at all. So, I verily believe that the best gift that the Buhari administration can give to the people of Nigeria is restructuring through a de congestion of powers from the Federal Government to the states and local governments.”

A former member of the National Assembly, Senator Olu Alabi, was opinion that there was a reservoir of materials that could form the template for the peoples’ constitution if there was the political will. “From my modest opinion, we have all the tools to produce a new constitution in the government archives in form of the last two conferences of Obasanjo and former President Goodluck Jonathan. These can form the template of producing a new and acceptable paper in addition to the review carried out by Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State. All these will form a fair consensus of the Nigeria Peoples’ mandate. With this, a referendum can be organised, if only we have a serious and willing Federal Government,” Senator Alabi stated.

On his part, a former president of the PENGASSAN, Comrade Peter Esele, cautioned against undermining democratic institutions such as the National Assembly since the due process to amend the constitution are unambiguous.