Daily Independent (Lagos)
Wale Igbintade
24 November 2008
Lagos — Former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice in the second republic, Richard Akinjide (SAN) has described the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution as a waste of time.
He said there was nothing wrong with the Constitution.
Senate President, David Mark, recently inaugurated an 88-man Constitution Review panel headed by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.
However, in an interview with Daily Independent, Akinjide said the 1999 Constitution is an excellent document adding that the problem is with the operators and not with the constitution.
His words: "My humble opinion is that we have excellent constitution and the problem is not in the constitution but with the Nigerians and the operators. Is it the constitution that asks you to be rigging elections? Is it the constitution that asks you to falsify results of an election?"
While he acknowledged that there are rooms for amendments in the constitution, he however kicked against re-writing it.
"Those who want to write new constitution, they can go ahead, I wish them good luck but you can be sure in five to six years time, they will be asking for a new constitution again."
He argued that Nigerians have tried parliamentary system, military, the presidential and failed.
Akinjide stressed that that was enough to show that there was nothing wrong with the constitution, but with the operators.
"We have tried three constitutions if not four, the first one is the colonial constitution which we got from the British, the second one is the Republican constitution and then the third one the Presidential constitution. How many constitutions have the Americans written, only one in 2025 years," he asked.
According to him, Nigerians are only ridiculing themselves when they talk of amending the constitution, even if there are loopholes.
On complaints of inadequacies inherent in the Constitution, Akinjide said in the history of the world, legal practitioners have always been actively involved in writing of constitution.
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