Back to the Ekwueme Constitution

One of the most perplexing paradoxes in
today’s Nigeria is the strident campaign for the
adoption of the report of the 2014 national
dialogue on the Nigerian condition organized by
the Goodluck Jonathan administration as the
basis of a new constitution. Even people who
should know better have joined the bandwagon,
showing that many Nigerians just go with the
flow. Mental rigour remains a commodity in
awfully short supply in the Nigerian public
space.
The most critical objective for the campaign for
Nigeria’s structural redesign since the
mid-1990s is to reduce the number of states
from 36 to about 6, so as to, among other
factors, free the economy from perennial
paralysis arising out of the humungous annual
recurrent expenditure at all levels. But the 2014
Conference agreed that the number of states
should, in fact, balloon from 36 to 54.
The delegates believed that Nigeria, whose 28
out of the 36 states cannot pay workers’ salary,
should have the highest number of states
throughout the globe, four more than the United
States, the world’s wealthiest nation which has
50 states and a population of 300m. This
recommendation highlights the emptiness of the
Nigerian political class. Still, some people who
delight in being called social critics and
statesmen have of late been trumpeting the
2014 Conference Report as Nigeria’s only hope
for survival whereas it actually sounds the
country’s death knell. Pray, how can Nigeria
survive for up to six months with some 54
states?
High-minded people recognize the enormity of
power conferred on Nigeria’s centre, observing
it is a principal cause of the country’s
socioeconomic underdevelopment. And a major
reason for the concentration of power at the
centre is the large number of states. In other
words, the more states are balkanized to create
other states, the more they become dependent
on the federal government. And yet the people
who complain that the centre is too powerful
are the same individuals and groups pushing for
the 2014 Conference Report which advocates
as many as 18 more states to be created in one
fell swoop! The truth is that the death of the
report iwas foretold ab initio. Besides the fact
that there is no law creating the 2014
Conference, it never had legitimacy or moral
authority. All the almost 500 delegates were
appointed by one single individual. This is not
tenable in a democracy in the 21st century. And
those asking President Muhammadu Buhari to
adopt and implement the report should know the
Constitution does not vest such power in the
president. Interestingly, those who advocate
Buhari’s implementation of the report frequently
accuse the president of dictatorial tendencies.
Nigeria needs to be redesigned. Much of the
work has mercifully already been caught out, as
can be gleaned from the 1995 Constitution
which is sometimes called the Ekwueme
Constitution because its key differentiating
features were canvassed by former Vice
President Alex Ekwueme at the 1994/5
Constitutional Conference in Abuja. The major
differentiating contents of the 1995 Constitution
are the division of the country into geopolitical
zones, the adoption of the zones as the
federating units, rotational presidency, one term
of five or six years for the president and each
state governor which is not renewable, increase
in the use of the derivation principle from 3 to
13%, etc. Sani Abacha had begun to implement
the 1995 Constitution, as shown by his creation
of six states in 1996, with each zone getting one
new state. One good thing about the zones is
that it makes for equity and stability. It divides
the South into three zones and the North into
another three zones. Nigeria began as an
amalgamation between the North and the
South.
It is regrettable that Afenifere leaders coerced
Abdulsalami Abubakar into jettisoning the 1995
Constitution and replacing it with the 1979
Constitution. Afenifere leaders felt that since
the 1995 Constitution was drawn up under
Abacha who was justifiably considered an
enemy, it must be rejected, even though Abacha
had practically no input in it. It was a case of
throwing away both the baby and the bad water.
Abubakar was desperate to have the Yoruba
participate in his transition to civil rule
programme, and so capitulated to the Afeniferi
demand. He acquiesced to the demand that the
1979 Constitution be brought back. This is why
there are almost no differences between the
1979 and 1999 constitutions. The few
differences lie in such matters as the
establishment of the National Judicial
Commission and the increase in the use of the
derivation principle from 3to 13% in the revenue
allocation formula because the chairman of the
committee set up by Abdulsalami to look into
the adoption of the 1979 Constitution, Justice
Niki Tobi, an indigene of oil-rich Delta State,
insisted on its retention from the Ekwueme
Constitution.
Ironically, the Afenifere leaders who made
jettisoning the 1995 Constitution and its
replacement with the 1979 Constitution their
condition for participation in the transition
programme are the same people now accusing
the Abubakar military junta of imposing the
1999 constitution on Nigerians—and many
otherwise perceptive Nigerians believe the
propaganda stunt!
Nigeria needs a new constitution to meet its
new challenges. Only people directly elected by
the citizens can have the mandate to undertake
such a sacred enterprise as designing or
reforming a constitution in a fundamental sense.
Though some critical national issues have been
addressed by the 1995 Constitution, one matter
which should not be overlooked is the
imperative for multiple vice presidency. It was
about the only issue which Ekwueme spiritedly
but unsuccessfully fought to include in the 1995
Constitution. Ekwueme argued that there should
be six vice presidents, with each zone, including
the home zone of the president, supplying one.
In the event of the president dying in office or
resigning or removal from office, the vice
president from his zone will complete the term
of the president.
If the term is not completed, the people from
the president’s zone are most likely to feel
cheated, as we have seen in the case of
President Umaru Yar’Adua when he died in 2010,
in the third year of national leadership; the
North felt shortchanged. To reduce costs and
make things easier, the people who may be
regarded as vice presidents can be the Senate
President, Speaker of the House of
Representatives, secretary to the federal
government, head of civil service, and a person
who may be designated as Vice President 1 and
working daily with the president in State House.
This means that people coming from these
offices mentioned above will perforce hail from
different geopolitical zones.
Nigeria needs a new constitution or a
comprehensively reformed one. The states as
currently constituted and local government
areas cannot have a place in the new
constitution. The idea of a so-called third or
fourth tier of government is a misnomer. The
1995 Constitution, otherwise known as the
Ekwueme Constitution, provides the starting
point for a new Nigeria.