What is your take on the attempts to have a review of the constitution? THE various amendments to the constitution by successive governments are a clear admission that there is something fundamentally wrong with our constitution. The Nigerian constitution is 50 times bigger than the American constitution, yet the American constitution has only had very few amendments since 1776, when America became independent. What is, therefore, wrong with our constitution is not the content, but more with the way and manner the constitution came into being as decree of the Federal Military Government. The present 1999 Constitution, which has been amended or altered three times, is actually a decree, either decree 20 or 21 and the constitution was attached to that decree as an annexure or addendum, so, such a constitution that is militarily imposed, which was not made by the people for the people and of the people, suffers credibility problems. It suffers legitimacy and acceptability crisis. That is why the constitution is not respected, because it is a document that was imposed on the Nigerian people by an unelected military oligarchy, which is why I have always maintained that the constitution lied about itself when in its preamble, it starts imperiously by saying that we the people of Nigeria, it was not made by the people of Nigeria, it was made by a tiny military cabal of about 28 members of the provisional ruling Council and it was later given to Justice Niky Tobi, then of the Supreme Court, to hammer together, and before we knew what was happening, a constitution had emerged, so, it was never made for the Nigerian people. What should Nigerians do? The proper thing, therefore, is to look at the issues from a more fundamental angle, because if you want to uproot a tree, you do not succeed in doing that by cutting off the branches, the branches will sooner than later grow and the tree will stand again. What you do is to go to the taproot of the tree and remove it and then it will be dead forever. What Nigerians need to do is to make a brand new constitution, a constitution that is home grown, made by the people, subjected to popular referendum or plebiscite of the people as was done to the Midwest constitution of August 10, 1963, when Midwest seceded constitutionally and legally from the Western region, the constitution was subjected to a plebiscite of the Midwesterners and they all voted for it to become a constitution that derived its legitimacy from the people of the Midwest Region. So, for us to have a constitution that derives its legitimacy from the Nigerian people, we have to go back to the 2014 National Conference, where I was a member and I was the head of the sub-committee on constitution drafting, human rights and legal reforms and that committee made recommendation, which was subjected to the plenary session and was also adopted. Whatever things we needed in the 1999 constitution, that were administrative, could be used in amending the present chronically defective constitution. Better still, there will be need to have a totally brand new constitution for the people of Nigeria since the 492 members that were at the Constitutional Conference represented all strata of the Nigerian people; the labour, the trade union, the civil society, the market women, the professionals the technocrats, the military, the police, the civilians, traditional rulers, educationists, members of the diplomatic corps, the physically challenged, all aspects of the Nigerian society was represented at that conference of 2014. For more than six months, we argued at times almost coming to fist cups, almost fighting physically using expressive, shouting, screaming, debating, laughing, happy, clapping, dancing, gyrating, demonstrating discussing at both committees and plenary sessions and we finally arrived at the over 600 recommendations and one of those recommendations is that there is the need to make a brand new constitution. The reason is simple: if we are to amend the present constitution, which they have started again, it will still suffer the same affliction as the present one, because you do not treat a serious ailment like leprosy with medicine or drug meant for eczema, the problem will still remain. Since the constitution you are amending is still chronically defective, even if you amend it one million times, any amendment, whatever names it is called; you never ever get the desired constitution, which is emanating legitimately from the people. We, therefore, have to make a brand new constitution.]]>