The Constitution Trap: Living in a House We Didn't Build: Full Edition

Living in a House We Didn't Build

Professor Dele stands before his constitutional law class at UNILAG holding two documents. One was written by fifty-five elected delegates over four months and ratified by thirteen state conventions. The other was written by twenty-five military appointees in two months, signed by one general, and never shown to the Nigerian people for approval. Both begin with the words "We the People." The 1999 Nigerian Constitution — the document that governs 220 million people — is a military decree disguised as a democratic charter. The Constitution Trap forensically examines how this document concentrates power in Abuja, handcuffs local governments, and was designed specifically to prevent the citizens nominally sovereign over it from changing it.