ANYAOKU’S PANACEAS FOR NIGERIA’S PROBLEMS

 Chiedu Uche Okoye argues the need to heed Anyaoku’s call for a new constitution, among other things

Chief Emeka Anyaoku has consistently used every auspicious time and occasion to posit that Nigeria will not make any progress if the constitution that is being used to govern the country is not discarded. He has the belief that the 1999 constitution is too flawed a document to be used by our political leaders in administering Nigeria. But he is not the only Nigerian, who has highlighted the shortcomings and flaws inherent in our country’s constitution. 

A constitution is an important document. In fact, it is a body of laws and rules regarding how a country or an organisation should be governed. But, in Nigeria, it is widely believed that Nigerians did not reach a consensus that they should be governed based on the dictates of the 1999 constitution. So is the 1999 constitution by which our political leaders are administering Nigeria a fraudulent and flawed document? 

A constitution ought to be a representation of the wishes and aspirations of the peoples of a country as to how they should be governed. So given the centrality of the constitution in our political leaders’ administration of Nigeria, Chief Anyaoku’s advice and remark about our constitution should not be dismissed with a wave of the hand. Neither should they be treated with levity. In fact, he is in a good position to proffer solutions to Nigeria’s myriads of problems, especially on matters that revolve on our country’s constitution and her heterogeneous composition. 

An international diplomat par excellence, who trained in classics at the University of Ibadan, Chief Anyaoku has always been a keen follower of political events in Nigeria. And before he served as the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations between 1990 and 2000, he was Nigeria’s minister of foreign affairs for a brief period. He is therefore well-acquainted with Nigeria’s democratic culture and the evolutionary trends of our politics. 

In addition to making strident calls for the making of a new constitution for Nigeria, Chief Anyaoku wants our political leaders to take a leaf from the democratic models of united and developed countries, which are heterogeneous. He is of the opinion that our past and current leaders’ inability to effectively manage our diversities is at the root of our national malaise. Unity, we all know, is an incentive for national development and progress. 

During the celebration of his 91st birthday on January 18, 2024, which coincided with the opening of the Emeka & Bunmi Anyaoku Foundation Centre, Chief Anyaoku talked glowingly about how Switzerland and Canada, which are pluralistic nation-states, have been led successfully, over the years, by their political leaders. He echoed the same sentiments when he led the Patriots to commemorate Nigeria’s Democracy Day on June 12, 2024.

But not every pluralistic nation-state is not dismembered, and united. Examples of heterogenous countries that disintegrated are many. In Europe, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia had split with other countries emerging from them. And in Africa, South Sudan pulled out of Sudan while Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia. 

Nigeria, a densely populated country, is bedevilled by ethnic and religious problems owing to the fact that it is peopled by peoples, who come from diverse ethnic backgrounds and profess different religious faiths. Nigeria could be likened to a cat with nine lives in that she had emerged from many ethno-religious troubles, political conflicts, and a civil war not dismembered. 

However, now, ethnic hatred as well as rivalry and religious conflicts, which erode our national unity and cohesion, are simmering beneath Nigeria’s facade of oneness, unity, and indissolubility. But no disunited country can achieve true and sustainable economic prosperity and technological advancement. 

Chief Anyaoku, who is aware of  the centrality of unity to a country’s national development, wants Nigeria to become a truly united country. His theses or solutions for solving Nigeria’s multifarious problems rest on two planks, namely developing a democratic model for managing our country’s ethnic and religious diversities and making a new constitution for Nigeria. Making a new constitution for Nigeria has become an overriding imperative because the emergence of new political realities in our country have thrown up national conundrums. 

However, since the amalgamation of the northern and southern protectorates, which gave birth to Nigeria, several constitutions had been made and used in the administration of Nigeria. Those constitutions included, but not limited to, the Lyttleton Constitution, the Clifford Constitution, Richard Constitution, Bourdillon Constitution, McPherson Constitution, the 1963 and 1960 Republican Constitutions, and the 1979 and 1999 Federal constitutions. Each of those constitutions had its major characteristics, which the framers thought suitable and necessary for use in governing Nigeria at different political eras. 

But now, the evolutionary trends of our politics have thrown up new realities and national conundrums, which should be addressed by the new constitution. Matters like the creation of state police, the roles of monarchs in the new Nigeria, local government autonomy, the practice of fiscal federalism in Nigeria, and others should be holistically and comprehensively addressed by the new constitution. 

And it is an indisputable fact that a country’s constitution, which must emanate from the people, should be a guide for competent, scrupulous, patriotic, and visionary leaders, who are presiding over the affairs of the country. The centrality of a good constitution in the efficient administration of a country cannot be disputed. 

That is the reason Chief Emeka Anyaoku called for the making of a new constitution for Nigeria when The Patriots commemorated the Democracy Day in Lagos on June 12, 2024. He suggested that three representatives from each state of the federation and one representative from the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, should form the Constituent Assembly for the sole purpose of drafting a new constitution for Nigeria. The state assemblies and national assembly should play the roles expected of them in the matter, too. 

Again, Chief Anyaoku, who, nostalgically, romanticised the 1960 and 1963 republican constitutions, would like members of the proposed Constituent Assembly to review and study the 1960 and 1963 constitutions with a view of incorporating some parts of it into the new constitution, which would address our national problems. 

However, a country’s possession of a good and comprehensive constitution cannot guarantee it rapid technological advancement and economic progress if the country’s political leaders are unpatriotic, unscrupulous, incompetent, myopic, and egoistic. 

  Okoye writes from

Uruowulu-Obosi,Anambra State