Former governor of Osun state, Chief Bisi Akande on Friday disclosed that Nigeria does not have a constitution that captures the diversity of ethnicity and religion.
In an explosive interview with Laolu Akande, host of Inside Sources on Channels TV, Chief Akande explained that past leadership have failed to address the problems Nigeria’s constitution pose.
Speaking on Nigeria’s constitution as of today, Akande told Inside Sources that, “We have no constitution now. What we have is the understanding. We have now is that the federal government takes a decision and the rest of us queue behind it, that is why you see a market woman whose stall has been blown away by the wind, say we voted for the president (Tinubu), come and see flood (in our market) but that is a local government job and should be directed by the state governor, it has nothing to do with the federal government but because the constitution is not well defined, or simply defined see how long it takes, it is too long. All we need to do is look at the schedule and say the federal government, this is your job, the state this is your job but the way it is coined and written is too difficult and too complicated for the Nigerian people.
Asked if Nigeria was headed in the right direction, the elder statesman said, “Nigeria has been having a stunted growth and today the sources of its nutrition is in deficit. The nutrition for a good polity are infrastructure and human capacity, both we seem not to have in the right direction. For that reason, I don’t see Nigeria in the right direction to growth but with the recent attempt to change the situation, let’s hope Nigeria will be strong enough to bear the change.”
Akande, a former acting national chairman of the All Progressives Congress identified education as the bane for Nigeria’s development. “It is a long story. The differences in the approach to education had created a sort of misunderstanding among leadership and the people of the country, while some believe in universal education some believe in a different way of looking at it. Some feel that everybody should be educated but some feel it is unnecessary that only a few should be educated and then we have one Nigeria where some are educated universally, some are deeply educated and some are not educated, so we cannot understand ourselves, so we need to look at our education properly to be able to streamline the goal,” Akande said.
Speaking to how religion and ethnicity could be weaponsied to aid Nigeria’s growth and development, he said, “Clearly, religion and ethnicity play a major role in our politics. In your opinion, do you think that political elites have used religion and ethnicity in the right way?
Akande added “The two factors are useful elements in community development but it depends on the user. With the right kind of constitution which we don’t have, religion and ethnicity can complement the efforts of the community makers, you can call them politician or statesmen, whoever wants Nigeria to go forward can use religion and ethnicity to promote the understanding of the community towards a common goal but the way the constitution is now, we need a true federal constitution.
“The federal system is a very difficult type of government but it is a must constitution for diversity. You cannot use a unitary government among diverse ethnic communities. You don’t need a federal government for a one ethnic nationality but in a multi-ethnic nationality like Nigeria, you need a true federal constitution to make it work well but because the leaders don’t want to be educated about what leadership really means. A leader must understand his people and you have to be very educated about the geography of the placement of your people, about the history of your people, about the sociological setting of your people and about the variance in culture, until you are able to get, you can not be a good leader. That is why a true federal constitution is what we need to solve the problem of diversity,” Akande said.
