‘1999 constitution, a fallacy that must be discontinued’
Popularly referred to by his peers and admirers as ‘Don-P’ or ‘The Don,’ Obaseki is clearly a pioneer of the Nollywood industry and one of Nigeria’s most influential entertainment personalities and broadcast consultant.<br />
A lecturer from the University of Benin, Dr Pedro Obaseki has described the 1999 Constitution as a fallacy that must be discontinued if Nigeria must move forward.
He called that the document, which was the most dastardly act of the military needed to be reconstructed so that Nigerians can have direct say on how they are governed and how revenues are appropriated.
Obaseki stated this in Lagos at a public lecture tagged: “Fourth Republic, the Issues and Questions”, organized by production department of the National Broadcast Academy, an arm of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria yesterday.
He described the Third Republic as a stillbirth, not fully birthed in democracy while he described the Fourth Republic as the biggest misnomer she ever had, saying, “Through, through dialogue and debate, it could be reshaped.”
According to him, “We are in the Fourth Republic, the first to third republics were not known to law. For it to be solved, there must be sovereign national convention.
We must go back to the 2014 confab, everything that was said and agreed upon and put out as a document, which this present government has refused to look at.
“There must be a contentious attempt by this government to either adopt the 2014 agreed confab or follow the first page to their preamble on their manifesto for us to sit, discuss so that we can move forward. If not there would be more Boko Harams, more Niger Delta militants and more MASSOB”, he said.
However, in the heat of the debate, a lecturer of Mass Communication from the University of Lagos, Dr Tayo Popoola, debunked the current believe that Nigeria is in the Fourth Republic.
Popoola who claimed that the Third Republic never existed, said that republic was a media and military contraction, due to the inconclusiveness of June 12 1993 general elections.
He blamed the media for collaborating with the military to misinform Nigerians about the Third Republic, saying, “The topic has been a very disturbing one; I pray my view gets to the National Assembly with a view to correcting that error and mistake.
To correct the ills caused some years ago, Popoola tasked the media to verify and authenticate stories properly before disseminating to the public.
Speaking earlier, the Director, National Broadcast Academy, Mr. Ajibola Abiola said the case with the Third Republic that led to the controversial Fourth Republic could be described as a child that could not see the light of the day and should therefore not be counted.
The Head, academy’s department of production, Mrs. Uche Obaseki said the gathering was a fall out of an interactive class with students of her department around the controversies surrounding the use of the media in Nigeria’s political history.
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