Dr Augustine Ikenga- Metu, a retired Deputy Director in the Ministry of Housing, has called for the adoption of the 1960 independence constitution to ensure true federalism in the country.
?Ikenga-Metu made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.
“Personally, I feel we should revisit the independence federal Republic of Nigeria Constitution of 1960. We have options of which constitution to adopt. One is a true federal constitution, two, the one we are practicing now, a unitary, military federal republic of Nigeria constitution.
“A third is a confederation which was proposed sometime before. Confederation was the agreement reached in Abori in 1966, that is what they call Abori-accord. That the country should be a confederation, that is each constituent part should be completely independent of the centre, they should simply have common services, it was rejected.’’
Ikenga-Metu said both the 1966 and 1999 constitution were “defective documents that have contributed to the underdevelopment of the country”.
“Calling conferences and all that to amend a defective constitution that is the? constitution we are? using since 1966, up till date which in practice, is unitary but in name is federal.
“So, we are spending money to review a constitution that we know is not suitable for Nigeria for use by Nigerians. If we rule out what we call a confederation, unitary form of government, what we have is a federal constitution and that already is a document we have and we don’t need to go anywhere to look for it. It is in our archives, it is our constitution.’’
?He said that the three regions represented in independence constitution could be extended to six geo political zones as in witnessed in the country presently.
?This, he maintained, would tackle the issue of minority, which he said, had led to the “creation of 36 unviable states” in the country.
?“Instead of four regions, we can have six zones as in the 1999 constitution, as approved at the constitution amendment during the Abacha era.
“The only amendment we can do to the 1966 constitution is to increase the number of regions or zones to accommodate the minorities.”
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