Legal luminary and elder statesman, Prof. Ben Nwabueze, has counselled President Goodluck Jonathan to drop his purported plan to contest the 2015 presidential election.
He called on Jonathan to focus on transforming the country and make it a pride of all Nigerians.
Nwabueze spoke while answering questions from journalists at the Presidential Villa, after leading a body, “The Patriots” to a meeting the President.
The delegation, which included Ayo Adebanjo, Solomon Asemota, Chris Okoye, Bola Kuforiji-Olubi, Dan Suleiman, Kimse Okoko, and Michael Orobator, used the opportunity to submit their memorandum for proposed national conference.
The leader of team told newsmen that, “I believe that you cannot combine national transformation with contesting election. The two are so different, because once you get involved in the elections campaigns, you undermine your authority to lead the nation for national transformation and I said, if I were the President of Nigeria, I would restrict myself in serving the nation, in transforming this country, in creating a new Nigeria, in creating a new society. That would be my concern, and I would go down in history as a hero.
“So if Mr President does that, he would become an instant hero to this country, but it is for him to choose. If I were him, I would choose to become a hero to lead the country into transformation and abandon the ambition of a second term. That is what I said, and I still stand by it and that is what I would do if I were the President of the country, but unfortunately, I’m not,” he said.
Continuing, “It is important that the National Assembly is putting forward that their powers under Sections 8 and 9 is to alter the constitution; power to alter is not as important as the power to abolish what you are altering and to replace it completely. And we said no; this country, we need the people’s constitution whose source of authority derives directly from the people; forget about the contents, we will talk about the contents later, presidential, parliamentary and all that. Though important, but they are not as important as the source. Where does this supreme law derive its authorities?
“It must be directly from the people and that is the position of at least 85 per cent of the countries of the world. So we examined this and we said this is a bogey, there is no problem, don’t confine yourselves to Sections 8 and 9, because the 1999 constitution is a schedule to Decree 24. If you read Section 1(1) of the Decree, there are all preambles to that Decree and the 1999 constitution that you are talking about is a schedule to Decree 24.
“Repeal the Decree and the constitution will disappear and you enact a brand new constitution which would derive its authorities from the people. That was what was done in 1963, when we adopted the Republican Constitution to replace the Independent Constitution.
“That 1960 Constitution was also a schedule to British Order-In -Council just as the 1999 Constitution was a schedule to the Decree 24. In 1963. We abolished the schedule under Section 2 of the Order-in-Council and made a new constitution called the Republican constitution. That is what we should do now; abolish the schedule and relieve yourself entirely free to make the people’s constitution,” he said.
Nwabueze, who admitted that the President was eligible to re-contest, said that he would be a hero if he decides not to run.
Earlier, President Goodluck Jonathan stated that his administration was not opposed to dialogue among Nigeria’s various ethnic nationalities.
He however explained that “The limitation we have is that the constitution appears to have given that responsibility to the National Assembly. “I have also been discussing the matter with the leadership of the National Assembly. We want a situation where everyone will key into the process and agree on the way forward,” he said.
He thanked the Patriots for acknowledging the Federal Government’s efforts to implement his administration’s agenda for national transformation, as well as call for the moral re-orientation of Nigerians.
“As a government, we are totally committed to transforming this country, Positive things are being done and by the grace of God, we will get to where we ought to be as a nation,” he said.
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