A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mike Ozekhome, has stated that Nigeria needs an indigenous and people-centric constitution to redirect the country’s journey of no destination.

He argued that the 1999 Constitution was military-imposed, and not subject to any referendum.

The human rights lawyer urged President Bola Tinubu to muster the political will to get the nation a people-centred constitution.

He stated this during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics show.

Asked whether a new constitution is an antidote to poverty, insecurity, and other challenges confronting the Nigerian state, Ozekhome said, “It is. The killings you are seeing, the poverty, the corruption, they are all symptoms of a larger problem which is the basis of what we are talking about. When you solve it, other things will be in place.”

“Nigeria is a country still yearning for nationhood. We are not united.

“The brand new constitution must be subjected to the referendum of the people,” he said.

Ozekhome further stated that the engine (constitution) of the Nigerian state has knocked and should be replaced.

“The political elite has to agree. If you are driving a car and the car has a knocked engine. Is it not the engine you should look at? Do you begin to panel-beat the car, spray it with beautiful paint, and buy new tyres? Will that move the car?

“I am saying that the engine of the Nigerian state, for now, is knocked and it is giving rise to all these mutual suspicion, religious intolerance,” he said.

He said economic reforms are good but must not be put before a people-centred constitution.