Nigeria: Tinkering With the Constitution

17 December 2009
column

Perhaps one of the most important topics that tend to touch the minds of local politicians of all shades this year is amendment to the 1999 Constitution which the country is operating now. Politicians talk glibly about true federalism which reminds us of pre-Independence era. The three regions - North, East and West - each had its own Constitution, had its own civil service and its own judiciary.

It has been a long time from the regional independence of the 1950s and early 1960s, where the Regions were ruled as fiefs of the warlords by the dominant tribes - Hausa/Fulani, Ibo and Yoruba. The reality of today (2009) is that Nigeria has been carved into 36 states with Abuja [a mini-state] as the capital. Though a Federation in name the country is being run like a unitary State with states as its satellites.

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