Former Deputy President of the Senate, Chief Ike Ekweremadu, has said several efforts made to make the country work has been frustrating. He said the system used by the country is extremely confusing, adding that those who created it were either not sure exactly what they wanted, or deliberately made it that way to keep the country struggling.
Ekweremadu made the statement in an interview with Daily Sun in Enugu, during the Constitution review public hearing.
While highlighting the many challenges facing the country, he said a lot of the changes Nigerians are asking for, is easier said than done, not because it cannot be done, but because the system made it difficult to be done.
For example, the constitution has been identified as the major problem with Nigeria, since it is regarded as a constitution based on the will of the military, and not the people. Many agitators are with the opinion that getting rid of the constitution and replacing it with a better one which addresses the many issues currently troubling the country, would do a world of good.
But Ekweremadu says replacing the current constitution is not as easy as it seems, unless Nigerians want things to be done illegally which according to him, would amount to anarchy.
He said, "Yes, I’ve heard that argument, some say bring back the 1960 constitution, some say bring the 1963 constitution, some say okay why don’t we just throw away this constitution and bring a new one.
"The question is how do you do that? Because there is no such provision in our constitution, unless you are calling for anarchy. So, if you are going to bring a new constitution, how?
"The answer is simple, we’ve seen countries with a similar challenge like Kenya and Brazil. What they did simply was to AMEND the original constitution to make a PROVISION on how that constitution can be AMENDED. We tried to do it, we did it last time, but it was even not accented to.
"So, unless you lay the proper foundation you cannot, otherwise you are creating anarchy. So, you need to amend Section 9 of the constitution to create a provision for how to amend the constitution itself especially the issue of referendum.
"So, we want to settle that which I believe is where we should be now, we’ve done a whole lot of amendments most of which Nigerians don’t even know, so there is confusion already and when we do more it gets to a point that you don’t know which one is the original text and the one that has been amended. You may be a lawyer and you come to court and be quoting the provisions of the constitution as if they are amended and you look stupid."
He said the power of the President to accent proposals meant to address the concerns of the people, has been frustrating, and is the reason the country is presently in chaos.
He said, "I can tell you clearly that if all those proposals were successful, we won’t be where we are today because most of the things we are talking about today, including devolution of powers, were fully amended, and then we devolve powers from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List and sent to the President and, of course, we didn’t get the requisite consent."
"We separated the office of the Attorney General from the Minister of Justice, Commissioner for Justice with that of the Commissioner for Justice, again it was not accented to.
"We also proposed for compulsory savings for the Federal Government and the nation as done in most countries from our oil revenue, amending Section 162 again it was not accented to.
"Now, the implication is that we are not saving for the rainy day, which is exactly what we wanted to achieve. Because if you look at Section 162, every money coming to the federation goes into the account called the Federation Account, no mention was made of how to save money.
"This is not what other countries that produce oil are doing, a place like Norway, they don’t touch their oil revenue, so they call it equity fund, they save them for the future. Saudi Arabia invested their own, they take only the proceeds of those investment and spend them, but here, we spend them before the money comes, so no country survives in that kind of situation. So, those are some of the critical areas we amended, but were not accented to."
He said apart from the President, there is another issue which is the State Assemblies. He said some proposals may succeed at the National level, but fail at the State level.
He said, "Some fail at the level of the State Assemblies, including the issue of local government reform and this is what we are talking about today. Some could pass through in National Assembly including the one that had to do with decentralization of police, that’s why we have our problem today. So, the problem is not our own, we made efforts, but there were some frustrating circumstances."
Speaking further on the issue of local government reforms, he said, "The problem of local government in Nigeria is that the makers of our constitution were not sure what they wanted. If you read between Section 7, Section 8 and 162 of the constitution you will see the confusion.
"Why some are saying oh, the state should be able to ensure that there is elected local governments in various states. That means that it is the responsibility of the states to make sure that local governments exist, therefore, they are talking about the two tier federalism.
"But if you go to Section 162, it is saying that the resources, money accruing from the federation account to be distributed among the three tiers of government, which is the federal, the state and the local government. So, somehow the constitution is not even sure whether we run a three tier federal system or a two tier.
"So, we need to be able to be sure what we want because if you do three tiers, it means that all the apparatus of government both at the federal and state will also be at the local government, including judicial function and legislative function and then they have all their resources independently and take control.
Lastly on the issues of security, he said the problem with the system used in Nigeria is that the federal government decides everything as far as issues of security is concerned. Therefore, if the federal loses control as is presently the case, then everyone is in trouble.
"No federal nation in the world is doing what we are doing;" he said.
"Every federal country is identified with multiple police system. Even the unitary countries like the UK, they also decentralize their police. So, what has happened now is that if we had decentralized police in Nigeria, we would have had 774 different police systems in 774 local governments.
"We would have 36 different police network in 36 states and have one in Abuja, then have the big elephant in the house, the federal police. So, what would have happened is if there is problem in any of these states others will survive, but because we have one, that one had DIED and COLLAPSED completely.
"The federal police have collapsed which is the only one and that is why we are having all these problems."