By Abdullahi Yelwa
Today, a group of Nigerians, by name the Patriots and led by the venerable Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, called for the setting up of a National Constituent Assembly to produce a new draft constitution for Nigeria.
The Patriots also employed the President to send a bill to the National Assembly to legislate for a national referendum on the would be draft constitution. Since independence in 1960, Nigeria had had four constitutions.
During colonial time, we had had the 1914 Constitution; Clifford’s Constitution, 1922; Richard’s 1946 Constitution, MacPherson’s Constitution of 1951; 1954’s Lyttleton’s Constitution.
Constitutionalism, has therefore been a recurring decimal of our national life.
From Independence, constitution making has been motivated by two broad considerations:
1 The desire to return power to civilian rule and redress some perceived defects in the polity.
2 The desire to perpetuate regime hegemony in the pretext of ushering a new constitution.
It is a common knowledge, however, that Nigeria’s developmental quagmires are not caused by the absence or inadequacy of constitutional provisions. They are caused by bad leadership that engenders corruption and bad governance.
What the nation needs therefore, is not a national jamboree or military era congregation in Abuja, in the name of constitution making.
We need a sincere and genuine war against corruption in public office. Our failure to fight corruption and move our nation forward cannot be attributable to lapses in the 1999 Constitution, but human factors that would remain even if we create a new constitution.
This also brings us to the issue of the motives of the group. Except for Chief Emeka Anyaoku, most of the members of the group shown on national television are politically exposed individuals with a rather unpatriotic pasts.
Others have engaged in the politics of division and ethnicity, fanning the ambers religious bigotry and disunity.
I would surely love to see the group turns its energy in helping the President in redressing some existential challenges bedeviling our nation. Many Nigerians will view their patriotic endeavour as an attempt to exploit our national malady for personal and group aggrandizement. If this is the case, it wouldn’t be the first.
