A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or
established precedents according to which a state or other organization is
governed. These rules together make up, i.e constitute, what the entity is. When
these principles are written into a single collection or set of legal
documents, those documents may be said to comprise a written constitution.
Constitution concern different levels of organizations
from sovereign state to companies and unincorporated association. A treaty
which established an international organization is also its constitution, in
that it would define how that organization is constituted. Within states,
whether sovereign or federated, a constitution defines the principles upon
which the state is based, the procedure in which laws are made by whom, some
constitution, especially written constitutions, also act as limiters of state
power, by establishing lines which a state’s rulers cannot cross, such as
fundamental rights.
The first
republic was the republican government of Nigeria between 1963 and 1966,
governed by the first republic constitution.
Features
of the 1963 constitution
Both the 1960 (independence) constitution and the 1963
(Republic constitution were the same). The only difference were the provision
for ceremonial President (1963) in place of the queen of England (1960) and the
judicial appeals system which terminated with the supreme court (1963) rather
than the judicial committee of the British privy council (1960).
THE 1963 REPUBLIC CONSTITUTION OF
NIGERIA
This was the first indigenous constitution of Nigeria.
It had been noted earlier that Nigeria has never had a constitution. The long
title alone defeats the very definition of a constitution. You do not enact a
constitution by an Act of parliament or a Decree. It is the other way round. It
is a constitution whether written or unwritten, that creates the basis of the
political existence of the senate or fashions the political, social and
economic institutions and related structures necessary for maintenance of an
orderly society. It is a Constitution that creates the parliament of any
nation, alongside other arms of government and defines the limit of its powers.
A Constitution to worth the name, must be made by the people in a political or
constitutional convention or conference and must thereafter ratify, adopt or
even reject the draft where necessary. A constitution charter remains a draft
until ratified by the people for whom it was designed vide a referendum or some
other positive popular act showing adoption or ratification. A constitution
properly so-called can therefore not be decreed into existence no matter the
degree of the military force which any military junta wields. In the same vein,
no parliament can enact into law a constitution that is supposed to have
created it in the first place. That enactment is anything but a constitution.
Therefore, all the order-in-council of the British parliament purporting to enact constitutions for Nigeria
were theatricals bordering on absurdity. The 1963 republican constitution which
the Nigeria parliament purpoted to enact in 1963 following the earlier colonial
considerations on the subject is no different (it remains an Act of Parliament
and not a constitution). The material different between the 1960 and 1963
constitution is that the latter (1963 constitution) declared Nigeria a
“Republic” and changed the designation of the Governor- general to President.
The 1960 constitution has 154 sections and 11 chapters where the 1963 constitution
has 159 sections 12 chapters. Section 157 (1) of the 1963 Republic Constitution
is unique in that it specifically named an individual to be President of
Nigeria. It provides; Nnamdi Azikiwe shall be deemed to be elected President of
the Republic on the date of the commencement
of this constitution (in recognition of his monumental contribution to
the political emancipation and independent of Nigeria). With Military
intervention, the operation of the constitute was interrupted, knocked into a
comatose state and finally cannibalized by a litany of military decrees that
heralded the military take-over of the government of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria on January 15, 1966. Section 1(1) of the constitution (suspension &
modification/ Decree No.1 of 1966 provides as follows: “the provisions of the
constition of the federation mentioned in schedule 1 of this Decree are hereby
suspended”. The constitution (suspension and modification) (no.5) Decree of 1966 abolished the federal structure
of Nigeria and created what it called “Republic of Nigeria” and “National
Military Government in place of the Federal Military Government, the various
autonomous regime were abolished. Groups of provinces were decreed in their
place. The Head of state became known as the “Head of the National Military Government”
Major General Johnson Thomas Umunakwe Aguiyi Ironsi who headed that government
