Interrogating interim government proposal

Chief Babalola wants the proposed interim government to be in place for six months to chart a new course for Nigeria through the drafting of a new constitution for the country. In his words, “The 1999 Constitution has made politics become not only very attractive but lucrative business in Nigeria today. What this means is that any election that holds under the present scenario will end up producing transactional and recycled leaders with no ability to turn things around”.

It is intriguing that to steer the country towards a new constitution that will help chart a fresh course for Nigeria and prevent the possible emergence in 2023 of “transactional and recycled leaders with no ability to turn things around”, Chief Babalola proposes an interim government drawn from among living former presidents and vice-presidents; some selected ministers and governors and delegates of prominent professional associations like the Nigerian Medical Association, Nigerian Bar Association and the Nigeria Labour Congress among others. But are these living former presidents, Vice Presidents, selected ministers and governors not part of the ‘transactional and recycled leaders’ that messed up our past and contributed immensely to the developmental dead-end in which the country finds itself today? What new ideas or initiatives do they have to offer as members of an interim government that they did not have the opportunity to demonstrate when they were in positions of power and authority?

I suppose that one member of this club that Chief Babalola most likely has in mind is his very good friend to whom he was a close confidant and adviser as Nigeria’s President for two terms between 1999 and 2007 – Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. The Owu chief had previously had the opportunity of serving as military Head of State when General Murtala Mohammed was assassinated in the Dimka coup of February, 1976. None of these opportunities were maximally exploited by Obasanjo to impact the country positively and lead her in a new direction capable of unleashing her trapped potentials and achieving accelerated transformation. What will be the criteria for choosing the ministers and governors that the chief suggests should be part of the interim government or selecting from the thousands of associational groups in the country, those from which delegates will be selected to form part of the interim government?

Since Chief Babalola’s proposal necessarily implies the abrogation of the extant 1999 Constitution, what would be the source of the authority of the interim government? Would this be the learned chief’s supposedly all wise ex cathedra pronouncements or, perhaps, the barrel of the gun?

Chief Babalola’s assertion that “The 1999 Constitution has made politics become not only very attractive, but lucrative business in Nigeria today” is contentious and disputable. The pecuniary attraction of politics and utilization of public office for illicit private accumulation of communal resources predates the 1999 constitution. A cursory perusal of the report of the Coker Commission of Inquiry into the finances of the Western Region or the Foster Sutton panel of inquiry into the relationship between top officials of the Eastern Region government and the African Continental Bank Limited, respectively, in the First Republic shows that corruption in public office in Nigeria was alive long before the coming into being of the 1999 Constitution. The presidential constitution of 1979 was adopted in the hope that it would help transcend the perceived weaknesses and failings of the parliamentary constitution of the First Republic that resulted in the collapse of democracy in January 1966. Yet, the same large scale corruption, opportunism, violence and electoral impunity that wrecked the First Republic resulted in the military coup of December 1983 that drew the curtains on the Second Republic.

In the words of Chief Babalola, “To save Nigeria from nose-diving into irretrievable bankruptcy and poverty, irreparable economic and political damage brought about by the 1999 Constitution and its beneficiaries, a new constitution is imperatively necessary before any election”. As we noted earlier, there is no ill or wrong that we are witnessing in this dispensation since 1999 that we did not experience under earlier constitutions. This suggests that the problem may not necessarily be with the constitution but also with the operators of the constitution. Will Chief Babalola import angelic beings from outer space to function under his magical new constitution that will supposedly have answers to all the country’s problems?

True, there are severe problems and limitations of the 1999 Constitution necessitating fundamental changes in several parts of the document. But these changes will ultimately be brought about through the workings of the political and democratic process no matter how slow, arduous and tedious this may be. The senior lawyer offers some suggestions on what should be contained in his proposed new constitution. These are, of course, only his own opinions, which are not sacrosanct or binding on any body.

The learned chief advocates a part-time legislature and non-executive president. “The new Constitution should also provide that there shall be no salary but sitting allowances only for lawmakers” he avers. It can also be plausibly argued that the domestic problems of the country have grown far more complex and the global context within which we exist much more intricate, unpredictable and easily combustible that a part time legislature as we had in the First Republic is no more feasible, advisable or desirable. There is absolutely nothing that suggests that a presidential system with full time legislators cannot be run far cheaper than we are doing at present if there is the political will to effect the necessary change.

Again, Chief Babalola argues that “any person that would become the President of Nigeria should not be older than 60 years of age and must have a university degree”. These are subjective and arbitrary assertions. Other persons can equally set arbitrary age limits of 40 or 70 years as requirement to be President. One of the most competent and productive elected leaders this country has produced was Alhaji Lateef Jakande as governor of Lagos State between 1979 and 1983. When he was a presidential aspirant on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) during the Babangida administration’s transition programme, his manifesto was one of the most thoroughly researched and well thought out. Jakande had no university education.

Even before Chief Babalola, there have been a number of no less eminent persons who have advocated the abrogation of the 1999 Constitution and the adoption of a new constitution that would solve all the country’s problems thus enabling us to start on an entirely fresh and novel political slate. Such propositions are naive, excessively idealistic, reckless and anarchical. They nudge us to start on a constitutional and political course of indeterminate direction and destination and unpredictable consequences. They assume that there is a shorthand path to democratic evolution and political maturity. As the CUPP rightly said of Chief Babalola’s proposal, “Democracy all over the world takes time to develop. We can’t suspend our democratic system like a military dictatorship. Except the National Assembly makes a law towards that direction, it is not the best way to go”.

In 1966 and 1983, respectively, military interventions interrupted and truncated Nigeria’s democratic practice in the first and second republics. The military incursions into the political space were spurred by the perceived shortcomings and failings of the civilian political actors with the military promising to eradicate such ills as corruption, ethnicity and political violence and restoring sanity to the political system. On both occasions, large numbers of Nigerians thronged the streets to welcome the new military political Messiahs looking forward to the promised new social, political and economic eldorado. However, the ills for which the soldiers ousted the politicians worsened under the latter’s watch and the country experienced an even worse fate. Most certainly, if we had allowed the unbroken practice of democracy in the first and second republics with all the flaws and failings of the politicians, we would have learnt the appropriate lessons, gradually improved on the democratic structures and processes and achieved a higher level of political development today.

We would be making a great mistake today to heed Chief Babalola’s call, abrogate the 1999 constitution, throw away both the valuable positive and negative experiences of the last 23 years and begin a new journey of constitutional engineering in uncharted waters. Not even over 230 years of democratic practice and the evolution of its sturdy political institutions could save America from the severe strains and stresses of the Donald Trump years. It is illusory to believe that any human constitution can be conceived that will bring an end to all problems and challenges in any given polity for all time.

Luckily, our electoral system has considerably evolved from what it was in 2003 and 2007, for instance, when concocted electoral figures could be announced for different constituencies from the INEC’s headquarters in Abuja. With the considerable continuous automation of the electoral processes through the deployment of advanced communication technology, the integrity of elections is better protected and the gap between announced electoral outcomes and the expressed will of voters at the polls significantly reduced. The more voters can express their will and elect candidates and parties of their choice in free, fair and credible elections, the greater the possibilities of needed structural and processual changes being achieved through the ballot box and the greater the incentive for elected governments to deliver on their electoral promises and genuinely seek to provide solutions to societal challenges such as insecurity, corruption and poverty among others.