1999 Constitution not Nigeria’s problem but leadership- Sule Lamido
Kunle Sanni
A former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, has said that Nigeria’s problems are not a result of its constitution but leadership.
He made the comment In response to a recent request from The Patriots, a group of distinguished citizens who met with President Bola Tinubu and advocated for a new constitution, Lamido made this statement.
The group’s leader, Emeka Anyaoku, a former Commonwealth secretary-general, had encouraged the president to call a constituent assembly so that a people-centered constitution could be draughted for the nation.
Lamido stated that human mistake, not innate problems in the 1999 Constitution, is to blame for the implementation’s shortcomings in an interview with THISDAY on Sunday.
“If you see smoke from the chimney and it is polluting the entire environment, and it is very black and you are choking from the smoke, what you have to do is to find out where the smoke is coming out from,” the former governor said.
He added “Don’t blame the chimney; calm down and find out the source of the smoke. Find out the problem and deal with it. The symptoms are only a manifestation of something that has gone wrong. Why do you blame the constitution?
“The constitution does not reason like human beings. It cannot contain every solution to your problems. It is supposed to guide you and not solve your problems. The people who are supposed to operate and implement the constitution are Nigerians. Now tell me who is doing the right thing in Nigeria: From the motor parks to the schools to the banks.
“So why are we running away from our own shadow? How many constitutions do we need to have before we get it right? After any problem, we shout ‘amend the constitution.’ How many new constitutions do we need to have?
“So no matter what you write as a constitution, so long as the operation is subverted, it can’t work. Look at the country, people are fighting each other: in the south-east, south-west, south-south, north-east, north-west. Clans are fighting each other; anywhere you go, people are fighting each other. Is it the constitution or because of the operators?
“It is not the constitution; it is the operation of the constitution. There is no perfect human being or perfect constitution anywhere in the world but we the operators”.
