African Heritage Institution (AfriHeritage) has held its big ideas podium, with a call for devolution of power in Nigeria and institutionalisation of rule of law to ensure functionality of the Constitution and foster national integration and peace.
Constitutional Experts at the event which was held on August 12 at the AfriHeritage Secretariat, Enugu made the call in their presentations.
In his presentation on the Theme,”Reworking the Nigerian Constitution for National Transformation and Integration”, the keynote speaker, Justice Chineme Uhuegbu, National President, Association for Good Governance, Nigeria, stressed the need for devolution of power, noting that the 1999 Constitution gave so much powers to the executive.
He said that the rule of law was critical to the peace, social justice and integration of the country.
Uhuegbu, who is a constitutional lawyer and Executive Members of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), said: “Without the rule of law, there is little that can be done in making the constitution supreme and effectively work for all.
“Rule of law, which entails the supremacy of the law (constitution), must take predominant space and respected for institutions to independently work for the good people of our country.
“The law must be applicable to all, in all circumstances, no matter the personality or personalities involved in the issue for us to get it right and engender lasting peace and progress of our people”.
Speaking, Discussant and Co-Founder of LegalHub Partnership, Adeyemi Ajilo, said that the constitution is working when the institutions of the state can stand independently stand to carry out their statutory mandate.
Ajilo, who is also an Executive Secretary of NBA Ikeja Branch, noted that the constitution as it stand have the capacity to engine social cohesion, peace and prosperity if allowed to work by ensuring the rule of law.
He said: “The rule of law remains critical in the discourse of reworking the constitution for the benefit of all.
“It is only when we have the rule of law fully operational and embraced by all, we can then say that we have a constitution that can drive the needed change we deserve”.
On his part, Publicity Secretary of NBA, Ikeja Branch, Marvin Ibem, said that the constitution remained the greatest challenge of the country since it was not formulated by the people.
“We have to go back to the drawing board and redo the entire constitution to really get a document that our people can truly call our own,’’ he said.
Earlier in a welcome address, the Executive Director of AfriHeritage, Professor Ufo Okekeke-Uzodike, said that the event was organised by AfriHeritage in collaboration with legal experts and intellectuals with competences in constitutional law.
He said that the event aimed at seeking a more focused and goals-driven national discourse on constitutional reform that would enable the leaders to identify crucial benchmarks for achieving meaningful and sustainable peace, national integration and socio-economic transformation and development .
The Executive Director said that the present 1999 Constitution is not bad as some people view it, but needed a rework for Nigerians to get the best out of it in terms of national transformation and integration.
He, however, frowned at the way Nigeria is being governed. He said, “Too often I have referred to Nigeria as a country that is literally under siege. This is because Nigerians are being terrorized by Boko Haram, armed herdsmen, bandits, deadly criminals and unknown gunmen. It now seems that our lives collectively as Nigerian citizens has been devalued so badly that our lives are often treated as nearly worthless.
“Nigeria has become so poorly governed that citizens are pleged by immeasurable social and economic problems driven by generally ill-equipped and greedy political leadership. Often, most of those leaders are so sensitive to their political relevance or survival that seem more willing to condone or Stoke political instability than to create or labor for workable paths to national peace and stability.
“Not surprisingly, socio economic inequity between cultural groups, economic challenges, massive unemployment and underemployment, high rates of poverty, unconstrained ethnic tensions, religious bigotry and conflicts, etc. have become parts of the daily existence of many Nigerians .Consequently, the idea of Nigerian ( Ness) has remained an elusive issue for many Nigerians,”he said.
Professor Okeke-Uzodike lamented that ‘many citizens of Nigeria are often quick to assert preference for their cultural identities over their national identities”. Such attitudes , according to him, are primarily the net outcome of decades of divisive rhetoric by political “leaders” or their non-inclusiionary management of national(and state) affairs- despite actual constitutional imperatives that require nation- building and national integration .
The Executive Director noted that the Nigeria’s Constitution is supreme law of the country, meant to be the basis for all other legitimate laws..
He added that ” a national goals, embodies the public will,provided ground rules for citizenship and coexistence of cultural groups and sets o loyalty from loyalty loyalty from it’s ut the responsibility of government to the governed.”.
The AfriHeritage boss maintained that “a government owes it’s legitimacy to the national Constitution within which it’s authority must be completely subsumed.
“Unfortunately, the current Nigerian Constitution has not received adequate support or loyalty from it’s governments and citizens – This is the part of the reason why it has remained unintegrated, not only in our governing or educational institutions, but also in daily lives.
“A major reason for it’s poor reception is that the Constitution has never really been owed by Nigerians who often see it as a militarist or elitist instrument:”, Okeke-Uzodike said.
He observed that the protracted unhappiness has helped to incubate intense social and political unrests and growing level of criminality and poverty.
“Consequently, Nigeria has been and remains on the brink of becoming an ungovernable or failed state where some individuals and socio-cultiral groups turn to violence or claims of separatist rights”, he said.
