A socio-cultural group, the Yoruba Peoples Forum (YPF), has called on President Bola Tinubu to take steps to return Nigeria to the 1963 Republican Constitution.
The forum said a return of the 1993 Constitution will help reposition the country.
In a statement in Lagos on Monday, August 19, 2024, jointly signed by its Chairman, Banji Ayiloge and the General Secretary, Dipo Akinsiku, the forum many concerned citizens across regions were “no longer interested in cosmetically tinkering with the objectionable 1999 Nigerian constitution.”
The statement said, “What they fervently desire is for President Tinubu to return to the 1963 Republican Constitution, a beacon of hope violently jettisoned by the military.”
The forum said it was in support of calls for meaningful reforms by the present administration that must include a return to the regional government negotiated and agreed upon by Nigeria’s founding fathers.
It added, “For Nigeria to make economic and political progress, the 1999 constitution must be scrapped.
“A new constitution, based mainly on the 1963 constitution must be passed, with the people’s mandate and enacted after a referendum.
“Without a new constitution based primarily on the 1963 Constitution, Nigeria will continue to hover in the doldrums,” the forum said.
The group said that all parts of Nigeria, instead of playing politics of ethnicity and self-centeredness, should focus on finding solutions that would help uplift the people.
“The President must start, without any delay, the process of returning to the system of government that all segments of Nigeria agreed to before and immediately after independence,” the statement added.
