Chief Mike Ozekhome SAN, a human rights activist, and a Constitutional Lawyer said it is an aberration for a National Assembly to amend the constitution.

Chief Ozekhome SAN a key facilitator of the National Consultative Forum, is of the view that the Constitution gave rise to the National Assembly.

Speaking on the Morning Show on Arise TV, Chief Ozekhome SAN said that a dog wags its tale, the tale cannot wag the dog to support his opinion.

According to him, the National Consultative Forum is out to impress on the National Assembly to do away with Section 8 and 9 of the 1999 Constitution in the ongoing Constitution amendment.

He added that the exclusion of Section 8 and 9 of the constitution will make it possible for Nigerians from all nook and cranny to discuss a national referendum that can be adopted as a working document that we can give to ourselves.

He stated that the 1999 Constitution we have now is imposed on us which is the outcome of decree 24 promulgated by Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar (Rtd).

“With a 28 member provisional ruling council, including Gen Abubakar (Rtd) they hurriedly put together a document they called the 1999 constitution,” he said.

Chief Ozekhome SAN mentioned that the process by which a constitution comes into being is even more important than the content inside the constitution otherwise bandits can impose a document on you and force you to take it.

“A constitution should be homegrown and not like the present constitution, decree 24, that tells us lies against itself,” he said.

He cited an example with the preamble of the constitution stating that, “we the people of Nigeria do hereby give to our self the following constitution. On the contrary, we never gave the 1999 constitution to ourselves, he said.

Another example he cited was from Section 1 sub-section 3 of the constitution that says that the constitution is supreme and if any other law is inconsistent with the provision, that other law is void to the extent of that inconsistency.

The question he raised is; when did we give ourselves this constitution?

Chief Ozekhome said that the only constitution we actually had, went through a popular referendum was the 1963 constitution which created the Mid-west region from the western region. Thus making the country a 4 regional Country.

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