By Owei Lakemfa
When Senate President, David  Mark declared that the “successful” amendment of the 1999 Constitution  showed that the Senate has the “courage” to do what is right, he was stating an obvious untruth. As a retired general he knows that courage or bravery is the ability to do what is dangerous or  painful without showing fear.

what courage is needed to carry out  amendments that require elections to be held six months before a tenure expires  or that the electoral commission gets financial independence?

The basic courage the Senate needs to amend the constitution is first to look at the title “Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999” and admit the truth that it is a  constitution for a centralised unitary system imposed by military fiat and not for a federation.

The next step is to address how it can  be amended or rewritten in line with the aspirations of Nigerians for a  federal system. The Constitution cannot be a blatant lie and we hold it up as the basis of our democracy.

A basic question we can answer is, what constitutes  the Nigerian federation?  At independence, the building blocs of the federation were the regions.  Then following the 1966 coup, a unitary order was decreed into existence along the lines of the commandist military system.

Under this new regime,  the viable regions were abolished and replaced with atomised, dependent  states which over the years have multiplied from  a dozen to the current three dozens. With the threat of renewed constitutional ‘amendment’ as promised by the Senate, these largely parasitic states, will be further increased.

What a courageous amendment exercise would have done is return us to the federal system. Good enough there is a broad national consensus of  six geo-political areas: The North Central, North West, North East, South West, South East and  South South. These can replace the old regions as the constituents of the federation and the basis of revenue allocation.

With its share of the national revenue (after the deduction of 50 per cent derivation) each geo-political zone within its given resources can create as many states and local governments as it wishes and can cater for. In a federation, it cannot be the business of the centre to create states and local governments. With people controlling their resources, structures like the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs would be unnecessary.

Also, such cries like  quota  system, Federal Character and marginalisation will become muffled because they are based on the principle of ‘let’s share the national cake’ and ‘let our son go and bring our share’ of the national booty. In contrast, if we run a federation, the states will retain most of their best brains rather than push them to go and loot at the centre.

Under the current constitution, the country is like a booty to be shared, and the person who does the sharing and dispenses favours  is the Executive President. So there is  a stiff competition for  who controls the presidency. That is why zoning is an issue and the presidency is so powerful that the occupant can remove and replace state governors as Obasanjo did in Plateau, Oyo and Bayelsa states or even withhold constitutional allocations as was done to the local governments in Lagos.

Under the current unitary constitution, states go cap in hand to beg the central government that has appropriated the national wealth to  the extent that states have to plead for funds to control gullies, floods and  quelea birds.

The central government which is incapable of providing electricity, maintaining federal roads or running  a single rail line, makes it its responsibility to  perform the duties of local and state governments  such as the provision of mono pumps in villages and building primary school classrooms.

Even while being unable to run its own tertiary institutions, it continues to take over those established by states. The central government is a clumsy giant suffering from severe arthritis and is incapable of walking without experiencing  severe pains and trampling  on the smaller tiers of government.

In the First Republic, the undisputed leader of the ruling Northern People Congress was  Ahmadu Bello but  he chose not to be prime minister because under the federal system in operation, power and resources resided mainly in the regions

So he saw being leader of the central government   a waste  of his valuable time. What we need are constitutional amendments that will return the country to such a golden era rather than  leave the country at the mercy of prodigals.

Another courageous amendment necessary is  to allow the governors who are humoured as being the chief security officer of their states to control the police. Of what use is a chief security officer who cannot give instructions to the constable posted to the State House gate. T

he policeman today is largely alienated from the people and the community he is supposed to police; he may not speak the local language, understand their culture or even be familiar with the environment. There is absolutely no reason why states and local governments cannot have their own police side by side with  the federal police like the FBI in America.

Some of the courage the Senate needs is to ask itself whether we need the two chambers of the National Assembly; can the duties of the House of Representatives be adequately carried out  by the Senate and  vice versa? The simple answer is yes! In any case having experienced the parliamentary and presidential variants of liberal democracy, it is clear which is better in terms of democratic practices, mass participation, cost and separation of powers; the obvious answer is the parliamentary.

But the central and state assemblies lack the courage to even debate this much less put it to a referendum. I completely agree with Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross Rivers State who in his Clement Isong lecture argued that “these amendments  are merely palliative  modifications designed more to  smoothen  over the cracks of the current political system rather than  address the fundamental issues of Nigerian federalism” I rest my case.