The Executive Director of African Heritage Institution, AfriHeritage, Professor Ufo Okeke -Uzodike, has expressed concern over the lapses in the country’s 1999 Constitution and failure of leaders to link the constitutional goals to the nation’s educational curriculum to meet the needs of the society.
He also stressed the need for a Constitutional amendment that would create equal opportunity and justice for all Nigerians.
He made this known on Thursday while briefing newsmen on the forthcoming “Big Ideas Podium”, a program of the Institute, which brings think- tanks together to discuss national issues and forward recommendations to the government for policy formulation .
The Executive Director said that the Theme of the event which would hold on August 12 at the Institute’s Secretariat in Enugu, is “Reworking the Nigerian Constitution for National Transformation and Integration”.
He said that, “Constitution of a country is very important. The idea of a Constitution is something that everybody integrates in their institution.
“It could be a disaster when you have a country that does not implement policies or ideas , is a half Hazzard approach . The Constitution should be what goals people expected”.
Professor Okeke-Uzodike explained that Constitution should be what goals people should expect. He added that if you don’t have goals , specific ideas of how we define a government , it turns out to be a bad government.
Quoting Section 24, of the 1999 constitution, which said that the Constitution is supreme, Professor Okeke-Uzodike querried why leaders should ignore the contents of the Constitution and favour a particular group in the country. He also querried why a particular group should have the right to make a specific request about the country and why the Nigeria’s Constitution is not working.
” People of this country are supposed to have fRights, including children’s Rights. Many of these ,we are signatories to .
We cannot continue to be the way we had been in the past.
” We already have elements that should be kept and should not be kept. The will of the people is important . Why should we have a government that employed people and their salaries are not paid until they asked for the payment?
“There are problems in terms of the way we are governed. The essence of our democracy seems to be lost. Balancing of powers is crucial. Separation of powers is very important. The role of the media is very crucial in this matter”,Okeke-Uzodike said.
He urged media practitioners to work with the Civil Society Organisations,(CLOs ), saying, “For us to achieve what we should achieve, the media have to work with the CSOs”.
The Executive Director spoke on the need for the goals of the 1999 Constitution to be linked to the country’s educational curriculum. This, according to him, would help in tackling some of the challenges being faced in the country today.
“For the country to develop, there should be a link between what were taught in the schools and the goals stated in the Constitution as seen in developed countries”, he said.
The Big Ideas Podium would be a combination of visual and physical meeting. Guest speaker at the event is Bartholomew Aguogbodo(Esq.) Discussants are Adeyemo Abijo(Esq.), Justice Unaegbu(Esq.) and Marvin Ibem (Esq.).
