At the 2023 Convocation lecture of the Afe Babalola University in Ado Ekiti, Mr. Chukwuemeka E. Anyaoku, former Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and former Secretary General of the Commonwealth canvassed for a new constitution for Nigeria. The distinguished former diplomat said, in the body of his lecture:
In effect, under the Treaty establishing the European Union, Subsidiarity as laid down, defines the circumstances “in which it is preferable for action to be taken by the Union, rather than by the member states,” particular in such areas in which the European Union does not have, nor exercise, exclusive competence. Subsidiarity flows from the idea that all human political and social issues must, and can be resolved at the most basic levels of locality.
In its place, it gave us this “path of Thunder,” to quote my favorite poet, on which we continue to travel: unprecedented level of divisiveness, and an economy in the doldrums, with over 135 million Nigerians now in what experts like these days to call, “multidimensional poverty.” Well, even that phrase itself, puts a gloss to that condition of poverty. My Igbo people have a far more colorful way of describing that kind of poverty: “Ogbenye Onu Ntu,” they call them.
They key changes of that constitution from the Independence Constitution of 1960, was that it endowed all executive power of the state in the office of the President of the federation, and no longer in Parliament. It literally turned the Prime Minister, into the President’s chief Adviser, and leader of his government in the Parliament.