Nigeria Deserves Homegrown Constitution, Says Olanipekun

Legal icon Chief Woke Olanipekun (SAN) has said Nigeria deserves a homegrown constitution to help it run its systems effectively.

He also called on kind-hearted Nigerians to join hands with the government to support and lift the less privileged and vulnerable in society.

Olanipekun, who linked the rejection of a six-year single term for elected president to what he called an imperfect constitution, said urgent action must be taken about it.

He stated this in his Ikere Ekiti country home at the weekend at the 5th Empowerment Programme and 28th Scholarship Award Scheme of his Wole Olanipekun Foundation.

Over 300 students and youths were awarded scholarships and empowerment grants for entrepreneurship, while over 100 widows, elderly people, and other vulnerable persons were presented with food items as palliatives.

The former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) said, “I still believe that we have to change our constitution and look into it.

“The constitution to me is not federal; the constitution to me does not reflect what we have on the ground as Nigeria, as people of Nigeria, as the content of Nigeria as the context of Nigeria. We deserve a homegrown constitution.

“No constitution is perfect, but then we cannot continue with an imperfect one. Amending, amending, amending and amending, just like a house that does not have a good foundation. I believe that something has to be done about that constitution”.

Speaking on the six-year single term for president, he said it was one of the NBA under his leadership between 2002-2004 to the then government former president Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who rejected the proposal.

“It was beautifully crafted and well worked out, not the way they are banding it now before it was presented to him, for us to stabilise this Republic, with whatever system of government being used to experiment suggesting to him a single term of five or six years. He flared up.

“We suggested then that there are six geo-political zones in Nigeria; if the president is from the Southwest, there will be six vice presidents, but each of the six vice presidents must have a portfolio. One vice president will be in charge of the Ministry of Justice as attorney general; one will be in charge of education, of defence, of FCT, of works.’’