Nonagenarian legal luminary and eminent educationist, Aare Afe Babalola, has just proposed that the 2023 general election be deferred for an interim government that will take office upon the expiration of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency. According to him, the interim government with six-month tenure will oversee the writing of a new federal constitution that will replace the existing one, which he considered terminally defective and incapable of salvaging Nigeria from her current nationhood problems.
Speaking at a press conference in Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital last week, the proprietor and Chancellor, Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) said the interim government he proposed would chart a new course for Nigeria, while the 2023 polls should be put on hold to give the country opportunity to draft a people-oriented constitution that would address the challenges of insecurity, economic and political failings as well as other ills hobbling the nation. He argued that if the 2023 elections hold as scheduled, they would only recycle the same crop of leaders and further steep the country in her current challenges. “To save Nigeria from nose-diving into irretrievable bankruptcy and poverty, irreparable economic and political damage brought about by the 1999 constitution and its beneficiaries, a new constitution is imperative before any election,” he argued.
The broad features of the arrangement suggested by the frontline lawyer are as arbitrary as they are curious. He proposed that the interim government should comprise all living former presidents and vice-presidents, selected ministers and governors, as well as delegates of prominent professional associations such as the Nigerian Medical Association, Nigerian Bar Association, Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigerian Union of Journalists, Academic Staff Union of Universities and civil society organisations. Such delegates, by his projections, would be elected on zero party basis.
A major task of the interim arrangement, according to him, would be to oversee the writing of a new constitution providing for a unicameral legislature made up of part-time legislators, and a parliamentary system with non-executive presidency. Under that dispensation, there would be no salary, but only sitting allowances for lawmakers. He argued that the 1999 Constitution foisted on Nigerians by the military was no longer in tune with contemporary realities and has made politics not only very attractive but the only lucrative business in Nigeria today. “What this means is that any election that holds under the present scenario will end up producing transactional and recycled leaders, with no ability to turn things around,’’ Aare Babalola said. Among other things, the new constitution he envisaged would prescribe higher qualification criteria for contesting elections and peg the age for presidency at 60 years.
Coming from a legal icon of Aare Babalola’s preeminence, the propositions are as shocking as they are spurious. Every dispensation is typically anchored on a statutory framework, even crooked ones like military juntas always get premised on decrees issued by putschists to suspend pre-existing constitutions of affected societies. However, the statutory framework on which the interim arrangement suggested by the elder statesman would be based is entirely unclear, and he didn’t provide insight. Being a legalist of no mean standing, it is confounding that the Aare mouthpieced for arbitrariness. Besides, there is a contradiction in the entire concept. He suggested that the 2023 poll be put on hold, but in the same breath argued for zero party election of some members of the proposed interim government. And that is indeed the good part. Other members are to be arbitrarily chosen – by who and on whose mandate isn’t clear, And we mustn’t forget this country once journeyed the path of interim governance but made nothing of it.
With all that said, we must reckon with where the 92-year-old Aare was coming from. His radical propositions were motivated by the ill fortunes of this country regarding the economy, security and responsibility of government to the social contract, which he lamented. The Nigerian leadership class must awaken to the onus of good governance, or the anomie in every sphere would fuel such depth of disenchantment that even the strongest of optimists would lose heart.