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Why the Nigerian Constitution needs a fundamental Review from the beginning to the end?
Any of you who has been reading any of my articles on the Nigerian Constitution would realize
that I always describe the 1999 Nigerian Constitution as the plagiarized version of the American Constitution.
There is a in Academic institutions in America that if a student is found to plagiarized in writing a Master’s or a Ph.D Dissertation in America, that Dissertation cannot be accepted as valid or authentic as an instrument of academic excellence.
The Nigerian Constitution,in my opinion, fails that acid test which is precisely what lawyer Olanipekun is tacitly saying if I am reading him correctly in the video you are about to watch.
The faceless framers of the Nigerian Constitution were even sensible enough to expunge a few offensive and fraudulent provisions of the American Constitution like the Electoral College Provision which was made to supersede the popular vote in America as I have pointed out, time and again in all of my articles showing why that provision in the American Constitution has outlived its usefulness and why the framers of the Nigerian Constitution were wise not to plagiarize that particular provision by adding it to the Nigerian Constitution, thank God.
Much of the criticism of the Nigerian Constitution by me is brilliantly explained in the video below by arguably one of the best legal minds and juggernauts Nigeria has produced in my judgment.
When you are talking of the Judiciary in Nigeria, you cannot do so, in all honesty, without acknowledging the fact that the Yoruba Southwest has played a pivotal role in shaping the Institution of the Judiciary In Nigeria.
It all began with the first Nigerian lawyer Sapara who was born in 1855 and lived till 1915 and was called to the Bar close to 150 years ago.
The Yorubas have been in the forefront of legal practice in Nigeria but today they have been marginalized reduced to back benchers in the country, sad to say, by the Hausa/ Fulani Oligarchy who appoint inexperienced and less qualified and competent and capable Abubakar Malami as Attorney General of the Federation because he is a Fulani and because of his state of origin. It is a big shame. There are far more qualified Nigerians in the Southwest and the Southeast to take that job than Malami. You can quote me on that. Buhari who made the appointment was a let-down because he knew no better.
The Yorubas as a rule had dominated the Judiciary with big names like Justice Jibowu who should have become the first Chief Justice instead of Justice Adetokubo Ademola but was sidetracked by the NPC/ NCNC Coalition Government headed by Alhaji Tafawa Balewa as Prime Minister and Ogbuefi Nnamdi Azikiwe as ceremonial Governor General.
Everything started going wrong for Nigeria from that point in time when politics rather than Meritocracy became the basis for appointing people to critically important and strategic positions in Nigeria.
Can you imagine Nigeria appointing people to the bench who have never seen the 4 walls of a Law School or any University or people who have never been called to the Bar by any accredited institution in the country or anywhere in the World to sit on the Sharia Courts or some of the Customary Courts of Nigeria just to fulfill the Quota System that has once forced Sardauna Ahmadu Bello to initiate his notorious Northernization Policy in the Northern Public Service which justified the appointment of foreigners like Indians, Pakistanis, Egyptians and Lebanese on contract rather than Ndigbos and Yoruba applicants who were qualified for the same jobs.
That illogicality was allowed to happen because the northern half of Nigeria who dominated the Federal Government of Nigeria before and after it was turned into a Unitary Government by late Professor Nwabueze serving as the Attorney General of the first Military Head of State In Nigeria General Aguiyi Ironsi, who had rubbished the first Military Coup in Nigeria, by putting all of the Majors who had staged the Coup into detention and he took over the Government even though he did not have the fire in his belly or the patriotism that informed the Coup to do what was right or needed by the country?
General Ironsi took over in January 15, 1966, and he launched the Unitary System under cover of darkness thinking that the move was most likely to benefit his own Ndigbo tribe to the disadvantage of the Hausa/ Fulani dominated NPC which initially formed a Coalition Government with the NCNC as the Igbo dominated National Party of Nigeria.
He, Aguiyi Ironsi and Professor Nwabueze had done that because they had both figured it out that the North, as at the time, was so far behind the Southeast in Western Education that they were persuaded it was their own Ndigbo tribe in Nigeria that would stand to reap the greater benefit of the Unitary System the two of them had unilaterally imposed on Nigeria.
They momentarily had the power in their hands but it lasted only for 6 months as the Northern elements in particular and the Yorubas had woken up from their slumber to realize that they have been short-changed by General Ironsi.
Because the Nigerian Military, as at the particular time, was dominated by the Hausa/Fulani and the Middle Belt soldiers as the Middle Belt was part and parcel of the North by their Geographical location.
That was why the Northerners were the first to strike on July 29, 1966 in a Coup that toppled Ironsi only to put 32 year old Christian Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon born in Pankchin Benue Plateau in charge for more than 8 years till 1975 as a compromise choice that the Christian South could accept or live with.
