Tunji Abayomi
24 October 2008
opinion
It is, therefore, clear that the Constitution is not of the people of Nigeria. If the National Assembly is of the people of Nigeria, then it should do the job it ought to do or the job the people of Nigeria gave it, which, in my view, excludes legitimizing a wrong Constitution through a wrong Constitutional amendment.
Since in its most absorptive power, a Consti-tution is intended to secure the people of a state from arbitrary exercise of power and abuse of principles of right, our constitution must first be delivered from power abuse and power delirium which its making and adoption by a military dictatorship through its Decree 24, 1999 represents. There is, in my view, no process of Constitutional logic or reasoning that can affirm the right of a military dictatorship to give to the people of Nigeria by decree, a Constitution.
The 1999 Constitution is a fraud forced on the people of Nigeria. Consequently, the greatest Constitutional amendment needed by our people is to be enabled and empowered to make for themselves their own Constitution. The length of time that we have continued under this wrong Constitution with its rough and unconstitutional origin, with its inherent illegitimacy and false representation should not deter us from returning to Constitutional common sense. It is never too late to return to common sense.
The 1999 Constitution is merely a law of a military oligarchy like any military Decree. We know that a Constitution cannot be made in exercise of legislative power. A constitution is not law. In this regard, may I draw your atten-tion to page 14 -16 of my book "Constitutional Powers and Duties of the President" where I listed ten principal differences between a Law and the Constitution.
For example, while a written Constitution is a political document that is adopted by the people to control all laws and all governments at all times, a law, which is usually enacted by a legislature, has no power outside itself and is usually limited to the resolution of specific problems.
When the United States found out that the Articles of their Confederation, adopted on November 15, 1777 for her first government, by the original 13 states prior to March 2, 1781 adoption of the name "The United States of America", was insufficient to promote the general welfare of the people and mutual confidence among them, they opted for what all reasonable nations do. They set it aside and initiated a Federal Constitutional Convention that met on May 25, 1787 to form an entirely new Constitution.
On September 17, 1787 i.e. less than 4 months the convention completed its work, adopted a resolution directing that the new Constitution be laid before the Congress of the United States and the Conventions of the several states for ratification before its adoption.
Here, it needs to be observed that the people of the United States, realizing the inherent defect in the Confederacy Constitution, avoided the pitfall of an amendment to an inherently defec-tive Constitution. The first ten Amendments, i.e. the Bill of Rights, were submitted on the new Federal Constitution never on the old defective Constitution. It is always solely within the power of the people to make or unmake their Constitution.
For a Constitution to be legitimate, it must emphatically be rooted in the will of the people and it can only exist according to their consent, wish and approbation. This has never been the case in Nigeria. The 1999 constitution is a symbol and function of a ruthless dictatorship that illegally usurped our collective rights to constitute government over us.
A greater injustice and outright offence will be visited on our people by the present National Assembly, if, instead of upholding the rights of Citizens to fashion a Constitution for themselves, engages, like the last three attempts under the past government in another worthless amendment process.
The National Assembly in exercise of law-making power, inspite of the error of its origin, can assist the development of constitutional governance in Nigeria not by amending an unamendable illegitimate 1999 Constitution that usurped the primitive right of the people to make for themselves a constitution, but by assuring the people, a convention of the people for the purpose of making a proper constitution.
After all, they can learn from the Congress of the United States, which, realizing the weakness and inadequacies of the Confederal Constitution which was adopted in 1778, officially declared, on February 21, 1787, the dangers to the Union under the Confederal Constitution, before voluntarily submitting itself to the Federal Constitutional revolution of 1787.
While a legitimate representative Assembly can propose an amendment within the prescriptive internal direction of a valid Constitution, what the present National Assembly should first emphatically do is to amend the autocratic origin of our Constitution, democratize and legitimize it, preceding the current deliberations on Constitutional amendment, by truly making our Constitution of the people of Nigeria.
Interestingly, the way to do so is far less complicated than the Nl billion 8th amendment effort of another illegal Constitution because a military government has no legislative power to make a Constitution. What is required is a law made by the National Assembly enabling the people of Nigeria to give to themselves a Constitution. Let us always remember that what legitimizes a Constitution is never its content but the procedure of bringing it about.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
