MILITARY CONSTITUTIONAL MENTALITY AND THE TRAVAILS OF DEMOCRACY
IN NIGERIA.
(By Kay Aderibigbe)
One permanent feature of the Nigerian political life is that elites of various ethnic groups are periodically at loggerheads internally as to what should be the modus operandi of their respective local politics. This, on the one hand is in sharp contrast with the politicians' ultimate motive, which is how best they could nationally coagulate diverse interests for the purpose of perpetual rulership on the other hand. Invariably, such incongruent and wishy-washy political mannerism was the harbinger of the incursion of military into Nigerian politics in the first instance; and it was on the pedestal of the same parochial mentality that the military built their own method of governance as well.
The same issue of pecuniary interests of the elites was always at play from republic to republic whenever the hue and cry gets louder from Nigerians and the international communities concerning the transfer of political power to an elected government. In fact, the art of negative statecraft by Nigerian politicians shows how astute, maneuvering and whimsical they could be whenever it comes to ensuring the positioning of their interests.
The actual implication of the above assertion is that, the Nigerian society, in a matter of about three decades after independence has reached an epoch, where those that were categorized by the great German Political Philosopher Karl Marx, as in the "class for itself" (elites), are irrevocably committed to strategically dehumanizing and ignoring those that are in the "class in itself" (masses).
This very idea of society polarization is evident, and ever present in the ideological underpinning and policy structure of the Nigerian state. Consequently, different constitutions adopted by various dispensations from 1979 till date have been nothing but an imposition of the typical will and methodology of the military rulers and their gangs on the Nigerian people.
The 1979 constitution for instance, represented our first real test at democracy. We failed woefully because the politicians had all the powers to do and undo. One other problem about the constitution is the fact that it was arranged in such a way that it will ensure allocations of political offices to reflect ethnic representation by jettisoning the place of merit. This was done without looking further into the possible escalation of the by-products of such peculiarity in our law frame.
The federal character principle that was suffused over our law by the CDC - Constitution Draft Committee of 1978 only did a little in terms of addressing the fears of the minority groups, but actually brought about a chauvinistic, redundant and dysfunctional public service system. This is just one aspect out of the myriads of setbacks the constitution brought upon the country after the second republic.
Nigeria's stillborn third republic would have made use of Babangida's 1989 constitution had it been the June 12, 1993 election was not annulled. But political observers opined that the country would have been plagued by the same regular political crisis because those who fed fat from the purse of the previous government are likely to be affected by the policies of the SDP - Social Democratic Party of Chief MKO Abiola. Unfortunately for Nigeria, the 1989 constitution was a copy and paste of the 1979 constitution, except that the Political Bureau of 1987 under Professor Samuel Cookey gave Nigerians the platform to decide on the platter of two party system for the first time.
General Sani Abacha inaugurated the NCC - National Constitutional Conference on Monday, 27th of June 1994, with the aim of arranging another constitutional framework for Nigeria. Twelve months later, the Justice Adolphus Karibi-White led conference submitted two reports: volume I and II to the SMC - Supreme Military Council. Abacha later used Prof. Awalu Yadudu, his legal advisor, to manipulate the reports and produce his own version of the draft constitution because the military dictator believed he would eventually succeed himself, and also perpetuate himself in power no matter what.
It became incumbent upon the Abdulsalam Abubakar's administration to provide a constitution for the return of democracy in 1999 as such, the Abacha's draft constitution was adopted. Some political Analysts argued that "the need to accept the 1994 draft constitution in 1999 was a child of necessity because we had little time to prepare"; while some opined that "any adventure into discussing another brand new constitution as at the time of Abacha's death may result in an automatic and indefinite change of hand-over calendar by the military boys who had no genuine intention of handing over in the first place".
Both lines of thoughts were right as at May 29, 1999, but the fact that we refused, failed or continue to be circumstantially incapacitated to have taken any meaningful actions in order to change or rewrite the faulty constitution after twenty one (21) years reveals that "we are an unserious people, being governed by irresponsible rulers who neither have foresights nor the will to save the country from its chaotic existence".
The resultant effects of a haphazardly concocted constitution being managed by mentally lazy set of government officials is what we witness everyday when questions arise on the issue of restructuring, true federalism or resource control. Since we do not have a constitutional means to working out these important political questions, hence, it looks as if we are talking about rocket science. The matter has been made worse since 1999 by different sets of Nigerian legislators who intentionally, in the name of the attainment of the wishes of the political elites, periodically ensure that the constitution remains rigid, unclear, contradictory and incapable of being employed for the purpose of addressing any important 'national question'.
The dilemma of the type of constitution we operate is that the federal government will continue to be more powerful, omnipresent and all-encompassing at the detriment of the constituent units; but at the same time will continue to be too busy, weakened and ineffective to attend to all the 68 items it encapsulated in its exclusive legislative list. Invariably, the people will continue to agitate, the society will continue to be fragmented and the relationship between the state and the people will continue to deteriorate.
Nigerian politicians owe us the debt of writing a constitution that can out rightly return this country to a modernized regional structure; break the centripetal yoke of the present system; empower the 'people' to stamp out corrupt practices; delete the federal character mentality; and above all, set a new path through which the beauty in the plurality of our society can be explored by anyone for the purposes of healthy internal socioeconomic development.
Unless the military type of constitution that was foisted on the people is expunged from the political fabrics of the Nigerian state, the country will eventually collapse at some point when politicians have exhausted all the legitimate and illegitimate channels through which they exploit the people, and when the people can no longer absorb the excesses of the politicians.