as the supreme commander of the Nigeria armed forces obviously meant well for
the country. He sought by this move to stern a plethora of mutually
antagonistic forces threatening to fear the country apart. But he misjudged the
socio-cultural and hate-filled political chemistry of the various antagonistic
forces locked, as it were, in a grim titanic battle of wits, gub, life and death
(it was a hydra-headed canker-worm that permeated the country’s armed forces
and made nonsense of the otherwise non-political institution of national
defence. The North called Ironsi’s move evidence of “Ibo domination”. There
were demonstrations and riots in parts of the northern group of provinces. Unfortunately,
Ironsi destroyed himself by embarking on an ill-advised national-wide tour to
appease the Northerners and convince them that he was not a tribalist. It did
not take time before T. Y. Danjuma (on 29th July, 1966, he was then
an army captain). led a band of dissident Northern soldiers to arrest the
supreme commander at Ibadan and killed him. Said he, “I arrested Ironsi and
Fajuyi in a small family lounge where they were. No problems. We took the
crocodile and tore it open. There was nothing inside it, just mere stuffing” in
an interview he granted Newswatch, November 2, 1992. The counter-coup that
ushered in Lt. colonel Yakubu Gowon (now a retired General who ruled Nigeria
from 29th July 1966 to 19th (29th) July 1975) as new head
of state was led by northern officers. By the constitution (suspension and
modification (no9) Decree 1966. Gowon changed the political structure of
Nigeria once more to a federation. Section 2(1) of the said decree provides; “As
from the appointed day the military government of Nigeria shall again be known
as the Federal military government” (the Decree restored autonomy to the region
and re-established regional public service commissions, Judiciary and other
similar bodies). The crisis of confidence between the Eastern region and the Northern
region worsened with the assasination of Ironsi. The Eastern Regional Military
Government Lt. Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu found himself at odds with
Gowon over the assassination of Ironsi by Northern soldiers and the killing of
the Ibos in the Northern part of the country. There was an astrosphere of insecurity
and bitterness in the Eastern part as well as the question of reparation
thereto. Ojukwu, the then military Governor of Eastern region, declared that
the basis of the Nigerian unity and nationhood was no longer there. A 30-month
civil war broke out between Nigeria and secessionalist state of Biafra (lasted
from 6th July, 1967 to 12th January, 1970) the rest is
now history. Gowon was removed in a coup d’etat as head of the Federal Military
Government on 29th July 1975 by Brigadier (later General) Murtala
Mohammed and his colleagues. Gowon and Murtala Muhammad had variously ruled the
country vide a military oligarchy which had a complex command system and
permitted of no disputation of orders or command. At the apex of each military
government was the military Head of state and Commander-in-chief of the Armed
forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (this was in contrast to Ironsi’s
title of Supreme commander of the Armed forces of Nigeria). There was also a
Supreme Military Council (SMC) composed of top officers of the army, air force,
the Navy and the Police. This body wielded both the legislature and executive powers. Here, the legislature
and executive powers of the federal government were merged, with the judiciary
as a distant, helpless third arm of government ( a very defunction of
totalitarianism as opposed to constitutionalism. Directly below the supreme
military council was the federal executive council. It was composed of federal
commissioners or ministers who headed the various federal ministries. Murtala
Muhammad, now a General, was assassinated on 13th of February, 1976
in an unsuccessful comp d’etat to overthrow his government. The leader of that
attempted coup d’etat was Lt. Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka, a young army officer
from the country’s middle Belt. With the death of General Muhammad, the mantle
of military political leadership of Nigeria fell on the shoulders of the former
chief of staff, supreme Headquarters, Brigadier (later a General) Olusegun
Obasanjo. The latter ruled from February 14, 1976 to Oct 1979, when he handed over
power to democratically elected civilian provident, Alhaji shehu Shagari. The
civilian president had to operate according to the provisions of the 1979 “Constitution”.
The “Constitution” was subjected to a series of military decree. Major general
Muhammad Buhari (retired) overthrew the civilian government of president Shehu
Shagari on December 3, 1983 and moved quickly to suspend the operation of
certain parts of the 1979 “Constitution” aided by his able deputy, Brigadier
(later, Major -General) Tunde Idiagbon.
