NIGERIA will celebrate her 60th Independence anniversary this year, but it will be typically low-keyed and heavily laced with lamentations over our failure to meet our national aspirations.

Instead of achieving a prosperous and united Federal Republic, a showpiece of democracy in Africa and the pride of the Black World, Nigeria at 60 will still be the “poverty capital of the world” with virtually every index of human development at the bottom of world ratings.

Yet, we sped off the starting block in 1960 at a pace that modelled Nigeria’s future among promising Third World countries. Its three original Regions – East, West and North – had their economies growing at rates that were the envy of the newly-independent nations.

However, the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity dislodged the growth trajectory of Nigeria because its leaders turned it into a consuming nation with every ethnic and regional group struggling to consume more than the others.

This was made possible by the 1979 Constitution dusted up by the 1999 Constitution (As Amended) which concentrated power in the centre and made the federating units dependent on the Federal Government.

The 1979/1999 constitutional models have failed woefully. They are no longer suitable for a country of over 200 million people and a population growing at three per cent. That constitutional model coloured by military ideology and interests no longer meets the needs of today’s Nigeria which is ravenously hungry for power to be returned to the people at the grassroots for it to once again become a workshop instead of a restaurant.

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The imperative of restructuring is beginning to dawn on former military Heads of State, General Yakubu Gowon and General Olusegun Obasanjo. It is a pity that Obasanjo, who had a second opportunity to serve as an elected President for eight years did not take up the challenge to bequeath Nigeria with a genuinely federal, autochthonous constitution.

Being the father of the 1979 Constitution and the first beneficiary of the 1999 Constitution, Obasanjo was very hostile to the idea of restructuring until recently when he became an advocate of it.

We strongly believe that a new constitution is overdue. We need a brand new constitution, not a constitution review or amendment; and it’s got be a federal constitution with power thoroughly devolved to federating units such as states, regions or geopolitical units.

We have two options: either to dust up the 10,335-page 2014 National Conference Report (whose 500 delegates passed over 600 resolutions) towards a new constitution and a new nation, or empanel a new constituent assembly for that purpose.

Restructuring under a new constitution can no longer wait. The current system is dying a natural death. The earlier we dump it the better.

VANGUARD