New constitution requirement for national development

The majority of Nigerians agree that the 1999 Constitution should be discarded and a new one written to accommodate the political, cultural, and economic realities in the country. As a country, we cannot get it right, politically, and achieve economic and technological development when our country’s administration is based on a military contraption called the 1999 Constitution.

As we make efforts to make Nigeria better, a new constitution should be written to address our country’s multifarious problems. One of those problems is the citizens’ right to contest for elective positions in the areas where they are domiciled. For example, an Igbo man, who was born and bred in Kano, and does his business there, should be eminently qualified to contest for elective posts in Kano.

For our country to move forward, matters regarding the National Assembly should be tackled holistically by the constitution. Must we completely copy the presidential system of government without adapting it to suit our country’s cultural peculiarities? Left for me, I prefer a unicameral legislature to a bicameral legislature to reduce the cost of governance in Nigeria. It is quite disturbing that federal lawmakers receive humongous pay for doing little. The wages they receive are a huge drain on our finances. Reducing lawmakers’ wages will make the National Assembly less attractive and reduce the cost of governance in Nigeria. Today, both the green and red chambers of the National Assembly have become a stamping ground for superannuated former state governors.

Another matter hindering our country’s development is election litigation. It will be in our national interest if it is enshrined in our constitution that all post-election litigations should be concluded before state governors and the President are sworn in. Concluding electoral litigations before they are sworn in will prevent them from being distracted while they are leading the people.

It is commonplace in our country for a governor who came into office via judicial means to discontinue the programmes of his predecessor in office. And it is not unlikely that he will annul all the political appointments made by his predecessor. These disruptions in the leadership of a state will hinder the economic, technological, and political growth of the state. Another vexatious matter that has always cropped up during national discourse is the creation of more states. However, the fact is that most states in the country are not economically viable. They depend on the centre for sustenance as they are always financially insolvent.

Therefore creating more states in Nigeria will bring about the niggling problems of boundary demarcation and sharing of jointly owned assets. The sharing of jointly owned assets and boundary demarcation can breed acrimony between the people of the two states, which may result in violence and bloodshed. So why should new states be created at this time when the bond of our unity is tenuous and fragile, and when most of the states in Nigeria are economically unviable and financially insolvent?

The right thing to do now is to create more local government areas in Nigeria to address the problem of the imbalance of local government areas in the country. The comparisons made between Lagos and Kano states show that Lagos State was shortchanged in the creation of local government areas. This necessitated the creation of more local government development areas in Lagos State by Bola Tinubu when he was the governor of the state.

More local government areas should be created to correct the imbalances in the number of local government areas in the country to bring government nearer to the people at the grassroots. Efficient and autonomous local government areas in Nigeria will be a fillip to the nation’s rapid development.

• Chiedu Okoye can be reached via 08062220654