The leader of the Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has said Nigeria needs to do away with the 1999 Constitution to put an end to most of the problems stunting the growth of the country.
Adebanjo, who featured as a guest Saturday on a live television programme, suggested that Nigeria would be put on the right path once the constitution which he claimed was imposed on the country by the military is changed.
He said Nigeria lost direction after independence when the military seized power and changed the constitution, adding that this is what is damaging the foundation of a stable future for the country.
“We lost the ball when the military seized control and changed the constitution. We’ve got it wrong since the military took over and we got it wrong when they went back to the barracks. They didn’t go back with their luggage of the constitution, which we didn’t know about.
“They imposed a constitution on us, which is the cause of the problem today. So, to go back to where we were, we should change this constitution; that’s the bottom line of our problem. All the problems we are having are based and embedded in the fraudulent constitution imposed on us by the military,” he said.
According to the elder statesman, the current 1999 Constitution makes the Nigerian government look like a unitary system of government, noting that a unitary constitution is inappropriate for a multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria.
“You cannot rule this country under a unitary system of government. We have this problem of disunity because of the unitary form of government the colonialists were using.
“What I am saying is that the problem we are having in this country today, whether economic, political, or cultural, it’s based on the way we are running the country under a wrong constitution that was not embedded when we got our independence,” Adebanjo said.
Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
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