The 1999 Constitution: What Manner of A Grundnorm

The history of constitutional making and development all over world, either of the unwritten pact as in the case of England or the written document as in the case of united states of America and of course Nigeria, is supposed to encapsulate all the norms, values, traditions and beliefs, that have been agreed upon and resolved to bind the people's hopes, dreams, aspirations and projections of what it entails to be either a subject of the queen as in the case of the united kingdom or rather to be a citizen as in the case of a republican conglomeration of a federal nation of united states of America or Nigeria. In the case of the Nigerian federation, such a status of citizenship confers upon, certain rights and privileges that creates a lineal patrimony of patronage and patriotism.

The 1999 constitution as a document is supposed to be our collective grundnorm. According to the father of European model of constitutional review, the Austrian jurist and legal philosopher Hans Kelsen regards the basic norm as the order or rule that forms the basis for a legal system, his belief is based upon the need to find a point of origin for all law on which the basic law or the constitution can gain its legitimacy, the binding effect of the legal norm is premised on the science of mind that accepts what ought to be, as a against what shall be done. Thus this theory believes that the constitution as the supreme document, needs not to contain and codify every required norm of rights and responsibilities expected of a citizen of a nation state, rather its role is only highlighting fundamental guidelines of values and conduct that should be contained in the supreme document.

A constitution as a binding norm does not have to contain every presumption and assumption of goodwill, as it not a document that should contain what is proper and what is right in terms of our inherent behavioral character, as that expectation shall fall within the realm of social norms of ethics and etiquettes. Dates, timelines, moral codes, patriotism and other modes of behavioral patterns are things that cannot be enforced by mere insertion into the binding document of 1999 constitution, rather only codes of general rules and guidelines that directs the extent and extant of rights and responsibilities between individual citizens themselves and their collective relationship with the Nigerian state should form part of the provisions of our grundnorm.

By the nature and heritage of our constitution combined with the intendment of the originators and framers of the supreme law, in its content and context it is supposed to be a rigid document that should contain provisions, that makes it very difficult to seek and perform the tedious act of amendment, thus as a written document within the realm and classification of constitutional stratification, it is expected that only circumstances and situations of monumental importance that could warrant such exercise of an amendment, also because of the expected hardships that should be associated with changing the provisions of the constitution, the rapidity of embarking upon the act would be so curtailed to the level were only extreme necessity would create the need to seek an amendment of the binding norm, unfortunately this is not the subsisting situation of today's Nigeria.

A constitutional document is nothing more than a mere body of binding agreement, that is agreed upon by the generality of Nigerian people, to guard, guide and direct their affairs, thus as part of the fundamental characteristic of any agreement pact is the terms, signatory parties and most especially the framers of the agreement, the constitution being the supreme law of the land confers upon the individuals that create it with the title of lawgivers, who by their eminent status are expected to poses certain unique qualities that placed them above their normal peers, in terms of character, condor, foresight, soberness and calmness, these is to enable them to produce a document of lasting legacy and quality that would withstand the test of time, unfortunately in the case of individuals and personalities performing the function of amending Nigeria's constitution, the ideal situation is not available as the reputations of our lawgivers is subject of debate.

The binding nature of the 1999 constitution confers on it the need for the Nigerian people to have loyalty and identification with the supreme document, thus issues of credibility and sense of belonging associated with the origin or lineage of the pact, reduces its impact and effect upon the individual citizens it is formulated to serve, because the perception by the Nigerian people that the document belongs to them, further establishes its sanctity as the ultimate code of guidance and direction to the Nigerian federation.

Due to the important nature of the constitution to the lives and future of the Nigerian nation, issues pertaining to its origin, processes relating to its amendment, situations that afflict at its perception and circumstances that question its lineage, should be handled with the utmost gravity that befits its eminent status.