Nigeria's Constitution Opens With "We the People" — But the People Never Actually Wrote a Single Word of It
Nigeria — Constitution Profile
| 📅 Active Since | May 29, 1999 |
| 🏛️ Government | Federal Presidential Republic |
| 🌍 Capital | Abuja |
| 📄 Drafted By | Outgoing Military Government, weeks before handover |
| 🗳️ Public Referendum | None held |
| 📜 States Defined | 36 states, 774 local government areas |
Open the Nigerian constitution and the very first line declares that "we the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria" have come together to deliberate and collectively approve this document as their supreme law. It reads like the opening of a national consensus, the kind built through years of debate and a final vote at the ballot box. The actual history behind those words tells a very different story.
The Man Who Signed It Into Law Was Never Elected to Anything
The document currently governing Africa's most populous nation wasn't approved by parliament, ratified by a constituent assembly, or put to a national vote. The current 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was decreed into being on May 5, 1999, by General Abdulsalami Abubakar and his exclusively military Provisional Ruling Council.
Abubakar wasn't trying to build a permanent legacy in office either — he was the soldier tasked with closing out Nigeria's military era and handing power to civilians within months. That a single general, leading a council made entirely of fellow officers, could finalize the supreme law for over a hundred million people in his final weeks in charge says everything about how Nigeria's constitutional process actually worked.
It Was Copied From the Document Written by the General Before Him
Abubakar didn't start from a blank page. He reached for what was already sitting on the shelf from the previous attempt at a transition, made by a different general entirely. From the 1979 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Abdulsalam modeled, and created the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, which became the supreme legal framework for the current third Republic civilian democratic government in Nigeria.
That earlier 1979 document had its own military fingerprints all over it too. Their military regime imposed a new constitutional framework that sharply revised the doctrine of Nigeria's Independence Constitution. So the law currently governing Nigeria traces its core structure not back to the country's independence negotiations with Britain, but to a chain of military officers updating each other's paperwork across two decades.
Legal Scholars Have a Specific Term for Constitutions Like This — And Nigeria's Doesn't Qualify
There's actually a recognized legal concept for a constitution that genuinely originates from a country's own people rather than being imposed on them. An autochthonous constitution is one that originates from the people.
Nigerian legal academics studying the 1999 document have been blunt about where it falls on that scale. The fact that the 1999 Constitution was not made by the people constitutes a flaw in it that cannot be cured. Nothing can change its character as a constitution made, not by the people, but by the Federal Military Government, and simply imposed on the National Assembly. The opening line claiming popular authorship isn't just optimistic phrasing — by Nigeria's own legal scholarship, it's factually disputed.
One Researcher Found the Military Even Wrote Itself Permanently Into the Constitution's DNA
The influence of military rule on Nigeria's governing document goes well beyond who signed the final paperwork. According to one detailed academic analysis of the period, the very structure of the state — how centralized power became, how federalism itself was redefined — was set by decree long before 1999 arrived. The Constitutional documents manufactured from military rule — in 1979 under General Olusegun Obasanjo, in 1988 under General Ibrahim Babangida, in 1995 under General Sani Abacha, and in 1999 under General Abdulsalami Abubakar — could be deemed to be the ratification of measures of centralization that military dictators had undertaken with little or no consent from vested civilian interests.
The same researcher argued the 1999 document essentially carries forward instructions from soldiers to civilians about how the country should continue to be run. The 1999 Constitution appears to be a mandate from military dictators to their civilian followers in the Nigerian populace that they should continue with centralization of governmental functions as the only way forward in the governance of Nigeria.
The Constitution Created 36 States and 774 Local Governments — All By Decree, None By Local Consent
Few constitutions in the world spell out their internal administrative map in quite this much specific detail. It defines the national capital, 36 states and their capitals, and 774 local government areas within Nigeria.
That level of granular detail exists precisely because the states themselves weren't formed through negotiation between equal partners choosing to federate — they were carved out, expanded, and redrawn by successive military governments trying to manage ethnic tension by fragmenting larger, more powerful regions into smaller, more numerous ones. Section 2(3) provides for 36 states in Nigeria and lists them. The clear description of Nigeria as a federation and the division of the country into 36 states with Abuja as the federal capital territory confirms the existence of a federation, at least in terms of structure. The word "structure" is doing careful work there — the form of federalism exists; whether the underlying spirit does is a separate, more contested question.
Equality Before the Law Has a Quiet Asterisk Most People Never Notice
One specific phrasing choice in the modern Nigerian constitution sets it apart from most Western constitutional documents in a way that rarely makes headlines. Contrary to normal western constitutions, who state "all persons are equal", the Nigerian constitution restricts this to citizens only, stating "All citizens are equal."
It's a narrower guarantee than it first appears, and it matters in a country home to millions of non-citizen residents, refugees, and migrants from across West Africa. A single substituted word — citizens instead of persons — quietly draws a legal boundary around exactly who the document's most fundamental equality promise actually protects.
Even the Country's Own Diversity Numbers Make the "We the People" Line Harder to Defend
Part of why critics find the constitution's opening claim so difficult to accept has to do with the sheer scale of who would have needed to be consulted for that claim to hold up. It has over 374 multilingual groups with different cultures and traditions. This diversity contributes to Nigeria being "one of the world's most deeply divided countries" with rampant political corruption.
Reaching genuine collective approval across 374 distinct linguistic and cultural groups would be an enormous undertaking for any government, let alone one military council finalizing a document in its final weeks of unilateral rule. As a result, Nigeria has undergone many attempts to form an effective constitution. These efforts include civilian and military rule, centrifugal and centralised federalism, presidential and parliamentary systems, and other political institutions.
Twenty-Five Years Later, the Push to Finally Rewrite It Properly Still Hasn't Stopped
The debate over the constitution's legitimacy hasn't faded with time — if anything, it has become one of the most persistent themes in Nigerian politics. Ethnic nationalities and interest groups believe that the content and character of the 1999 Constitution have stifled their growth and development. This has led to the rejection of the constitution by various groups, especially those representing various ethnic groups, civil society, and professional groups within the Nigerian polity.
Even recent amendment efforts keep circling back to the same unresolved tension between the center and the states. Notable efforts in the recent alteration are the issue of devolution of power. For instance, the new amendment seeks to move airports, fingerprints, identification and criminal records, correctional services, and railways from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List. A quarter-century after the generals handed over power, Nigerians are still negotiating, piece by piece, how much authority Abuja should actually be allowed to hold.
Constitution at a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| First Independence Constitution | 1960 |
| Republic Established | 1963 |
| Presidential System Introduced | 1979 (under military regime) |
| Military Rule (final stretch) | 1985–1999 |
| Current Constitution Decreed | May 5, 1999 |
| Came into Force | May 29, 1999 |
| States Defined | 36 |
| Local Government Areas | 774 |
| First Amendments Since 1999 | 2011, under President Goodluck Jonathan |
| Distinct Ethnolinguistic Groups | 374+ |
📥 Read the Constitution of Nigeria
Read the complete, official text of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria:
👉 Read the Constitution of Nigeria — Official Full Text PDF
A constitution that opens by claiming the people wrote it — decreed instead by a single general in his final weeks in power. Three hundred seventy-four ethnic groups, and no referendum ever asked any of them. What part of Nigeria's story surprised you most? Tell us in the comments below.
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