Comments on: Can National Assembly produce people’s constitution?

By: A.JOHN ODEY

A.JOHN ODEY — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:30:46 +0000

Atlast , the house of rep. and the senate has settle their differance, we know that their diffrerance before now has a monetry undertone, this is a country where money supercede national interest . that is to say they have agreed to share what ever is allocated to the constitutional review , equally. may God serve Nigeria, from leaders who are after accumulating primitive wealth. for their generation yet unborn, Amen.

By: James Osato

James Osato — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:42:17 +0000

The National Assembly members are parochial, narrow minded lootocrats.
They don not understand Nationalism. They do not understand Foreign Direct Investment competitiveness. They don’t know that outside Nigeria we are all known as Nigerians not, almajiri, ibo, hausa, niger delta, yoruba, ijay, or whatever. No one out there cares. You can’t even say you are Nigerian to avoid embarrasment. These lawmakers dont even know why they are at the National Assembly. Most of them think they are there to make money and thats what they do. I just pray that MEND would cripple OIL and GAS production so they can be disbanded one way or another.
They are destroying Nigeria for generations born and unborn. They can’t help Nigeria. Do you see David Mark as someone who loves Nigeria? Of all he has benefited from Nigeria, what has he given back? Don’t even mention Dimeji, that one and his dad are in politics to make money.

By: Samora

Samora — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:33:36 +0000

Pls is anyone watching Obama live telecast from Ghana, Nigeria leaders, shame on you, this is evidence that Nigeria is a complete failed state, from the jibe to the open ridicule to once cherished giant of Africa, now Ghana and other little african country as seen as leaders, This is 21st century, America can”t invade Nigeria and change our future, Obama visit to our backyard and statements, is an open challange and fire up to young and jerry rollings in us to revolt and change our future, invariably his mission is to change it for us and can”t send his mighty military to do the job, but to spark the brain that will change it within us, Lets raise and stops this cankerworm that is ruining and destroying our future in the name of leaders. If we can”t change this, then shame on us.

By: Collins U. Nwankwo, New York.

Collins U. Nwankwo, New York. — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:38:56 +0000

There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian constitution, the problems are with its application and implementation.
In a country where there is lawlessness and reckless disregard for the rule of law; and where laws for the rich are different from that of the poor, it will be impossible to impartially enforce the provisions of the constitution.
Presently, in Nigeria, the provisions of the law are quit explicit, it provides separation of powers between the executive,judiciary and the legislature. Unfortunately, the Nigerian experience had always been the reverse, the executive does not know where its powers begin and where it ends. There are no checks and balances. And no transparency in government. The pressmen and women are hardly allowed to function adequately (because the politician and the bureaucrats have shares and investment within the media). The workings of the constitution are adequately enshrined in the 1979 constitution. Fellow countrymen, Nigerians don’t need a new constitution. Nigeria should stop wasting tax payers money pursuing shadows.Undoubtedly, corruption is the problem and not the constitution.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:22:59 +0000

Nigerians cannot stop amazing me. I wonder some body there has got any sense at all, I mean those in power. For sure there are powerfully intelligent Nigerians who are in PRONACO. But why would this be happening to us as if we are fools,

In the first place, 1999 constituion is rubbish, it never was a constituion- a document put in place by an illegal government who came to power not from revolution, but coup. The military would have made that constitution a peoples constitution if they allowed people to contribute to it through a national confernce, but no- Abubakar just closed the door upon few people and told them what to write and then said we the people of Nigeria– what defines me as a nigeria sef?

In the first place the idea of constitutionalsim came from the social contrat of Hobbes, Locke and Russau British and French philosophers respectively. In principle every political unit must have some agreement for their union, In England we have the English people and germans in germany etc, who is a nigerian? Recently there are South Africans because even though there are whites, there is a form of agreement that binds them together after the aparthied.

The same thing is what we are asking for in Nigeria and that is the best thing to do. since the first cosntitution came in 1922, it was all written together by the whites or the millitary. What the PRONACO stands for is that every Nigerian group should be invited to a conference and asked, Do you still want this UNION, if yes, what are your conditions- then through negotiations an agreement should be reached on what are the grounds for existance, this makes all of Nigerians and serves as the building block for the constitution. The out come of this will inform any cosntitution which must come from all Nigerins.

