Form of Government

In any case, speaking generally, it is our fervent hope that, for many a year to come under the new dispensation, austerity and discipline, in public as well as in private life, will be the order of the day, and that we shall have very few occasions for ostentation and vainglorious pomp and pageantry .

(30) The head, picture, image, representation, name, or description of any living person should not appear on any coin, currency, postal or money order, or stamp, in circulation and use in Nigeria; with the proviso that the signature of the Governor, Director or other official of the Central Bank of Nigeria on the country’s currency shall not be regarded as such a name or description.

(31) The statue, statuette, or bust of any living person should not be made or erected at Government expense.

Constitutional provisions to give effect to these propositions are necessary and urgent in order to prevent the spread to Nigeria of a fell political disease which is already in evidence in certain parts of Africa.

Once a Head of State or Government begins to put his head on his country’s currency, etc., and to commission the making and erection of his life-size statue at Government expense, then it is certain that he has fallen victim to tenacity of office. At that stage he finds it extremely difficult to contemplate retirement or loss of office to an opponent in an electoral contest. For as far as he is concerned either event might mean the disappearance of his head from the coins. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons for putting his head on currency and coins, is to hold himself out as the fountain of the people’s wealth, as contrasted with his opponent who cannot make such a claim. In order to stay in office for the rest of his life and to keep his head on the coins and his statues in the streets, he descends to dishonourable and villainous practices during elections.

In the long run, however, he is deposed or assassinated; his statues are destroyed by the angry and exasperated citizens; and the country is involved in the new expenditure of having to withdraw the old coins, etc., from circulation and replacing them with new ones. All this has happened before in the Dominican Republic, and is already happening in Africa. The tragedy of this type of malady is that every megalomaniacal tyrant believes that his predecessors in infamy and depravity were just not clever enough!

In any case, what does an African Head of State or Government gain by having his head on coins and his statues all over the place, while the masses of his people wallow pitifully in a slough of ignorance, poverty, and disease? Nothing, but the contempt of civilized and right-thinking people all over the world!

(32) Documents circulated, or statements and speeches made, by any person in the Federal Parliament or Regional Legislature should not be given any special protection, but should be actionable in the same way as documents circulated or statements and speeches made by anyone at a public meeting.

It is common knowledge that many Nigerian parliamentarians have in the past employed the cover of parliamentary privilege to defame their private or public adversaries, viciously and deliberately, even when the latter had no opportunity of defending themselves on the same forum. It would appear that many of our public men have not developed enough broad-mindedness and sense of decency and chivalry to be accorded the sacred protection which parliamentarians enjoy in Britain and other civilized countries. And we are of the considered view that it would do our public life a world of good if this privilege were withdrawn.

(33) If it is to have any chance of permanency, the new Constitution should be drafted by a Constituent Assembly, and then submitted for approval to the people in a referendum. We all know what a referendum means. But it does not appear that there is a union of minds as to what a Constituent Assembly connotes. For even when there was a duly elected Parliament for the country, many apparently intelligent people called for the setting up of a Constituent Assembly to review our Constitution. They went further to suggest that such an Assembly should consist of representatives of various interests, including political parties, trade unions, farmers’ organizations, trading concerns, etc. A body constituted in this way and in the circumstances then prevailing, cannot strictly be described as a Constituent Assembly. The pre- requisite of a Constituent Assembly is the overthrow of a regime or the establishment of a new State. We already have the former. But the inherent and inseparable attribute of a Constituent Assembly is that it must be composed of the accredited representatives of the people duly elected by the registered voters in the country, in the same manner as members of Parliament or Legislature are elected. This we must have. Anything other than this, we submit, cannot in strict constitutional sense and usage, be a Constituent Assembly. And it would be a grand deception not only to give it that name, but also to describe any constitution produced by a handpicked motley assembly as the PEOPLE’S CONSTITUTION.

As regards referendum, the questions which should be submitted to the people must be few and straight forward and must relate only to fundamental issues. In our own considered view, the people should be asked to make a choice from the following alternatives: Federalism or Unitarianism; Democracy or Non-democracy; Socialism or Capitalism.

CONTINUES NEXT WEEK

ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE