In 1999, citizens were not given an opportunity to show their views or assessments of the 1979 Constitution in relation to citizens’ sovereignty beyond the right to vote.
Before I lose my readers, I would like to say that by presidency, I do not mean the unelected group that is generally referred to in the media as the presidency. I mean the two elected leaders—Buhari and Osinbajo—and their subnational counterparts—the so-called ‘executive governor’ and his deputy in the states. If you prefer, take my usage to mean the presidential system at the centre of the 1999 Constitution at the national and subnational levels.
There is a Yoruba proverb: Amukun eru ori re wo, hmn oke lo n wo, oo wo isale, in English, an observer asks a semi-crippled person why the load on his head is not balanced and gets the reply of looking at the symptom, rather than the cause of a problem. This proverb seems to have a lot of relevance to the study of problems of governance in Nigeria. After four presidents since the end of military dictatorship in 1999, a journey through the country’s newspaper archives would reveal that each president including Umaru Yar’Adua who ruled (or reigned?) just for two years has been characterized by citizens and pundits to be incapable of solving the growing problems of the country. Is it conceivable that not all the presidents may be bad rulers but well-meaning individuals that choose to rule in an atmosphere toxic to the growth of democracy and development?
After sixteen years of post-military rule, complaints about bad governance from citizens and pundits peaked to the point that Change became All Progressives Congress (APC) that brought Buhari to presidential power in 2015. And since he became president, complaints have not reduced about how little he, like those before him, has achieved, despite the sophistication with which the programmes he introduced have been reported and defended by his media men and other self-appointed praise singers of the president from the legislature, not only from his party but from opposition parties. For example, shortly after the election of the 9th Senate President, he pledged that he and the senate would not disappoint President Buhari, instead of worrying about disappointing Nigerians. What can be the explanation for having four presidents in a row that citizens in general are at ease to complain about and more or less for the same reason—lack of good governance and democracy?
During the tenure of General Olusegun Obasanjo, the first president after the end of military dictatorship, a recurrent motif in the criticism of his rule was about a constitution that was not conducive to post-military rule. This was quickly replaced by a school of thought that propagated the belief that it was Obasanjo as an individual that was bad—unduly beholden to his military past and lacking the finesse of governing a truly free country. After him came Yar’Adua, whose failure was blamed on his poor health, at a time that most of the nation knew nothing about his approval of a contract with P&ID, a move that now threatens the economic health of the country. Criticism of Yar’Adua’s government later shifted to an invisible cabal blamed for ruling in Yar’Adua’s name, until the elevation of Goodluck Jonathan from vice president to president.
Jonathan too was castigated for being too much of a-happy-go-lucky-fellow to have been wired to govern properly. And now, Buhari, a man believed to be coming to govern with the image of a messiah or angel, is believed by many not to be better than the people before him. Many of those who convinced voters about Buhari’s messianism are now complaining that they would rather not be ruled by a messiah-figure but by a regular mortal likely to feel the pains of suffering citizens. If after the nation-wide excitement of 2015, critics of governance at the centre and in the states cannot see their economic and political salvation in the style of Buhari, shouldn’t such critics, like the critic in the Yoruba proverb referenced at he beginning of this piece, wonder and worry why for 20 years after the departure of military dictators, Nigeria is still groping with the lock and searching for answers to its democracy and development?
For a country to believe that 100% of its presidents and governors generally underperform, the reason may not be because all such persons are below average individuals, it may very well be that the tools with which they are asked to perform the herculean task placed before them by decades of military dictatorship are inadequate for the job. But I must confess to the fact that I am not a believer in the leadership-is-the-problem-of-Nigeria school of thought. Believing that leaders are not born but made by the environment or context in which they function, I am of the school that connectedness of goals and process or method can make an average person do well in government.
Consequently, I believe that all the four presidents we have had since 1999 have been saddled with a governance structure that is inferior to the job at hand. Consequently, I believe that the 1999 Constitution is an albatross that needs to be removed in order to improve the qualities and standards of the field of governance in our multicultural federal democracy. Looking away from this important foundation while expecting angels in the most unlikely place—the seat of near-absolute national or subnational power—seems unrealistic or denialist.
The history of the making of constitutions in the country shows a decline in the role of citizens in the making of the basic laws that determine their relevance in the polity. The constitutions that culminated in the Independence Constitution were made with direct and indirect participation by citizens. Each of the pre-1960 constitution heard from citizens through representatives that they sent to conferences at which choices were made about the type of constitution they would prefer. Of course, at each level, the colonial master also had a role to play in what type of constitution Nigeria got between 1946 and 1960.
But the short-lived 1963 Constitution was negotiated by representatives of citizens under the government of Tafawa Balewa, before it was suspended between 1966 and 1979 by the military dictators that came on the political landscape—from Gowon to Murtala and finally to Obasanjo, the most important author of the 1979 Constitution. It is necessary to remind ourselves that the committee that produced the first draft of the 1979 Constitution under the chairmanship of Rotimi Williams did not recommend a presidential system of government. It was the Supreme Military Council under Obasanjo that changed the focus of the draft from parliamentary to presidential system. Even though the 1979 document was suspended from 1984 to 1999 by successions of military rulers from Buhari to Babangida and Abacha, it re-surfaced in the 1999 Constitution that was produced in camera and unearthed after the election of the first post-military civil government in 1999.
The little input from citizens directly or indirectly in the 1979 Constitution was given no chance by the authors of the 1999 Constitution. In 1999, citizens were not given an opportunity to show their views or assessments of the 1979 Constitution in relation to citizens’ sovereignty beyond the right to vote. Authors of the 1999 Constitution ignored the history of the struggle for de-militarization of the Nigerian polity by creating a constitution that ignores all of the issues that led to the struggle—the call for a constitution negotiated by free citizens and that is capable to respond to the country’s cultural diversity, especially a Basic Law document that can respond to the special needs of a multiethnic and multicultural democracy.
To be continued.