With about a year to the commencement of Nigeria’s general election in 2023, Ayo Adebanjo, leader of Afenifere, pan Yoruba socio-political organisation, has said he would not support the conduct of any election in the country until the current 1999 constitution was changed.
Speaking in a brief chat with BusinessDay Sunday, the elder statesman said the current constitution was defective and needed to be changed and not amended for the country to progress.
“I don’t believe in any election next year in Nigeria, I don’t believe in any election with this constitution, I have said the constitution needs to be changed”, Adebanjo said.
It is not the first time the elder statesman had categorically kicked against holding the 2023 general elections without the drafting of a new constitution for the country.
Speaking recently, Adebanjo had equally described the 1999 constitution as the problem of Nigeria, adding that the 1999 Constitution must be changed for Nigeria to begin to move in the direction of peace and development.
In recent years experts, political and ethnic leaders mostly from Southern Nigeria have been critical of the 1999 constitution, they say the constitution imposed on the country by the military favors a section of the country against the other.
While rejecting the attempt to amend the 1999 constitution they said the current Nigeria’s constitution is a problem and the major obstacle to the nation’s unity, stability, and progress.
Amendment of the 1999 constitution has become controversial in recent years, successive lawmakers in the National Assembly spent billions of naira in efforts to review the 1999 constitution, but such exercises were never successful.
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Similarly, last year in May, both chambers of the National Assembly had separately held public hearings across the six geopolitical zones of the country to collect inputs from various stakeholders to articulate into the review of the constitution.
The Senate Ad-hoc committee on constitution review, headed by the deputy president of the Senate, Ovie Omo-Agege, and that of the House of Representatives, headed by Deputy Speaker Idris Wase, had held public hearings in 12 cities, two each from the six geopolitical zones.
Shortly after the committees concluded the public hearing in May 2021, a senator who was a member of the committee said the coalition of the aggregate views at the zonal hearings would be put together into a draft bill for presentation to the federal lawmakers by July 2021.
Among the key areas been considered includes; gender equality for women and girls; federal structure and power devolution; local government and its autonomy; public revenue; fiscal federalism and revenue allocation; Nigerian police and Nigerian security architecture; comprehensive judicial reforms; electoral reforms, socio-economic and cultural rights as contained in chapter 2 of the constitution.
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