Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Chief Wole Olanipekun, has said that the Nigerian constitution needs “a total overhaul, a redrafting, a re-crafting and a total replacement, starting from the preamble to the definition schedule”.
The legal luminary appeared at his hometown, Ikere Ekiti, Ekiti State Saturday during the 2020 edition of the yearly Wole Olanipekun Scholarship Award ceremony where 67 secondary school students, 73 university undergraduates, three Law school students, and a doctoral student benefitted.
He noted that the recent #EndSARS protests showed Nigeria needed restructuring; adding that same would enable Nigerians to sit down and give ourselves a true, realistic and workable constitution after we might have earnestly put all our cards on the table by expressing all our wishes and aspirations.
Olanipekun underlined the preparedness of Nigerians “to drastically restructure this country, starting from the architectural layout of government and governance as wantonly displayed in the constitution foisted on us by the outgoing military government without any input by Nigerians”.
In continuity, he stated that, “Between now and 2023, we should be able to have a clean, practical, pragmatic and acceptable constitution which can jurisprudentially be described as grundnorm.
“All arms of government have to be completely redefined, resituated and restrategised for a new Nigeria which will bring about ‘unity and faith, peace and progress’.
“To achieve this, the National Assembly must also come to the reality that we need the application of the doctrine of necessity for them to jettison whatever powers are vested in them by the Section 9 of the constitution, etc. to segmentally amend it according to the whims and caprices to us, the people of Nigeria.
“This does not translate to termination or suspension of any of the governments at federal, state or local government levels; so that no one should be under any misgiving that one is advocating a displacement or any government,” Olanipekun added.
Nwada Ugochinyere Onyechere reporting, Obinwannem News