That was the genesis of the Nigerian Problem which had had led to the Biafran War from 1967 to 1970.
That was the reason that Yakubu Gowon had lasted that long in power.
He was finally ousted or taken out in 1975 in a bloodless Coup led by Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo and the Commanding Officer of the Brigade of Guards at Dodan Barracks who had betrayed his Boss from the same Benue Platteau to make the Coup totally bloodless and easier to pull off.
The new Regime even though it was initially opposed to the Unitary System introduced by Ironsi, had done nothing to change it, once they began to enjoy the perquisites of power because they had found the system benevolent to the North.
They pretty much kept the Unitary System till 1998 when another Northern General Abdulsalam Abubakar and Okhai Mike Akhigbe had taken over following the sudden death of General Sani Abacha.
The American Presidential Constitution they had plagiarized had retained all of the features of the Unitary System they have inherited from Abacha.
That was how the Preamble that lawyer Olanipekun had spoken so eloquently about, “We the People” had fraudulently become the preamble to the Nigerian Constitution.
The 1999 Nigerian Constitution was clearly an imposition by the Military Establishment of Nigeria as eloquently stated by Wole Olanipekun in the video you are about to watch.
I apologize for the digression but it is needed for you to fully understand where I am coming from and where I am going..
The legal Profession and the Judiciary also had some distinguished Ndigbos I must not fail to mention in this write-up namely Justice Udo Udoma, Justice Ajeigbo, the First Attorney General of the Eastern Region and other distinguished lawyers of Ndigbo extraction like Philip Umeadi Justice Charles Oputa to mention a few.
There are others like Justice Guobadia of former Bendel but these few names are the ones that readily come to my mind as I write this article inside the plane on my flight to New Orleans in Louisiana for a Christmas vacation.
There were other distinguished lawyers in the Yoruba Southwest like Chief Rotimi Williams. Former Chief Justice of Botswana Justice Akinola Aguda, lawyer Fanikayode, lawyer Bode Thomas, lawyer Samuel Ladoke Akintola, lawyer Gani Fawehinmi, Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya, Chief Abraham Akinsanya, Chief G.O.K. Ajayi, Chief Adeleke Adedoyin, Chief Richard Akinjide, lawyer Akinyemi Obe from Idoani and Chief T.O.S. Benson and so many others including Femi Falana and Wole Olanipekun.
They are just too many from the East and the West and even from the former Midwest or Bendel or what is now known today as the South/South embracing the Ijaws, the Urhobos and the Itsekiris of Warri whose names I have not mentioned like Chief Clarke. and Chief Wenike Briggs and Douglass of Rivers State. I try to remember them because they are equally prominent and important.
They are all legal monuments and Luminaries and I throw my salute to all of them.
But the gentleman who has captured my fancy in writing this article is lawyer Wole Olanipekun SAN from Ikere Ekiti.
The guy did not go to any of the Ivy League Secondary Schools in Nigeria like Kings College Lagos. Igbobi College, Yaba, CMS Grammar School, Bariga, or Ondo Boys High School founded in 1919 or Christ School Ado Ekiti founded in 1936 or Victory College, Ikare, or Aquinas College Akure founded in 1951 or Oyemekun Grammar School founded in 1953.
The distinguished lawyer Olanipekun was a product of the great Amoye Grammar School Ikere whose pioneer Principal Chief Samuel Falowo Adeniran my brother-in-law who had taught me Latin while he was the Vice Principal to Chief B. F. A. Adinlewa the pioneer Principal of Oyemekun.
The point I want to make here, is that Chief Adeniran of blessed memory has laid such a solid foundation for Amoye that a legal genius like Wole Olanipekun and many other juggernauts like him had emerged out of that community school by some miracle.
Lawyer Olanipekun who has produced 3 eminent lawyers among his own children has become today the “Dingle Foot” or the “Thurgood Marshal” of Nigeria in his own right because of many of the landmark cases his Chambers has won in Nigeria including the last Election Litigation when he appeared for, and won the case for current President Tinubu of Nigeria.
The man has said what is wrong with the Nigerian Judiciary in the video below that I urge you to watch from the beginning to the end.
You will be glad you did.
I have little or nothing to add beyond the little background material and historical perspective I have added to show how we got to where we are today in Nigeria.
I concur with lawyer Olanipekun that our current 1999 Constitution, as amended, is unamendable and should therefore be jettisoned and or annulled because is largely an imposition and a fraud or make- believe.
Prince.(Dr.) Wumi Akintide writes from Oyemekun terrace New York City