NIGERIA THE
FIRST REPUBLIC
Nigeria became independent on October 1, 1960 the
period between this date and January 15, 1966, when the first military coup
d’etat took place, is generally referred to as the First Republic, although the
country became a republic on October 1, 1963. After a plebiscite in February
1961, the Northern cameroons, which before then was administered separately
within Nigeria, voted to join Nigeria.
At independence Nigeria had all the trappings of a
democratic state and was indeed regarded as a beacon of hope for democracy. It
had a Federal Constitution that guaranteed a large measure of autonomy to three
(later four) regions, it operated a parliamentary democracy modeled along
British lines that emphasized majority rule; the Constitution included an
elaborate bill of rights; and unlike other African states it adopted one party
system immediately after independence, the country had a functional, albeit
regionally based, multiparty system.
These democratic trappings were not enough to
guarantee the survival of the republic because of certain fundamental and
structural weakness. Perhaps the most significant weakness was the
disproportionate power of the north in the federation. The departing colonial
authority had hoped that the development of national politics would forestall
any sectional domination of power, but it underestimated the effects of a regionalized
party system in a Country where political power depended on population. The
major political parties in the republic had emerged in the late 1940s and early
1950s as regional parties whose main aim was to control power in regions. The
Northern people’s Congress (NPC) and the Action Group (AG) which controlled the
Northern Region and the Western Region, respectively, clearly emerged in this
way.
The National council of Nigeria citizens (NCNC), which
controlled the Eastern Region and the Midwestern Region (created in 1963),
began as a nationalist party but was forced by the pressures of regionalist to
become primarily an Eastern party, albeit with strong pockets of support
elsewhere in the federation. These regional parties were based upon, and
derived their main support from, the major groups in their regions: NPC (Hausa/Fulani),
AG (Yoruba), NCNC (Igbo). A notable and more ideologically-based political
party that never achieved significant power was Aminu Kano’s radical northern
Elements progressive union (NEPU), which opposed the NPC in the north from its
Kano base.
There were also several political movements formed by
minority groups to press their demands for separate states. These monitory parties
also doubled as opposition parties in the region and usually aligned themselves
with the party in power in another region that supported their demand for a
separate state.
Ethnic minorities therefore enabled the regional
parties to extend their influence beyond their regions.
In the general election of 1959 to determine which
parties would rule in the immediate postcolonial period, the mayor ones won
majority of seats in their regions, but none emerged powerful enough to constitute
a national government. A coalition government was formed by the NPC and NCNC,
the former having been greatly favored by the departing colonial authority. The
coalition provided a measure of north-south concensus that would not have been
the case if the NCNC & AG had formed a coalition. Nnamdi Azikiwe (NCNC) became
the Governor General (and President after the country became a republic in
1963), Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (NPC) was named prime minister, and Obafemi
Awolowo (AG) had to settle for leader of the opposition. The regional premiers
were Ahmadu Bello (Northern Region, NPC), Samuel Akintola (Western region, AG)
Michael Okpara (Eastern region, NCNC), and Dennis Osadebey (Midwestern Region,
NCNC).
Among the difficulties of the republic were efforts of
the NPC, the senior partner in the coalition government, to use the Federal
government increasing power in favour of the Northern Region. The balance rested
on the premise that the Northern Region had the political advantage deriving
from its preponderant size and population, and the two Southern Regions
(initially the Eastern Region and the Western Region) had the economic
advantage as sources of most of the exported agricultural products, in addition
to their control of the Federal bureaucracy. The NPC sought to redress Northern
economic and bureaucratic disadvantages. Under the first National Development
plan, many of the federal government’s projects and military establishments
were allocated to the north. There was an affirmative action” program by the
government to recruit and train northerners, resulting in the appointment of
less qualified northerners to federal public service position, many replacing
more qualified southerners. Actions such as these served to estrange the NCNC
from its coalition partner. The reactions to the fear of northern dominance,
and especially the steps taken by the NCNC to counter the political dominance
of the north, accelerated the collapse of the young republic.
