By Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili
Nigeria is approaching a dangerous precipice. The insecurity that now defines daily life across vast stretches of our country is not merely a law‑and‑order problem; it is evidence of a Nation-state whose foundational architecture is no longer fit for purpose. Terrorists, bandits, and armed criminal networks have entrenched themselves so deeply that they now exercise a form of rival governance, openly contesting the sovereignty of the Nigerian state.
In a recent public memo on state police, I challenged the increasingly fashionable belief that decentralizing policing alone would resolve this crisis. State police is necessary, overdue, and ultimately unavoidable. But it is not sufficient. Our national dysfunction is structural, not episodic. No amount of administrative tinkering can repair a constitutional foundation that was defective from inception.
The 1999 Constitution – a document imposed on Nigerians without debate or consent – has trapped the country in a cycle of paralysis. It provides a pathway for amending itself, but none for replacing itself. Section 9 empowers the National Assembly to alter the Constitution, yet nowhere does it empower citizens to design a new one. For more than two decades, this contradiction has frozen Nigeria’s restructuring debate in place.
This is why Nigeria must now pursue a single, urgent reform: a Single‑Issue Constitutional Amendment that creates a lawful, binding, and time‑bound pathway for a Citizens‑Led Sovereign National Conference whose final draft Constitution will be submitted to Nigerians in a referendum. Kenya escaped the abyss of ethnic conflict by using its 2010 referendum to give citizens the power to remake the State – a lesson Nigeria can no longer afford to ignore.
Such an amendment would not be an act of rebellion against the existing order; it would be an act of fidelity to it. By using the Constitution’s own amendment mechanism to authorize a new constitutional process, Nigeria would avoid the chaos of extra‑legal improvisation while finally giving citizens the authority they have long been denied. It is strategic because it avoids scattering national energy across dozens of contested amendment items. It is legitimate because it grounds the birth of a new Constitution in the authority of the old.
This idea is not new. In 2021, FixPolitics, the research‑anchored advocacy organization I chaired, proposed this exact amendment to the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution. The logic remains compelling. Nigeria’s problem is not one broken clause but a broken constitutional architecture. A house built on a faulty foundation cannot be repaired by rearranging the furniture.
A Citizens‑Led Sovereign National Conference, properly constituted, would negotiate the federal structure, fiscal arrangements, security architecture, human rights protections, and national identity that a modern Nigerian state requires. Its composition must be broad enough to prevent political class capture and inclusive enough to reflect the country’s true diversity – ethnic nationalities, women, youth, labour, civil society, persons with disabilities, traditional institutions, faith communities, the private sector, diaspora Nigerians, and elected representatives. Its proceedings must be transparent, participatory, and accessible to the public. And its final draft must be ratified through a national referendum.
Some have argued that the Tinubu administration has already “achieved” restructuring through scattered policy reforms. But piecemeal adjustments are not restructuring. They are, at best, administrative conveniences. At worst, they are distractions that obscure the deeper crisis. True restructuring requires a collectively owned, citizen‑driven constitutional process – not executive‑led policy tweaks that leave the underlying power imbalances intact.
Nigeria cannot continue outsourcing its future to elite bargains. A country of more than 200 million people cannot be remade through backroom negotiations. The National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly must therefore be called upon – through collective civic action – to pass one urgent amendment: the amendment that returns constitution‑making authority to the people.
Not many amendments. Not cosmetic amendments. Not amendments that pretend to restructure Nigeria on behalf of the people.
Just one: the amendment that empowers Nigerians to restructure Nigeria for themselves.
Our condition is dire. Our window is narrowing. The insecurity that now engulfs the country is not merely a failure of policing; it is the predictable outcome of a constitutional order that concentrates power without accountability, centralizes authority without capacity, and imposes unity without consent. Nigeria cannot survive the next decade on the foundation of the last one.
The demand before us is simple: create the pathway, mandate the Conference, submit the draft to a referendum, and let Nigerians decide.
There is no reason to be paralyzed by the fear that a constitutional referendum will unravel Nigeria. Far from it. Look across at Kenya which escaped the abyss of the worst ethnic conflict by using its 2010 constitutional referendum to give their citizens the power to remake and unify their country – a lesson Nigeria can no longer afford to ignore.
Now is the next best time to reset Nigeria since independence. The question that is to be answered by each of us is the one that has haunted our national journey for decades.
Can Nigeria ever Become and lead the rest of Africa to “Claim the 21st Century?”
The answer, dear compatriots is in our hands because as the GenZs would say, Nigeria desperately needs those who will step up to “carry her matter for their heads”.
Are you in for the right kind of collective actions that Nigeria deserves from her citizens?
The answer is in your hand.
Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili
Founder, SPPG – School of Politics, Policy and Governance (TheSPPG.org)
