With every due respect to the person of Chief Emeka Anyaoku and his group, aka ‘Nigerian Patriots’’, I beg to disagree with your suggestion that what Nigeria needs as things are today, and judging from the country’s chequered political history, is New Constitution Please, Sir, permit me to disagree with you and your group on this point.
Why do I say so?
Sir, , Chief Emeka Anyaoku and co., I wish to remind you, even though, as an elder statesman and a world acclaimed international diplomat of the first hour, I am sure you know it already, that for the past 60 years or so, since Nigeria’s flag Independence from Britain in 1960, members of your generation of Nigerian state political ruling class have been offering the same outmoded ‘prescription’ of ‘new constitution for Nigeria’ each time the country’s underdog problem surges its ugly head. And all these years none of those your ‘presecibed’ new constitution has actually worked?
The question now is:
What a new constitution again will Nigeria have which your generation and the present ruling class, gatekeepers of the British colonial created contraption, called Nigeria, have not offered and tried before? But in spite of that the problem with Nigeria has continued unabated? Is it the Constitution of regionalism cum Parliamentarian System of Government which Nigeria inherited from the British colonial overlords at its flag Independence in 1960, and which did not last up to 6 years thereafter before the political ruling class which, Sir’ you Anyaoku and this your group offering the same ‘prescription’ today belonged, and used unfortunately, and even though one hates to say, your generation of the political ruling class, saw how it lead the country, first, to the January 15, and July 26, 1966 military coups. Which brought about the tragic incident of the 1966 Igbo pogroms in Northern and Southwestern Nigeria carried out by the Northern Nigeria senior military officers and ordinary Hausa-Fulani civilians who massacred about 1 million Easterners, mostly Igbos resident in the North. An incident which eventually snowballed to the three-year genocidal Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-1970), in which also an estimated 3.5 million Easterners, mostly Igbos were killed by the British-backed Nigerian troops, and through the draconian policy of starvation and blockade of Biafra by the British-backed Gen Yakubu Gowon’s led Nigerian federal government military junta.
Again:
*What new constitution, Sir, Chief Emeka Anyaoku and co., are you proposing, which we have not seen or tried before in this Nigerian state?*
Is it the post-Nigeria-Biafra War 1979, Obasanjo’s military junta created artificial, so-called “Presidential system of government” Constitution, that produced the post-war first civilian government of Shagari/Ekwueme that was later truncated by Buhari/Idiagbon military junta coup of 1983? Or, is it the attempted 1993 Constitution, that was produced by another military dictator, Ibrahim B. Babangida, and which later he himself, Babangida (cum Abacha) truncated, thus leading to the MKO Abiola 1993 June 12 debacle? Or is it the present Islamic Sharia-inspired 1999 Constitution that was single-handedly written and imposed on Nigerians by Gen Abdulsalami military junta’s handpicked two Northern Muslim scholars?
The fact is that the problem with Nigeria is beyond New Constitution!
The problem with Nigeria is that which the political ruling class, since independence in 1960 to the present-day have refused to accept and address courageously, with statesmanship, truth, justice, freedom, equity and fairness.
The Nigerian state problem is that which it’s political ruling class, because of greed, corruption, wickedness, and especially, because of the benefits they are receiving from Nigeria’s corrupt and fake foundation. fraudulent political system and structure, are afraid to confront and address, once and for all!
The problem with Nigeria is nothing other than its colonial faulty foundation as a nation-state. Coupled with its continued fraudulent political system and structure. This is the root cause of why no new constitution fashioned today or tomorrow under the umbrella of ‘One-Nigeria’, is going to salvage the country as things are now!
The problem with Nigeria is its faulty foundation as a nation-state. It is the stumbling block to making Nigeria succeed as a modern, prosperous nation state of our dream! Unless this stumbling-block is tackled from its roots and removed, forget it, Nigeria is not going to make any headway as a nation-state, no matter how hard we as citizens may try in that regard!
Again, the problem with Nigeria is its faulty colonial foundation and fraudulent, fake political system or structure, on which the so-called Nigerian Constitution has always been conceptualised and founded. It is like saying, Nigeria as a nation-state was founded not only on a faulty foundation but also on a faulty foundation that has been sustained all over the years with fraudulent, fake political system, structure and the constitution itself! Asking for another ‘New Constitution’ for Nigeria under this circumstance, while that faulty foundation remains unchallenged, not corrected or removed, is like inviting more problems for the present and future generations of the Nigerian State itself. And this is the problem!
In other words:
It is because of its historical faulty foundation, fraudulent political system, that Nigeria has continued to get fake and fraudulent constitution each time it makes an attempt to address its problems through the so-called ‘’new constitution.” It is because of its faulty foundation as a nation-state, its fraudulent political system or structure, and fake constitutions, that Nigeria has never succeeded as a truly modern nation-state and in addressing the problem with it as a country!
The Way-Out
Therefore, what Nigeria needs is a total Renegotiation of its foundation as a nation-state through referendum for Self-Determination of its diverse, different ethnic nationalities/major geopolitical regions. A referendum for Self-Determination by which people of each component units – ethnic nationality/major geopolitical region, that the British had forcefully and arbitrarily merged together under a colonial fiat and named Nigeria in 1914, can now freely, decide among themselves (each group, among their own people, as a distinct group and people), how they want to be governed; whether they want to continue to remain in Nigeria or, to separate and form their own independent sovereign nation state! In this way, we all will begin to relate well as neighbours and not as enemies. That is, as neighbouring sovereign nation states in the West African sub-region, ECOWAS.
This is the most courageous way we can solve the problem with Nigeria today, once and for all. Every other thing is playing to the gallery. Q.E.D.
A Stitch in Time Saves Nine!
Francis Anekwe Oborji is a Roman Catholic Priest. He lives in Rome where he is a Professor of missiology (mission theology) in a Pontifical University. He can be reached by email HERE.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
