The ant-hills are not built by the elephants but by the collective efforts of little ants. As the Nigerian Senate begins public hearing towards fixing the badly written military-era Nigerian Constitution, I call on everyone to pay attention. When they wrote the last one, no one added anything. In short, the minister of information who presented it to the nation was not allowed to see a copy of it! Yes, that was how bad it was – they never allowed him to see a copy of it.
Most of Nigeria’s problems today could be traced to that Constitution. The bravado of the old where Kaduna ruled as the industrial capital of northern Nigeria has been reshaped. In the east, the inventive sagacity of Enyimba city is badly broken. The brilliance of Ibadan muted. From north to south, east to west, and beyond, everyone is a victim. So now, there is an opportunity; Nigerians need to make inputs.
The biggest problem with the 1999 Constitution is that it is dumb with no awareness. When the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that Yobe state had a literacy rate of 7.3% with Imo state at 96.43%, you would have expected changes in the funding of basic education, boosting underperforming states etc from UBE and other sources. But nothing like that: no local innovation because all powers are concentrated at Abuja.
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So, to fix these issues, let us participate in this Constitutional review. The schedules are below (sure, they omitted Ekiti but we have it in our hearts).
The Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution cordially invites you to its Zonal Public Hearings as detailed below. pic.twitter.com/gYy7YZjP2I
— The Nigerian Senate (@NGRSenate) May 11, 2021
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How about drafting a fresh one, or is it only angels and superhumans that draft new constitution? A Constitution is a sacred document, way above what the Senate should be fiddling with, the current composition will affect the final voting.
Almost every national assembly regime has been tinkering with the constitution, but our fortunes never turned around, because there’s a limit to what you can do to a badly written document.
You can amend/review a decent constitution, but you cannot do same to a fraudulent one, because the very people spearheading the exercise are also products of a fraudulent process.
Noble and honourable men and women should be tasked with this monumental undertaking, not people whose antecedents negate moral excellence. I am not pleased at all.
There’s probably a documentation error because Ondo was written twice. That’s in regards to Ekiti been omitted.