Why Nigeria does not have a people's constitution

First Republic Aviation Minister, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi has accused the Northern Nigeria-controlled military establishment of denying the nation a people’s constitution.

The 90-year-old said that the military deliberately disorganised the nation and resisted anyone who tried to restore order.

According to him, this stems from the North’s belief that it has a perpetual right to rule Nigeria.

The elder statesman noted that the 1979 and 1999 constitutions could have been great documents but for the interference of the military which edited the documents to suit their purposes.

Amaechi disclosed this in an interview published by Vanguard earlier in the week.

He stated that the counter-coup of July 29, 1966 altered the course of Nigeria’s political history in unimaginable ways.

Amaechi said, “Yes, it changed Nigeria because since after the civil war, the military continued to rule Nigeria and they continued for 38 years and 38 years of military rule, apart from the two years of Obasanjo, was 36 years of military rule by Northern Nigeria military men. So for them they now think that it is their perpetual right to continue to rule Nigeria, and they are ready to resist anybody who wants to take it away from them. So they disorganized the country in such a way the constitution of the country is no longer the people’s constitution.

“I have always said it, but the bad people do not want to listen to me, that Nigeria is being run as an illegality; it is being run without a people’s constitution. The 1979 constitution was not a people’s constitution. Rotimi Williams Committee or Constituent Assembly wrote a draft constitution and forwarded it to the military. The military edited it, removed the things they wanted removed and inserted what they wanted. So it was not a constitution of the people of Nigeria.

“In 1999, Constituent Panel or Committee was held again and the military sat over it and edited, removed what they did not like and put what they wanted and continued to rule for a period of 38 years, they were in government and they were not doing what they were trained to do; they were doing what the military knows best, which is to fight, to destroy, to loot, to steal, to damage, to conquer, and to overrun, that is what the military particularly in Nigeria was trained to do and that is what they did in Nigeria.”