Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Wole Olanipekun has revealed that former President Olusegun Obasanjo nearly got physical with him for suggesting an amendment to the 1999 Constitution while he was in office.
Olanipekun made the disclosure on Wednesday, January 31 during a Convocation Lecture at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State.
The former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, who described the 1999 Constitution as a fake document, said it was to blame for the myriad of challenges bedevilling the country.
He said; “Every governor goes to Abuja now everyday and who do they go to see, directors, deputy directors. Is this federalism?
“We need a constitution with a humane face. I’m a lawyer but we are deceiving ourselves; our constitution is fake and I have said this over and over, but then as lawyers you will ask us, if we say the constitution is fake, why are we practising it?
“Lawyers and judges apply the law as it is, not the law as it ought to be; so we apply the law as we have it now and we have been pleading that we should amend the constitution, let us overhaul it. I, as President of the NBA, I led a delegation of the association to President Obasanjo in 2022; he almost boxed me.
“I am here in Ogun State and I’m saying this, he is still alive, he said, ‘No, you can’t change it’. I said, ‘Mr. President, let us seize this opportunity to do it’ and we also appeal to the powers that be now, to our President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that the time for us to restructure this country is now. If we do not do it, these children that we have abroad might not return home, they won’t come here.”
Olanipekun said the current situation of the country was so scary that those living abroad would never come to Nigeria.
