•Akande’s call that we return to it may sound radical, but it requires immediate attention
Chief Bisi Akande, the founding chairman of the country’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has called for replacement of the 1999 Constitution with the 1963 Constitution, to allow for free negotiation toward a restructured polity and a new constitution.
Akande provided justification for his call for return to the 1963 Republican Constitution at a book presentation in Akure, Ondo State: “Nigeria began as a controversial state of many nations. The 1999 Constitution is Nigeria’s greatest misadventure since Lugard’s amalgamation of 1914. The constitution puts emphasis on spending rather than making money, thereby intensifying the battles for supremacy between the legislature and the executive, while the judiciary is being corruptly tainted and discredited.
The constitution breeds and protects corrupt practices and criminal impunities in governance… It should only be scrapped as bad relics of military mentality and replaced with the 1963 Republican Constitution to enable a transition for the writing of a suitable constitution. Otherwise, the 1999 Constitution would continue to dwarf Nigeria’s economy and stifle the country’s social structure pending a disastrous and catastrophic bankruptcy.”
Given the political pedigree of Akande, it is understandable that his call has attracted a lot of comments from pundits across the ideological spectrum. He is not new to politics and governance, having been deputy governor to Chief Bola Ige in former Oyo State in the Second Republic; governor of Osun State between 1999 and 2003; chairman of Action Congress of Nigeria until the formation of APC, for which he served as founding chairman and one of the leading campaigners for the government of change in 2015.
High on the list of issues raised in relation to Akande’s call is management of the complication of abruptly replacing a presidential system with a parliamentary one. Another is whether the country will also revert to its pre-1966 four-region structure. A third is why the first founding chairman of the ruling party did not present his view as a policy paper to a party he worked hard to lead to victory in 2015, and which has in its manifesto the intention to transfer powers to the states and entrench the federalist spirit in the constitution.
As relevant as these questions may be, they do not respond to the political emergency thrown up by calls for Biafra by MASSOB and IPOB, and more recently for Oduduwa Republic by a new self-determination group, the Yoruba Liberation Command (YOLICOM). Such extremist positions may not represent mainstream views of politicians in Igbo and Yoruba regions of the country; nevertheless, they constitute troubling signals for a country that had fought a civil war before. Apart from demand for new republics, increasing stridency in the last one year of calls from various regions, especially South-east, South-south, and Southwest for immediate restructuring of the polity should be a matter of urgent concern to all.
Given the uncertainty and threat to political stability that have been raging in the last few months, including the ultimatum by a section of Arewa Youths to Igbos to vacate the 19 northern states, there is no doubt that the country requires more attention from seasoned politicians across the ideological spectrum to speak out courageously, as the founding chairman of APC has done, about ways to save the country from further political and social instability.
As startling as Akande’s recommendation may sound, we view it as an important call that should not be brushed aside. On the contrary, his suggestion should form part of the solutions being sought to the ongoing political crisis by the ruling APC, through its special committee on restructuring. The devil in the detail already observed in reactions to Akande’s call should not becloud the urgency for all political stakeholders to listen to views that may sound radical but that can be of real value in the search for resolution of conflicts arising from a constitution that is perceived by many as anti-federalism and capable of endangering the country’s peace, stability, unity, and national development.