Some people are just holding Nigeria to Ransome, but what foxes me is that some learned peole play along. How can you have the 1999 constitution and call it a federal cosntitution. The content of the 1999 constitution is more unitary than federal as federalsim means UNITY in diversity. But Yaradua wants to know what the LGAs in lagos state is doing and what the Police command in Onitsha is doing. Federlaism should be in such a way that if the North wants Sharia, they should have it, but the 1999 constitution made it that some would enjoy their cuture to the detriment of others. And to cap it up, there was no agreement for such a document. Zik, Awo and Tafa- they would be in regret now what would have done for us to have been a better nation- I wonder if some who have the opportunity now will still regret.

WE CANNOT AMEND WHAT WE DONT HAVE, SO OFF WITH IT, the 1999 constitution is too bad to be ammended, give us a new one

By: Busuyi O

Busuyi O — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:48:38 +0000

The present executives at all levels in Nigeria will not perform on anything good because they dont know what the people need since they didnt go through the people before they stole their position

By: Patrick Agbobu

Patrick Agbobu — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:18:53 +0000

The problem is not the constitution but its application. You could get the best legal brains and the best constitution drafts people, to write a constitution and no matter how perfect the constitution is, the success of it is in the application. Law makers are very powerful, because they make laws relating to life and death. This is why they are supposed to be very reasonable persons, to make good laws that can be easily implimented. This should have been the case, but in Nigeria it is the very opposite because, cultists, 419 persons, ill prepared persons, criminals and people of very questionable characters, have hijacked the politics and law making process. This bunch is not interested in serving Nigerians, their only interest is in stealing and looting from the treasury. At the end of the day, you will see the billions of naira, they will collect for claiming to review the constitution, which mark my words they will never accomplished. The Presidential system is very expensive and can be easily abused and Nigeria is not yet ready, for this system of government. Nigeria does not need two chambers of national assemblies. We should only have one chamber and go back to the parliamentary system, where the head of government is always accountable to paliament on a dailly basis. We should scrap all the states and have more powerful local governments. By sraping the states, the local governments will attract very qualified persons. At the moment we are operating a very large government and we are spending all our money and resourses, to pay wages and emoluments. As a result we have very little money for capital projects. With out capital projects, there will be no ifratructural and ecconomic developements. We should use our oil money now, for those infratructural and ecconomic developements, because in the next 20 years Nigeria will run out of crude oil or crude oil will become irrelevant, like what happened to coal.

By: shillingford

shillingford — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:06:27 +0000

what is about happening in nigerian constitution amendement is child play! is just like given a arm robber a court case of robbery to decide his guilt or given a one week old child bible to read for you. what i they will do with 1999 constitution is to change it to corespond with their political rascality and immorality, let nigerian expect one party state in that amendement, bye bye to oppositions, from ZAMFARA to BAUCHI, from JOS to MAIDUGURI we shall decamp to PDP to pleased far notherners. GOD forbid. let unite and fight against modern colonial master from the far northern ruling house

By: Alexander Moses (UK)

Alexander Moses (UK) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:26:08 +0000

I would like to believe that it is only through a Sovereign National Conference that the peoples constitution can evolve.

It will very risky to allow these set of legislatures who came to power through fraudulent means to amend the constitution.

Nigerians cannot afford a do or die approach towards addressing an all important document that will serve as our article of faith.

And aside that, there is a popular opinion that the present constitution is not peopled so there is no basis for amendment. It is like amending what we don’t have.

Though I concur with The Pro-National Conference Organization (PRONACO) that what Nigeria actually needs is a new constitution, I disagreed with it on the time frame being proposed. I sincerely believe that the process of evolving a constituent assembly can begin say in 3 months from now.

We can have one, one constitution once and for all instead of wasting scarce resources(Time & Money) panel beating a rusticated iron. My emphasis!

By: Matthew Omere

Matthew Omere — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:43:30 +0000

The National Assembly is a bunch of corrupt, narrow and evil minded individual whose idealogy is kill and divide. And many has no ideal what to serve the people mean rather than serving the people, they are been serve by the people who they are representing.

Definitely no they can not produce the people’s constitution simply because they do not have Nigerians at heart and moreover they are representing their indivdual selfish intrest.