Comrade Moshood Erubami is chairman of the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of civil society organisations that keeps a close watch on democracy. In a chat withALABI WILLIAMS, he expresses doubts that Jonathan will deliver an improved aConstitution before 2015.WHAT is your appraisal of what President Jonathan has listed as outstanding constitutional issues for a committee to look into'In thelight of prevailing circumstances, the issues for constitutional reform are leaving the substance to chase shadow. In the right sense, the needed reforms in the country are beyondthe capacity of an already captured president, one whose programme of transformation has been hijacked by certain political hawks, and one who sees constructive reforms as an attempt at committing class suicide.The promise of the president to institutionalise democracy through credible election has been ambushed halfway to its full implementation. Today, almost eight months in office, the president cannot use his given legitimacy to reorder the society to serve the good of the people.Upon the president's assumption of office,the Nigerian people expected that the he would represent their interests and become the true expression of the mandate given to him for a better life and life more abundant.Instead, the president has submitted to pressure of the evil few that have always hijacked the thought processes of past leaders and made a detour to join the path of underdevelopment.There is the planned withdrawalof oil subsidy, the planned hike in the prices of electricity bill, the planned hike in the cost of vehicle number plate, vehicle particulars, and driver's license from the FRSC and the restoration oftoll gates.The matter of amending the Constitution is in the capacity of the president and his team to accept such reports for implementation. There are deluge of past recommendations, which were not implemented.Nothing really has changed to convince us that the old order can yield way for the new. If anything, the president needs to go for a holistic restructuring of the country through the outright rewriting of the1999 Constitution, using the popular will of the people as its authority.Setting up a new committee is a good step in the interim, but a shadow-chasing event in the longer term. This is because the outstanding issues, already highlighted, are fundamental enough to go the whole hug, to rewrite the old Constitution.The highlighted issues are part of the fundamental national questions, which have been defying right answers from past leaders. There is no doubt that they are priority issues of national importance, but our suspicion is the possibility of usingthese attractive issues to exchange for others, in the pursuit personal agenda.The issue of national security, peoples' charter and social obligations, environment and natural resources, local government reforms and the economy; indeed, the need to strengthen the anti-corruption revolution, the need to abrogate state and local government joint account system are issues of urgent national importance and of highest priority. But theseneed to be insulated from political consideration.Apart from the president's areas of concern, what other issues would you want the committee to address'If government will have the courage to implement the recommendations of the committee, other important areas include that of removing the appointment of the INEC chair from the hand of the president and subjectingsuch appointment toa multi-stakeholders' consideration, especially in the light of the recent development in the Judiciary.The issues of unbundling of the INEC, creation of a new agency for the voter and civic education of the citizenry and establishment of the election crimes commission; the creation of a delineation commission and making the assumption of office subject to final determination of petitions against declared winners before certificate of return is issued are important issues the committee must look into. Of course, independent candidacy in our electoral system is long overdue.GIVEN the experience of the Justice Uwais-led Electoral Reform Committee, which could not achieve much because politicians abandoned its recommendations, is setting up another committee the way out of age-long constitutional issues'The experience of the rejection of the Uwais report and recommendations by the Sixth National Assembly was ostensibly bile in the dish and a backward movement. Such experience underscores thecurrent doubts in the minds that the setting up of the new committee for constitutional amendment might become a ruse after all.Definitely, setting up another committee is not the way out of age-long constitutional issues. What we need is the re-enactment of the political will to do justice and move the country forward. The way to remove thesetbacks, which have remained obstacles to a sustainable human development, is through a new peoples' constitutional.Is there hope that President Jonathan will deliver critical constitutional reforms before 2015'It will be hard to trust that President Jonathan can deliver a Peoples Constitution before 2015 because of the present distractions and self-imposed challenges his administration is facing. This is due largely to his alignment with the same forces of destruction that had misdirected past failed governments to jettison the interest of the people.How many of the villagers in Balyesa and from the remote constituencies in the South-South have benefitted from this government' In the light of the planned harsh economic programmes lined up against them, how many of the Easterners, who voted massively for thepresident, will benefit before 2015 from the dividends of democracy' Indeed, what percentage of the unemployed hands in Nigeria will be gainfully employed before the president completes his term in office'Therefore, delivering on critical constitutionalissues is not in the best interest of the crop of people in power right now. The delivery of criticalconstitutional reforms will instead displace and replace these elements and make government a no-go area for them.However, this is not to shun the committee when it eventually commences its assignment; we would engage it, cooperate with it and do the needful to make it succeed like we did with the Uwais-led committee. Who knows, a good thing might come out of Babylon!Ourattitude is to use our constructive engagementskills to reiterate our position and vindicate our fears if it turns out otherwise.It will be in the best interest of this country if the president is ableto deliver. But to do this, he needs to change the gods he is presently serving and adopt to serve the God of humanity; to take governance to a transformative level where citizens will be equal before the laws, where the laws will rule and human rights will be promoted, protected and defended.President Jonathan should seize the initiative right away, to write his name in the golden book of history, as the bestpresident Nigeria ever had.The opportunities to do this abound, he only needs to harness them to make him great, and the nation stronger and powerful.
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