Nigeria’s Insecurity, Terrorism and rumblings about Constitution. By Dann Jacobs, Contributing Editor of USAfricaonline.com is a veteran international journalist, broadcaster, author and public policy analyst.
Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Within only a few days, we’ll enter the new year 2022. The fact is 2021 has been a very difficult and traumatic year for millions of Nigerians as the issue of insecurity and all kinds of terrorism have dislocated every section/region/zone in Nigeria. It is an issue with implications for allegiance to the republic/country.
Also, these events impact the nature of the debate regarding the constitution and structure of the country. That’s why over the years there have been unrealistic clamour and pressure for constitutional amendments, or the scrapping of the constitution entirely.
It is as though if there is no constitution, there is no country. No. A constitution is not a pre-requisite, for a country or society to exist.
There were no constitutions in the successful prehistoric societies. The constitution is a recent thing. It was made a so-called pre-requisite for people to rule themselves or have a country of their own. It is colonial legacy that has really solved no problems. It has actually created problems.
Constitutions are made to serve the interest of those who write or conceive them. The colonial constitution served precisely that purpose. So also did the subsequent ones written by Nigerians, say the military, the hidden agents of tribalism and nepotism, the religionists and stuff like that. That’s why we must be wary of constitutions and what use they purport to be of.
Why have the ones we have had before not worked, and had to be scrapped?
Was it the constitution or lack of a good one that brought the Nigeria-Biafra war (1967 to 1970) on us? We had a voluminous constitution. Yet the war occurred.
The constitution had nothing to do with it. That proves a whole lot what a constitution can and cannot do. It does not avert or solve any trouble for a country. In our context one could say that the constitution has been counter-productive, and an un-inspiring document.
It has been causing rancour and further division, so much so we don’t know what to do with or about it. Our constitution says that a sitting president, a vice president, a governor a deputy governor has some form of legal immunity. Consequently, they may not be held accountable for crimin
al conduct and wrong-doing — especially inside Nigeria. Can you imagine that? What a constitution! To remove that clause has been an impossible task. It is there on purpose for those it serves their selfish interest.
What the constitution is all about is law and order. That must be the underling spirit. It can as well be designed unwittingly, for war, disharmony and conflict, through the monopoly of power, aimed at a complete, unchallengeable takeover of the country by one sect, clique, cult or section. It may be such that does not distribute, devolve or share power. It may create a favoured group or section that wants to use national, equally-owned, commonly-owned resources selfishly to the exclusion of others.
To do this, the favoured group could brazenly deploy national resources and might to suppress and intimidate others. A constitution may be mute on these while promoting them, which may be a cause of strife and conflict. It is this that generates the rumblings over the constitution. And it is a huge distraction, dissipating the energy and time that would have been used on important areas of development. Who can step out and honestly trace Nigeria’s woes to a bad constitution? That would be monumental self-deceit. Will things start being well once the constitution is changed? No, they won’t. At least it is doubtful. Let’s take poverty and unemployment, which the federal government has recently blamed for most of Nigeria’s woes.
How much do they originate from a bad constitution? The constitution stands isolated and distinct from them, as an added problem. Poverty and unemployment also stand separate as consequences of a basic malaise, when you look closely and critically at them. Poverty is a problem of partial and discriminating distribution and inequality, which are the last things that bother Nigerian leaders.
At the root of all of the problems (they don’t call them problems, but challenges) is the age-old, intractable issue of disunity. This must be settled, as an issue, so that the other ensuing issues will go away. It is like seeking the kingdom of God first which the Holy book says you do and all other things are added unto you.
The unity of Nigeria should be desirable. It is desirable. But is it attainable? No effort has ever been spared to put disunity behind us. But the issue remains increasingly insoluble, impenetrable.
It is always a misleadingly optimistic wish to say that Nigerians are or will be united. If and when Nigeria unites, her other problems will fix themselves. But despite the relentless efforts, the problem of disunity stares us blindingly in the eyes. Nigerians are more disunited now than ever before.
Given what Nigeria has managed structurally to achieve, her ultimate unity can make her a world power, to the joy of all her people, including dissidents who want her to disintegrate.
The fear is that those who think Nigeria can fail are not negligible, just as those who think she will never collapse are considerable in number. A progressive government would check and see which group is more in number. That would help her know how to go about fixing the problem, if there is the genuine wish to do that. The fear is in the consequences of either option (disintegration and oneness).
Both options cannot be pursued or accomplished at the same time. One of them will be victor over the other. That is what the rumblings over the constitution are all about. The rumblings are in cowardly avoidance of the monster issue of disunity.
The fact is Nigerians resist being united. They do it covertly and surreptitiously at all levels, because of the overwhelming force that compels them to unite. That force succeeds only in driving the people underground.
In the open they are mere hypocrites and pretenders about the unity precept. Force cannot compel loyalty and allegiance, which people only pay lip service to. They join in the unity chorus. But they are not being faithful. The work is more formidable in the mentality area.
The only link the constitution would have with anything is with the organisational structure, the disproportion and imbalance in the distribution of appointments and resources, in the siting of amenities, projects, utilities and infrastructure. About this, the authorities have been incorrigible and habitual and damn the consequences.
It is the inveterate instinct of disunity in the people that induces people in power to strive to win and take all. It is also the reason for the agitation for ‘restructuring’. You can correct this mentality without recourse to the constitution. But these are the no-go areas, the untouchable areas, the dreaded areas for the constitution, which if you go into could (it is feared) blow any fragile unity there is into pieces. That’s the reason the constitution issue is approached with ambivalence, even reluctance.
People want to be spared the rumblings, asking just to find a way to compel the government to be even-handed and to treat people fairly equally, ‘no matter where they come from’. Show example by doing what that government slogan says. It exacerbates the problem of disunity if the government is seen doing something else, the exact opposite of the slogan.
Many people are asking the same question: What has provoked rebellion in the people? Not minding that it is a grave offense, what could have fired the dissidents (all too many now) to respond with suicidal violence?
Is it an act of omission or commission; on whose part? This is a typical case of there being no smoke without fire. Does the fire come first before the smoke, or vice versa? A good government would not fail to consider this. It can purge itself and desist from provoking its people into violence, in the interest of lasting peace.
Only that will reconcile the parties who have been virtually at war. We may say that the civil war has never ended. The lines of battle are not clearly drawn, this time. It is like a free-for-all, as it has spread to all parts of the country, far beyond and outside the borders of what constituted Biafra. It is this question of a sanctimonious government which never errs (thanks to the constitution) that has kept many things insecure and in a state of flux. Somehow, the constitution has been the scapegoat.
