Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Afe Babalola, has challenged Nigerians to move away from the tradition of recycling those he described as ” the same failed leaders” for meaningful development to be recorded in the country.
He said that a new constitution should be put in place ahead of the general elections in 2023 to achieve this.
According to him: “It is my considered view that a new constitution must be in place before the next election, otherwise we will be recycling the same failed leaders that have brought Nigeria to where it is today.”
He said that the 1999 Constitution was the major problem of the nation.
Babalola made the remarks on Monday in his goodwill message as the special guest of honour at the Fifth Ife Institute of Advanced Studies, Summer Institute Programme.
Read him further: “I have said it over and again that the problem with Nigeria is the 1999 Constitution foisted on us by the military when it wanted to exit the reins of governance in 1999, instead of reverting to the 1963 constitution which Nigeria’s founding fathers bequeathed to us.”
“After all, the military merely suspended the 1963 constitution when it seized power on January 15, 1996, it did not abolish it,” the senior advocate, who founded the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, added.
He said it was lamentable that instead of bringing back the 1963 Constitution which was suspended, the military went to America to import “the presidential system of government to install an all-powerful President and weakened the constituent regions (now states)”.
▪︎Transformational, not transactional leaders
The “all-powerful President”, he stated, wielded so much power to the extent that when the National Assembly invited him on security matters, he ignored the wish of the representatives of the people by refusing to honour the invitation.
Babalola stated that the present Constitution allowed Nigeria to run the most expensive democracy in the world, with government functionaries earning exorbitant salaries and allowances in a country riddled with unemployment, poverty, and insecurity, among other challenges.
He also stated that the constitution bred those he described as transactional leaders rather than transformational leaders.
Proferring a solution, he tasked those who wished Nigeria to remain an indivisible entity to ensure the 1999 constitution was replaced with a truly-federal constitution and a parliamentary system of government.
Read him again: “The proposed constitution will discourage politics from being the most lucrative business in Nigeria; the constitution must make provision for independent candidates to contest and win elections.
“The constitution must prevent transactional businessmen from contesting elections.”
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