THE national soap opera, otherwise known as Constitution review, is about starting again. It has been on and off since 1999 when this ongoing democratic dispensation began. The stage and script remain constant; the variation is in the cast list and that is because the April general elections succeeded in recruiting new characters for the show.It is pretty early to say if the new episode will, as in past versions, encode all the elements of entertainment. Perhaps, the tempo is low for now because no definite budget has been cut out for the new committees of the Senate and House of Representatives constituted to look into the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and advise on areas of amendment. By the time the money drops, activities will pick and the high drama may climb rapidly to climax.About N1 billion was appropriated for the last set of people that merely attempted to do the job. Then, the Naira was about 130 to the US dollar and since most things in Nigeria are denominated in dollar ' and with a weakened Naira against the dollar ' there is good reason to increase the budget by a handsome percentage for the current show.The last set of people that worked on this project spent greater time debating how accruing privileges should be allocated between the Senate and House of Reps members of the committee. The Reps had argued that, in the matter of reviewing the 1999 Constitution, that there was no Upper and Lower Chamber and that both the Senate and the House would share the floor equally.Thus, it became extremely difficult to settle even the preliminary issue of appointing a chairman for the joint committee. They wanted the N1 billion budget shared 50:50 so that each side could stage its own show. They started and ended more as separate bodies than a joint committee of the National Assembly.Expectedly, their report card was not too impressive. More or less, they narrowed down the all-important task of injecting federalism into the highly nebulous 1999 Constitution to mainly amendment of the electoral rules, such as Section 135(2), which now stipulates that in the event of a re-run election, the time spent in office before the election was annulled, shall be taken into account, and Section 81, which grants the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) financial autonomy.There was, however, some effort at bridging that disturbing lacuna in the Constitution, which the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's sickness so glaringly underscored. The incapacitation of the former president for about 90 days had thrown up the issue of succession, which was not adequately captured in the Constitution and the National Assembly had had to introduce a strange 'Doctrine of Necessity' into the legislative business to create a way forward.Ordinarily, Section 145 confers on the vice president, the power to act on behalf of the president whenever the latter transmits a written declaration to the leadership of the National Assembly that he is proceeding on vacation or is otherwise not able to discharge the functions of his office. Similarly, Section 190 confers equal power on the deputy governor if the governor is constrained by the same circumstances.However, the amendment provides that should the president or governor fail to transmit a written notice in 21 days, the vice president or deputy governor will be empowered to act as president or governor by a simple majority of the Senate and House of Reps in the case of the president and the State House of Assembly in the case of the governor.ALL the same, Nigerians should actually thank God for little mercies. Previous attempts, though most elaborate, failed completely to yield good results. It had started in earnest in 2001, just two years into the life of this republic, when former President Olusegun Obasanjo inaugurated the Presidential Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution with fanfare.Headed by Mallam Yusuf Mamman, who submitted a report that never came to the open, the only public document regarding that committee was, perhaps, the typed speech that Obasanjo read on its inauguration day.In 2005, a full-scale show was staged in Abuja to further heighten expectations. Justice Niki Tobi was seconded from the Supreme Court to manage the show. It was called the National Political Reform Conference (National Confab) and was promoted as something that would approximate the Sovereign National Conference (SNC) Nigerians had yearned and still yearning for.In the ensuing euphoria, a good number of people, especially governors from the South-South geopolitical zone, saw in the scheme a Messiah instead of an unpredictable Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo. They took the conference too seriously and invested good time, effort and treasure in anticipation of a nice deal.For instance, former Governor of Delta State, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, created a support team that researched deeply into the subject matter and raked up needed literature, which the state's delegates used to sharpen their presentations on all issues on the floor of the conference.In the end, however, Nigerians got what they did not bargain for. As it turned out, the celebrated National Confab was only a smoke screen to push Obasanjo's tenure elongation agenda. About the same time, former Deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu, got added responsibility as head of a review panel that toured the six geopolitical zones purportedly collating and aggregating national opinions on the amendment of the 1999 Constitution.The reports of the Confab and the Mantu panel highlighted over 200 clauses for amendment, including that which sought to make Obasanjo something close to a life-president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It was a sore point that got the entire enterprise derailed.The parliamentary debates to consider all the amendment clauses started and ended with only the clause on tenure extension. Thus, like a bad midwife, the National Assembly threw away the baby along with the bath water and the matter was closed to be re-opened by the late President Yar'Adua.Since the review of the 1999 Constitution has become a presidential past-time, there is good cause for the incumbent, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, to start his own version. Accordingly, committees of the Senate and House of Reps have been floated to continue the debate from where Yar'Adua ended it.Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who, in the same capacity, headed the Senate Committee on the matter under President Yar'Adua, is back on the saddle for the Upper House while, Emeka Ihedioha, the new Deputy Speaker, is in for the Lower House, replacing Usman Bayero Nafada who, as Deputy Speaker then, starred alongside Ekweremadu in the last episode of the Constitution Review soap opera.Just how much does it cost, in time and money, to review a Constitution' The Nigerian experiment has taken more than 12 years and billions of Naira without anything concrete on the table. Like the Olympics, the exercise has established for itself a standard frequency of four yearly. Yet, the hope is not there that the Goodluck attempt will come out with something enduring enough to discourage further adventure in another four years.And this is because those assigned to do the job ' the Distinguished and the Honourables ' are horribly dishonest. They are beating about the bush in a task as straight forward as aligning the 1999 Constitution with the basic principles of federalism.The Constitution of the United States of America has existed for 224 years and has had only 27 amendments since it was adopted on September 17, 1787. Even at that, the changes so far made had had little to do with the fundamental framework of the Charter, which, from the very beginning, guaranteed a federal structure.On the other hand, the 1999 Nigerian Constitution hardly qualifies for a working document because it is completely silent on that which it purportedly sets out to proclaim ' the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And so, the issue is not about fine-tuning the subsisting Constitution. It is about creating first, the fundamentals of a Federal Constitution and thereafter, cosmetologists, such as the current breed of legislators, can be invited to apply make-ups to add beauty.Anything less will surely extend the lifespan of this uninspiring soap opera called Constitution Review.
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