I WORKED WITH THE NIKI TOBI COMMITTEE, 1999 CONSTITUTION WAS BADLY DONE —ERIC TENIOLA
by Sam Nwaoko
Nigerian Tribune
November 18, 2023

This article is too long for Nairaland limit so I just copy the bits about the fraudulent 1999 Constitution but link to all of it is below for you to read all.

Excerpts:
That committee of Justice Niki Tobi was different because in his wisdom, General Abdusalami Abubakar should have constituted a Constituent Assembly but he did not do that. What he did was just to give a task to Justice Niki Tobi’s Constitution Coordinating Committee and said go and produce the constitution. I think General Abdusalami wanted to go on time otherwise how can you ask the committee of Justice Niki Tobi to produce a constitution all within 60 days. It is unheard of. I was working in the Presidency in the office of the secretary to the government of the federation and that was where Niki Tobi’s committee used as its office. He insisted that he didn’t want to work with the Ministry of Justice, that he would prefer to work directly with the secretary to the government of the federation, Alhaji Gidado Idris. They were assembling a team and I was a director there. So, Alhaji Gidado Idris said I should go and be the publicity agent of the coordination committee. I tell you, it was a different thing. What Justice Niki Tobi did was just to look at the 1979 constitution, added one or two things and just gave us the 1999 constitution. I don’t think that constitution was tidily done. It was a bad job. It was a very very bad job.

I tell you that we are lucky that there is not a revolution over that constitution. Go and look at it from the first page to the end, it is full of contradictions. I tell you this again, in 1999 – I mean May 29, 1999 only a few states had a copy of that constitution because it was not ready at all. It was printed by the Heritage Press. Copies were not even available for the inauguration of the new government at that time. I was in the Heritage Press for some nights before the May 29 inauguration to make sure that at least a few copies were produced. In some states, they just administered oath to the governors with the Quran or the Bible because the constitution was not available. I also think that that constitution was not properly circulated until, I think, August 1999 because it was shabbily done. Instead of them to give it to the government press to print, they had to contract it out because the government press in Apapa was underfunded and had no machine. They had to contract it to Heritage Press to produce copies for the country.

The military guys were not trained to be good administrators. Military government is a misnomer; soldiers are not trained to be administrators or to run civilian governments. They are not trained to govern. If you look at the past constitutions that we had – like the Clifford and Macpherson constitutions, these were produced by politicians. The 1979 and 1999 constitutions were produced by the military. They just put anything there and moved on. We are lucky that we are a very, very patient people otherwise this constitution is enough to cause a revolution. It is a very bad paper.



https://tribuneonlineng.com/i-worked-with-the-niki-tobi-committee-1999-constitution-was-badly-done-eric-teniola/