The southern parties especially the embittered NCNC,
had hoped that the regional power balance could be shifted if the 1962 census
favoured the south. Population determined the allocation of parliamentary seats
on which the power of every region was based because population figures were
also used in allocating revenue to the regions and determining the viability of
any proposed new region, the 1962 census was approached by all regions as a key
contest for control of the federation. This contest led to various illegalities
inflated figures, electoral violence, falsification of results, manipulation of
population figure, and the like. Although the chief census officer found
evidence of more inflated figures in the southern regions, the northern region
retained its numerical superiority. AS could be expected, southern leaders
rejected the results, leading to a cancellation of the census and to the
holding of a fresh census in 1963. This population count was finally accepted
after a protracted legal battle by the NCNC and gave the Northern Region a
population of 29, 758,975 out of the total of 55,620,268. These figures
eliminated whatever hope the southerners had of ruling the Federation.
Since the 1962-63 exercise, the size and distribution
of the population remained volatile political issues (see population, ch.2). In
fact, the importance and sensitivity of a census count have increased because
of the expanded use of population figures for revenue allocation, constituency
delineation, allocations under the quota system of admissions into schools and
employment, and the sitting of industries and social amenities such as schools,
hospitals and post offices. Another census in 1973 failed, even though it was
conducted by a military government that was less politicized than its civilian
predecessor. What made the 1973 census particularly volatile was the fact that
it was part of a transition plan by the military to hand over power to
civilians. The provisional figures showed an increase for the states that were
carved out of the former Northern region with a combined 51.4 million people
out of a total 79.8 million people. Old fears of domination were resurrected and
the stability of the federation was again seriously threatened. The provisional
result were finally canceled in 1975. As of late 1990, no other census had been
undertaken, although one was scheduled for 1991 as part of the transition to
civilian rule. In the interim, Nigeria has relied on population project based
on 1963 census figures.
Other events also contributed to the collapse of the
first republic. In 1962, after a split in the leadership of the AG that led to
a crisis in the Western Region, a state of emergency was declared in the
region, and the federal government
invoked its emergency powers to administer the region directly. These action
result in removing the AG from regional power. Awolowo, its leader, along with
other AG leaders, were convicted of treasonable felony. Awolowo’s former deputy
and premier of the Western Region formed a new party. The Nigeria National
Democratic Party (NNDP), that took over the government. The federal coalition
government also supported agitation of minority groups for a separate state to
be excised from the Western Region. In 1963 the Midwestern region was created.
By the time of the 1964 general elections, the first
to be conducted solely by Nigerians, the
country’s politics had become polarized into a competition between two opposing
alliances. One was the Nigeria National Alliance made up of the NPC and NNDC;
the other was the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) composed of the
NCNC, the AG, and their allies. Each of the regional parties openly intimidated
its opponents in the campaigns. When it became clear that the neutrality of the
federal electoral commission could not be quaranteed, calls were made for the
army to supervise the election. The UPGA resolved to boycott the elections.
When election were finally held under conditions that were not fee and were
unfair to opponents of the regional parties, the NCNC was returned to power in the
East and Midwest, while the NPC kept control of the North and was also in a
position to form a federal government on its own. The western Region became the
“theater of war” between the NNDP (and the NPC) and the AG- UPGA. the
rescheduled regional elections late in 1965 were violent. The federal
government refusal to declare a state of emergency, and the military seized
power on January 15, 1966. The first Republic had collapsed.
Scholars have made several attempts to explain the
collapse. Some attribute it to the inappropriateness of the political
institutions and processes and to their not being adequately entrenched under
colonial rule, whereas others hold the elites responsible. Lacking a political
culture to sustain democracy, politicians failed to play the political game
according to established rules. The failure of the elite appears to have been a
symptom rather than the cause of the problem. Because members of the elite
lacked a material base for their aspirations, they resorted to control of state
offices the resources. At the same time, the uneven rates of development among
the various groups and regions, invested the struggle for state power with a
group character. These factors gave importance to group, ethnic, and regional
conflicts that eventually contributed to the collapse of the republic.
