A CYNIC’S GUIDE TO CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

“Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, order more tunnels.” John Quinton. Technically, we could claim to be at another starting point in terms of amending the Nigerian Constitution. Our constitution amendment attempts have been like races. There have been many starting points and false starts in the past. A few starts in the past were not concluded, and in many of the races started, you couldn’t tell who were genuine competitors, and who joined the race midway. Distances were not made clear to competitors in the past, and often umpires joined the races. On the whole we had extremely expensive build-ups to amending the constitution, but they have all yielded very little. There are many reasons for this, and for those who need to understand the reasons why the Nigerian constitution has been notoriously difficult to amend, a cynic’s guide may be useful. i. The exercise involves an isolated few leading an unfortunate multitude. Amending the constitution requires collaboration between the President and the federal and state legislatures. These are supposed to be institutions in which people who are genuinely elected exercise mandates from the electorate, and exercise such mandates only in the interests of the people. To do this, they need to be accessible, accountable and sensitive to the needs of their constituencies. Positions they will adopt will therefore need to be informed by what is best for their constituencies. In Nigeria, however, elected people tend to develop lives of their own, once they receive certificates of return from INEC, or hear the final word from the judiciary on prolonged litigations around their elections. They would have paid huge amounts to their constituents, election and security officials and sundry opinion leaders to secure victories, so they will treat mandates as commodities fully paid for. Most positions they will adopt on amendment are likely to be informed by what it will pay them, either in material terms, or some gratification related to their electoral fortunes. Generally, strong interests behind amendments tend to have very narrow objectives, and in most instances they want to maintain the status quo, or prevent changes which will bestow advantages elsewhere. Nothing of substance, therefore, gets amended, which is fine so long as a huge amount is expended in the process. ii. The dice is always loaded. Constitutional amendments are mostly about tinkering with the manner power is distributed or utilized. No amendment is undertaken purely on its merit, and issues about substance and timing are often informed by very powerful and calculating interests. If you want to amend the number of terms an elected executive can serve, you propose an amendment to that effect along with about 100 other amendments. When you want tenure elongation, you get a committee to identify about 150 areas of the constitution that need amending. If you want no substantial change, you include one or two proposed amendments that will foul up the whole exercise, so every one of the proposals will be thrown out. Self-serving amendments are difficult to push through, so they are placed in the same basket with genuinely-popular issues such as Local/State Government relations. They either float together or sink together. iii. Its mostly about money. Since 1999, every legislature had budgeted huge amounts for constitutional amendments. Countless hearings and expensive junketing have been held. Every type of consultation has been made, such that President Jonathan merely set up a committee under former Chief Justice Belgore to isolate those areas where we still argue over in our constitution. The national assembly (again) nonetheless set up its own expensive machinery. States will also set up committees to make inputs into the review exercise. Everyone is behaving as if we are starting this business for the first time. So we will waste billions to do everything else except consult the real interests, who are the people. If nothing comes out of the exercise, we will blame no one. It is just the way our democratic system works. iv. Its all about incumbents. The review will be about what people who wield power today want, not about our experiences with the running of the constitution in the past, and not about the future. The President will want a review of the term of elected persons in office, so that they stay longer. Powerful interests in the southwest want a radical restructuring of the federal structure to give greater fiscal and other forms of autonomy to (possibly bigger) federating units. The southeast wants to have additional states and provisions which enforce the rights of citizens irrespective of their ethno-cultural and geographical locations. The south-south would want to retain or increase its take-home-pay on revenues derived from petroleum and gas. The north will have a basket of demands, most of which will either cancel each other out, or pitch it against itself and the rest of the nation. Governors would want to maintain their stranglehold on Local Governments. Some powerful interests will support state police; others will oppose it. The PDP will have its own shopping list. Legislators will have one eye on the way their Governors want the exercise to go (or not go), and another on their parties. Federal legislators will enjoy a little more autonomy, but will be constrained by pressure from Presidency, their parties and bread-and-butter politics. State legislators will roll over wherever and whenever the Governors want them to. It will not be about improving the electoral process, reducing cost of governance or official impunity, curtailing corruption or empowering the citizenry to hold leaders accountable. v. It is a gimmick While it goes on, the processes for amending the constitution will hold our attention with live transmissions. Most Nigerians who have no T.V sets or power will be shut out. It will divert attention from the scandalous exposé around the petroleum and gas sector; the pension scam, or the impending tsunami which Steve Oransaye’s Committee is about to unleash on the nation. It will divert attention from the spectacular failure to deal with Boko Haram, with frightening crime levels in the southeast, with threats of re-emergence of criminality in the name of militancy in the Niger Delta; and with the unwillingness to deal decisively with endemic failure to organize crisis – free elections in this country. vi. No penalties for failure. If the constitutional amendment exercise fails to amend anything of value, it will not be anyone’s fault. In a year or two, or during President Jonathan’s (third, second, whatever) term, a new round of attempts to amend the constitution will commence again. We will spend more billions, and if that does not produce any result, no one needs to be blamed. The Nigerian constitution is almost impossible to amend because it works for some powerful interests the way it is. Why should they change it?