Akin, the hero in Cyprian Ekwensi’s novella The Drummer Boy is a skillful drummer with a silky voice. People like his drumming and music but deep down the boy is sulking. He is very unhappy. My story is about drummer boys but ones of a different kind. They don’t quite beat the drum and don’t sing either. They are political drummers, deafening us with their “Let’s re-structure Nigeria” loud lobby. Like Ekwensi’s Akin, they are unhappy with the present political order. What is strange about them is they don’t want a new political system but a return to the one we had in 1960-1966. Why? They say because the present order is an imposition by the military and it favours the North a greater deal than the rest of the country.
They are wrong. The fallaciousness of their argument is all too obvious to everybody but themselves. Alkasum Abba, a historian and university teacher, sliced through it like a knife through a wedding cake. He did so in a memorial lecture he delivered in 2021 in memory of a late colleague. I take the liberty here to quote him extensively: “The first proposition I want us to look at is titled: Proposals for Restructuring of Nigeria Using the 1963 Constitution as a Template. This document dated 2nd February was presented to the National Assembly on 9th February 2021, by an organization calling itself Eminent Elders Forum. The three officials of the organization are: Senator Ibrahim Mantu, Chairman; Dr. Akin Fapohunda, Secretary and Professor Echefuna. R. G. Onyebeadi, Convener. Although self appointed, this is one of the few organizations that is not parochially constituted and recognized that restructuring is a Constitutional issue, which by law can only be handled by the National Assembly. However I consider their proposal to return Nigeria to Parliamentary System and specifically the 1963 Constitution as based on ignorance.
“In the first place, one may ask, why do we return to a system, which failed? There is an impression that our politicians did not have enough experience and that they practiced this system for just 5 years before the military removed them in 1966. The truth of the matter is that the politicians of the First Republic have been in Parliament, both in Lagos and at their Regions, for about TWENTY YEARS before they were removed by the military, that is, from 1947 to 1966.
“Secondly, the problem of the First Republic is not just the system of Government but the limitation of the Constitution and the parochial nature of the politics. It has to be recognized that the Parliamentary system Nigeria operated in the period 1947-1966 was built on the faulty foundations laid by the Richards Constitution. It had been the most undemocratic Constitution Nigeria ever had because it was crafted by the Governor of Nigeria, Sir Arthur Richards and his three Chief Commissioners of the Northern, Eastern and Western Regions, without consulting anybody in Nigeria. This document was sent to the House of Commons for approval before it was placed before the Legislative Council in Lagos for endorsement. All subsequent Constitutions, 1950-1963, were merely the Richards Constitution of 1947 amended. The problem of the Constitution was not just how it was produced but its fundamental principles are STILL the bane of Nigerian politics.
“It was this Constitution that introduced, consolidated and legitimized regionalism in Nigerian politics and the British did this deliberately to undermine the emergence of a pan-Nigerian political movement to fasten the process of the achievement of independence with a modicum of unity and national cohesion. The NCNC was the only political party that saw through this political charade, fought against it but was defeated by a combination of the British, the Action Group and the Northern People’s Congress politicians. It was called tripod politics, that is two regions against one, which we are still practicing. Thirdly, the attempt to reject the 1999 Constitution because it was drafted under the guidance of the Military Government is also based on ignorance. It must be pointed out that every departing authority has left its footprints on Nigerian politics. For in the process of reviewing Nigerian Constitutions, under the British from 1953-1959, where all the conferences were held in London, the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs chaired all the meetings and ruled where the parties were not able to agree. For example in the 1953 Constitutional Conference, it was the Secretary of State, The Right Hon. Alan Lennor-Boyd who ruled that Lagos be excised from Western Region and be made a Federal Territory. The British Government organized the conferences in London with the purpose of detaching Nigerian politicians from their constituencies and be in a position to organize how to influence them. If you read the papers of Sir K. P. Maddocks in Rhodes House Library Oxford, you can understand my point.
“In fact, the British deliberately cultivated regional identities against Nigerian identity to further consolidate the Regions as political entities since the enactment of the Richards’ Constitution, by ensuring that colonial officers were not transferred across the Regions, which made them also become emotionally attached to the Regions where they work. From 1954 onwards, the politicians started to consolidate the Regions by consciously building identities around their Region in relation to the other Regions and even fought over location of Federal projects, on the basis of Region.
Fourthly, the 1979 Constitution and its current 1999 version as amended is most suited to creating national unity and integration than the Richards’ Constitution of 1946 as amended in 1963. Perhaps the most important consideration is that the President of Nigeria is directly elected by the people. It is not just enough for a candidate to get majority vote but he or she should also secure one-quarter of the votes in two-thirds of States; it is a very important process in producing an acceptable political leader for the country. This is in contrast to the Parliamentary system where the Prime Minister has a very limited constituency and that it is the members of Parliament from the majority party that select the leader of the Government for the country. It may interest you to know that both the Sardauna and Tafawa Balewa contested election only once in their political career, that was the 1951 Regional election. In all subsequent elections, 1954, 1956, 1959, 1961 and 1964/65 they were returned as unopposed! I am, therefore, amazed that in the year 2021 this country is still filled with parochial intellectuals, journalists, community leaders and even politicians, all conducting themselves in the way that Sir Richards set out for them to behave in his 1946 Constitution. This is one of the reasons why they don’t like the 1979 Constitution, as amended. A typical example is the way our current political leaders conduct themselves on Regional political platforms like the politicians of the First Republic, with their Northern Governors’ Forum, Southern Governors’ Forum, etc…”