The final explanation is closely related to all the
forgoing. It holds that the regionalization of politics and in particular,
party politics made the stability of the republic dependent on each party
retaining control of its regional base. As long as this was so, there was a
rough balance between the parties, as well as their respective regions. Once
the federal government involves its emergency powers in 1962 and removed the AG
from power in the Western Region, the fragile balance on which the federation
rested was disturbed. Attempts by the AG and NCNC to create a new equilibrium,
or at least to return the status quo ante only generated stronger opposition
and hastened the collapse of the republic.
THE 1922
CONSTITUTION- THE CLIFFORD CONSTITUTION
In 1922 a new constitution revoking the 1914
constitution was promulgated under governor Clifford. Under the constitution, a
Nigeria legislature council was constituted, but its juricdiction was limited
to the southern provinces ie the colony of Lagos and the protectorate of Southern
Nigeria. The Governor continued to be the legislative authority for the Northern
half of the country. Also an executive council was established for the whole
country.
THE 1914
CONSTITUTION
The colony and protectorate of Southern Nigeria and
the protectorate of Northern Nigeria, were amalgamated and ruled by one
Governor General, Lord Lugard. The legislative council of the colony was
restructured to making laws for the colony alone, whilst the Governor –General
made laws for the whole country.
THE 1946
(RICHARD) CONSTITUTION
In 1946, Governor Arthur Richard promulgated a new
constitution which came into effect on January 1st, 1946. Prior to
this, Nigeria had been divided into three Regions in 1939, the Northern, Western and Eastern Regions.
Major feature of the new council was composed of the Governor
as President, 16 official and 28 unofficial (the latter including the 4 elected
persons).
The Regional Houses were not competent to legislate,
even for their own Regions. They could only consider bills affecting their
regions, and make recommendation or pass resolution for the central legislation
in Lagos to consider.
1951 (MACPHERSON)
CONSTITUTION
The 1951 constitution was the one that really introduced
fundamental changes into the imperial/native relationship and the relationship
between the native Nigerian groups themselves.
FEATURES
It came in
after unprecedented process of consultation with the people of Nigeria as a
whole.
It introduced
electoral majorities in the central legislature, to the Regional Houses of Assembly.
It established a federal system for Nigeria for the
first time.
THE INDEPENDENCE AND REPUBLICAN CONSTITUTION
In view of the above, it is hardly surprising that the
1960 and 1963 constitution epitomized true federalism. The 1950 National
conference had been followed by others in 1953, 1954, 1957, and 1957, in which
the practice of true federalism were perfected.
One important feature of the 1960 constitution is the
extensive powers granted the Regions, making them effectively autonomous
entities of the revenue arrangement which ensured that the regions had the
resources to carry out their immense responsibilities.
Under the 19960 and 1963 constitution, a true federal
system made up of strong States or Regions and a central or Federal state with
limited powers, was instituted. Both the 1960, (Independence) constitution the
1963 (Republican) constitution were the same. The only differences were the
provision for ceremonial President (1963) in place of the Queen of England
(1960) and the Judicial appeal system with the supreme court (1963) rather the Judicial committee of the British
privy council (1960).
The following features, which emphasized the existence
of a true Federal system composed of powerful and autonomous Regions and a
centre with limited powers are worth noting.
1.
Each Region had
its own separate constitution, in addition to the Federal Government
constitution.
2.
Each Region had
its own separate coat of Arms and motto, from the Federal state or government
3.
Each Region
established its own separate semi-independence mission in the UK, headed by
Agents-General.
4.
The Regional
Governments had Residual Power, ie where any matter was not allocated to the
Regions or the Federal Government, it automatically became a matter for Regional
Jurisdiction.