I am a bit confused and somebody needs to talk to me now. Where exactly are we on the matter of the rechristening of Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, which happened last Tuesday at the
Senate? Which, between these two names: ‘Acting President’ and ‘Coordinating President’ describes him in the current circumstance. I am seeking clarification because if others are forgiven, nobody will forgive an editor for using the wrong description for the head of state. And so, on my own, I had run through a lot of lexical entries to establish a definitional correlation between ‘coordinating’ and ‘acting’ and also find out if a coordinator and an actor could execute to become an executor.
It was tedious but worth the while in the end. Both words, in the context of their usage in the matter at hand, fall into the same lexical classification – adjective. They could also be used as nouns, verbs and adverbs. In fact, I could not discover any substantial difference outside the fact that both words are spelt and pronounced differently. Semantically, they are wired to convey almost the same meaning.
But why move an entire nation of 180 million people into this confusion of words and their meanings if same could be avoided by merely using ‘acting’ instead of ‘coordinating’? Is it to show that the President and his handlers understand words and synonyms? It reminds me of the position of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher whose name rhymes with confusion. The man had said in one context that much of the confusion in the physical and even spiritual worlds would be contained if men (and women too) would learn to apply the precise descriptions and notations in all situations.
This settled, the other point to consider is the size of the Nigerian Constitution. Maybe that is where the problem really lies. Nigerians do not have the time to read big books especially now that existential issues have become even more paramount. I am therefore of the opinion that something should be done to compress the content, as well as the format to make the document more reader friendly.
We do not have to introduce complications into the simple things of life and make them difficult for ordinary people to understand. For instance, the first time I saw the American Constitution I described it as an abridged version and was actually searching beyond it for a substantive copy before a fellow told me to look no further for the statutory frame work that has sustained the American democracy for more than two centuries.
That is even America that operates a written constitution and where democracy is a much recent phenomenon compared to Britain. The latter had maintained some form of parliamentary moderation at a time the whole of Europe suffocated under absolute monarchy and long before the puritanical campaigns of Oliver Cromwell in the 17th Century to enthrone the supremacy of the parliament over the Crown. Yet, there are no hard rules compressed in a document as it is in Nigeria and America called British Constitution that dictate public conduct in the United Kingdom.
From their history and traditions, the British understand what is good for their society and they act accordingly. This is called sincerity of purpose, which is about the only lacuna in our public and private lives. Fill this gap and all will be well. Surprisingly, the British who govern themselves by sheer conventions without a written constitution came to Nigeria to load us with constitutions and between when they formerly entered in 1861 and when they left in 1960, they had created five constitutions in 1914, 1922, 1946, 1951 and 1954 – Lugard’s, Clifford’s, Richard’s, Macpherson’s, Lyttleton’s and Independence constitutions – to tie us down.
On our own after they had departed, we have added three more in 1963, 1979 and 1999 to reach a total of eight constitutions, all geared towards the same purpose of building a country where justice and peace shall reign supreme. This has remained a mere aspiration even after 57 years of independence, largely because we have only been inventing elaborate instruments for nation-building without creating a nation. We have strategy without structure, which is the definition of madness in simple management.
And so, the thing to do now is not these endless reviews and amendments of the existing constitution, which in anyway, will still generate as many textual interpretations as there are constitutional lawyers in Nigeria. Instead, we should agree to sit down in spite of some so-called Northern elders led by Paul Unongo and discuss a national structure that can make the set of strategies that we have imposed for nation-building a bit more meaningful.
That way, the man from Agbarha-Otor and another from Nembe or Oron may not have to care so much about how many medical vacations an ailing president observes in a year and how the President transmits executive powers to his deputy each time he is billed for vacation, because their eyes would be focused on locations and persons much closer and more relevant to their well being.
I return to the headline. The subtraction bar should be crossed to include restructuring in the mix and ultimately arrive at a more palatable national equation.
*GUARDIAN*
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