By Igboeli EnyindiIgbo Arinze
A number of Nigerians must have received the news of the demise of its foremost constitutional lawyer, academic, legal luminary and restructuring exponent, Professor Benjamin Obi Nwabueze with a bit of mixed feelings. Firstly, Nwabueze died at the very ripe age of 92, which in a country where life expectancy sits at 53 years is indeed marked as a celebration of life. Further more, the Christian outlook of which Professor Nwabueze was a devoted adherent would also greet his demise as the satisfying gift of a long life and well spent too.
However, many who knew the Atani Master of Constitutions well would agree that Professor Nwabueze may have died a bit unfulfilled owing to the refusal of a section of the Nigerian elite to restructure the Nigerian Federation and allow for a more practicable Constitution and Federalism become operational.
Like a number of Nigerian titans, Professor Nwabueze did not see the Nigeria of his dreams: A Nigeria in which there was a healthy balance of political power between the subnational groups that make up such a Federation and the power at the centre of such a federation. Professor Nwabueze hemmed and hawed, like the Prophets of Old in biblical Israel he preached restructuring at every juncture and while Nigerians tended to listen, our leaders and a number of puny idealogues disregarded such calls despite the prevailing scenarios presently witnessed by millions of Nigerian citizens.
For Professor Nwabueze who was born in Atani, Onitsha Province in the then Southern Nigeria now situated in Ogbaru LGA in present day Anambra State, there could be no meaningful progress for the Nigerian people and the nation if the mistakes of 1978 which spilled over into the 1979 Constitution and its latter revivification as the 1999 Constitution were not addressed and replaced with one that took into germane cognizance the peculiarities of the Nigerian nation presently as against the overhyped emphasis on the unity of the country, which was the essence of the 1979 Constitution.
Attending the CMS Central School in both Atani and Onitsha for his primary and secondary levels of education, Professor Nwabueze was to travel to study at the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, where he may have come under the influence of the left leaning but brilliant Professor Howard Lasky, who was popular with African and Asian students at the revered institution. Professor Nwabueze’s latter belief that the state wasn’t supreme and that it ought to respect allegiances by its citizens to the subnational whilst promoting pluralism and decentralisation can be traced to Laski’s works on pluralism.
A brief stint at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London from 1962 to 1963 and another brief three-year career as a Senior lecturer in the Holborn College of Law before adding another five-year stint at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka from 1965 to 1970.
Shortly after the end of the Nigerian Civil War Professor Nwabueze was to become the dean of the University of Zambia’s Faculty of Law. He was then drafted to help draft for Zambia a new constitution in 1973 before returning to Nigeria in 1976 where he functioned as a foremost member of the Constitutional Drafting Committee (CDC), chaired by a one time Attorney General of the Western Region and legal luminary, Rotimi Williams (SAN).
The CDC was to midwife the 1979 constitution which brought about the Second Republic and reposed enormous powers on the government at the centre while stripping that of the components of powers that should naturally have belonged to them. A mistake, Professor Nwabueze sought to rectify in his later life. For him, the putting of too much power at the centre was an invitation for disunity. The crass struggles for power and control at the centre was fueling the nation’s disunity.
Since the 1999 Constitution was merely a redress of the 1979 Constitution, Professor Nwabueze was to continue his struggle for its repudiation, rejecting suggestions for amendments to certain areas. He consistently argued for the restructuring of the Nigerian nation that he caught the Atiku bug in 2019 as the latter had made the restructuring of the Nigerian nation a part of his cardinal campaign message. Sadly, Atiku’s claim to want to restructure Nigeria was merely a ruse as his 2023 presidential ambition suggested.
Asides from helping draft the Zambian and Nigerian Constitutions, Professor Nwabueze was also to help draft the Kenyan Constitution of 1993 transforming Daniel Arap Moi’s Kenya from a one party state to one that allowed for multiparty participation.
An astounding academic, Professor Nwabueze was to author a number of books and publications in journals showcasing intellectual grit and knowledge on Constitutionalism.
A proud Igbo man, Professor Nwabueze was to alongside a number of the Igbo elite cofound Ohanaeze NdiIgbo and midwife the socio cultural organization to becoming the Pan Igbo organization replacing the defunct Igbo State Union.
As we bid one of Africa’s finest legal luminaries fare well, we must as compatriots rekindle his drive for a better Nigeria through the demands for a viable constitution, one that frees Nigeria from the fetters of the quasi federal status we currently are joined with, one that nullifies much the progressive spirit of the Nigerian and has stultified its movement as the vanguard not only for Africa but also the black race all over the world.
•Source: Facebook
