How much freedom does Nigerians have? (2)

The alleged deregistration of some sociocultural and political pressure groups (the Arewa Consultative Group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo General Assembly, etc.) could be a reaction to these threats. But the question is: can the government proscribe and/or deregister an organisation validly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission? And on what pedestal can it stand to abridge or derogate from the entrenched rights under the constitution? There are several pedestals upon which the government can stand to abridge the entrenched rights, breach or even abolish such rights and that’s the reason we say that the so-called fundamental rights are empty shell, worthless, lacking in substance and bereft of everlasting quality.

These rights are not like the freedoms created under the United States Constitution that are in substance real rights bearing everlasting quality of freedoms which cannot at the caprice of any authority or person be easily abridged, breached or abolished.

The rights granted to Nigerians under Sections 33 to 44 are all subject to review through mere legislative act but most annoyingly by the executive branch which when it suit its purposes can proceed against any person or group that court its troubles as have been seen in several cases of unlawful detentions even where courts have given orders against such detentions or seizures of property or curtailment of movement or assembly of person(s) or groups, etc.

The emptiness of the rights created under chapter four of the 1999 Constitution flows from the nature of the state and the constitutional framework created. The Nigerians state is an alien institution created from without, and imposed on the people and lacks autochthonous content as the makers were either foreign conquerors or their local variant.

Between 1830 and 1914 when Britain created the Nigerian state British nationals and citizens having come as traders and subsequently formed as companies like the Royal Niger Company had carried out series of wars against the indigenous people of the areas that now constitute Nigeria and conquered them and even before the wars they had fraudulently obtained treaties of friendship and protection with which they made the people to let down their guards.

So, in essence, when Nigeria was formed in 1914 it was a country hammered out of conquered entities and a people formed as such cannot be a free people and cannot assert any rights except as given to them by the superintending state created as a bracket to cover them and shield them from unwanted influences.

And that is what Nigeria was from 1914 to 1966, and history is replete with the result from that experiment when against numerous breaches of rights of people as was the cases in Western Region and Tiv land between 1962 and 1966, the law and the courts were helpless.

The second experiment quite like British template was the second conquest between 1966 and 1970 and this was superintended by Nigerians. The soldiers and civilians had jointly dismantled the British subterfuge by overthrowing the 1963 Constitution and erected a state and constitutional framework that are elevated above the people and the effect is that the rulers are unquestionable and above the law.

Ever since 1966 to 1999, the Constitutions either as decrees or Instrument of Government attached to it and named ‘Constitutions’ have been made by this caste of rulers that originated from the coups of 1966 and led by succession of military generals. In all the constitutions and decrees shambolic fundamental rights were, and still preserved and enforced by the courts but during military regimes, there were abridgements and of course ouster clauses where the government did not want such rights to be adjudicated not to talk of enforcing such rights. During civilian governments which are creations of the military and military laws and constitutions attached to the laws, rights are created, but the provisions are nebulous and bereft of radical content as they are made subject to several provisions curtailing the tenor and effect in the securing of the people’s freedoms.

As said earlier, Section 45 of 1999 Constitution is a good example of such provisions that renders nugatory the object of giving the people their inalienable freedoms. That Section 45(1) proclaims that nothing in sections 37, 38, 39, 40 and 44, all dealing with vital freedoms, shall invalidate any law that is “reasonably justifiable in a democratic society” in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health; or for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of other persons.”

The same section empowered the National Assembly to make laws that derogates from sections 33 or 35 of the Constitution. The entire sections of chapter four of the 1999 Constitution (Sections 33 – 44) bearing the so-called fundamental rights if subjected to a critical review will disclose no real freedoms have been secured for Nigerians. Sections 33 which is ‘right to life’ created the right to own your life but does not give you the means to safeguard it quite unlike its counterpart in US Bill of Rights on citizenship rights as contained in Section 1 of Fourteenth Amendment, or on Right to bear arms and the militia in Second Amendment or Fourth Amendment on Privacy, unreasonable searches and seizures, Fifth Amendment on Rights to Life, Liberty, Property, Sixth to Eighth Amendments on Fair Trial and Due Process of Law and First Amendment Section 1 on prohibition of state religion, freedom of speech or of the press, peaceable assemble, to the like tenor and effect compared to the bare and empty rights granted by Sections 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 and 44 of the 1999 Constitution. Now, having made the exposition on Nigerian Constitution and its legal order and its comparable counterpart provided by the United States Constitution which was in actual fact copied by Nigeria, can the posers posed at the beginning of this essay be answered in honesty that the 1999 Constitution has made Nigerians a free people? The answer seems from the above premise to be in the negative. Nigeria is a slave society and the constitutional framework has only articulated and created a slave society.

The 1999 Constitution is a law as opposed to a constitution merely provided a ruling template as opposed to governance one. A law commands obedience without right and that’s what is replete in all the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the language is strictly legal whereas a constitution is more of a political charter embodying the hopes and aspirations of the people.

The people remain the custodians and enforcers and the language is appropriately civil and political as it carries mostly political declarations which are only clothed with legal force but above all sovereign will of the people constituted as a republic.

If the powers of the Nigerian president and governors are subjected to critical scrutiny it would be seen that the powers are not just autocratic but despotic as there is no check or control of them, not even the laws or the constitution and that is the reason no Nigerian president can ever be subjected to the law or due process of law except he is dead. Nigerians can only be free if the present legal order is changed and a republican and democratic autochthonous constitution freely made and enacted by the people as free agents not in their present state when the military-created state and government and the officials are in control and manipulating them to a determined end that is sure to preserve and protect the status quo of slavery.

(Concluded)