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Abstract
Nigeria is classified neither as a developed economy nor an economy in transition but as 
a developing economy. This is a gratuitous classification. In real terms, Nigeria is an 
underdeveloped country. In the 2022 ranking of countries in their performance vis-à-vis 
the 2030 sustainable development goals, Nigeria ranks 139 out of 193 countries. It trails 
behind countries like Ghana, Gabon, Togo, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, etc. Its unenviable 
status as the capital poverty of the world, which it acquired in 2018, was only surpassed in 
2022 by India. In spite of this, Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics, in its 2022 report, 
says that 133 million Nigerians are in poverty. This parlous state is being exacerbated by 
ethnicity and religious bigotry. To halt this downward trend and turn the page of political 
transformation, great thinkers have underlined good leadership as a relevant factor that 
can serve as a fillip to the realisation of this goal. Good leadership is good. However, it is 
insufficient for this project. There are two other relevant factors besides good leadership. 
They are, namely, a good constitution and the rule of law. The hierarchical order of 
importance of these relevant factors is: 1. good constitution, 2. good leadership and 3. the 
rule of law. The three are both independent and interdependent at the same time. They are 
a trinity of factors. Nigeria's political transformation depends on these factors' dynamism 
and functionality. The analogy of these factors with the Trinitarian Persons is the 
analytical tool in this paper.  
Keywords: Constitution. Leadership, Law, Trinity, Transformation

Introduction
There are many and varied socio-political and moral problems besetting and buffeting 
Nigeria and scuttling her efforts to realise her development goals. They are insecurity, 
corruption, illiteracy, injustice, ethnicity, religion, etc. This is a bizarre situation that has 
brought about reduced national income, scaring away foreign investors, reduced inflows, 
increased national debts, soaring inflation, weak currency and increased unemployment, 
etc. Several factors are said to be responsible for this unpleasant and embarrassing 
situation. The factors often mentioned are the constitution, leadership and the rule of law. 
Mr Afe Babalola, a well-known Nigerian legal luminary, moors the problem of Nigeria on 
the constitution. He calls for a new constitution for Nigeria (Olayinka, Nzor and Afolabi, 
2022). Some Nigerians agree with him that the Nigerian constitution is fundamentally 
flawed and defective. This is because they support the five amendments which have been 

st nd rdmade in the 1999 constitution. The 1 , 2  and 3  Alterations in the 1999 constitution were 
th thmade in 2010, the 4  in 2017, and the 5  in 2023. Besides these, there were National 

Political Reform Conference under former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005 and the 
National Constitutional Conference under former Goodluck Jonathan in 2014. All these 

THE POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION OF NIGERIA – RELEVANT FACTORS

CLETUS UMEZINWA, PH.D
BIGARD MEMORIAL SEMINARY, ENUGU

96



were made to correct the 1999 constitution, which is believed to be defective. However, 
the two reports of the conferences were not signed into law. There are now calls for the 
merger of the reports of these two conferences. All these attempts are unimpeachable 
pieces of evidence to bolster the view of some that Nigeria's major problem is the 
constitution and that the country will be politically transformed if it has a good 
constitution. 

However, there are lots of other people who believe that there is nothing wrong with 
Nigeria's constitution. For these people, the bane of Nigeria's problems is leadership 
failure. Former military President Babangida is of this conviction. And so, he strove to 
produce a good leader for the country before leaving office as the military President. In his 
transition agenda from military government to civilian administration, he cancelled the 
applications of 18 political parties. He formed only two political parties: The National 
Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). All the 
politicians who wished to contest for the office of the President were compelled to do so 
under these two platforms. The intention was evidently to produce a leader that would 
emerge not through the evocation of primordial ethnic sentiments. He wanted a leader 
that would have national acceptance, a leader that would work for national integration and 
progress of Nigeria. It was under this two-party arrangement that the late Chief M.K. 
Abiola was declared the winner of the 1993 election. It was an election that many 
described as most credible and fair. It was, unfortunately, cancelled by former President 
Babangida himself. Commenting on the two-party system, Kuka says, "A two party 
arrangement almost automatically dislodged regionalism and ethnicity as metaphors for 
political expressions at the national level" (Kukah, 2003). The two-party system was later 
abandoned as a political process for producing the right leaders.
  
And yet, for some other people, particularly human rights activists, the root cause of 
Nigeria's match to self-destruction is the lack of respect for the rule of law. Each of these 
factors is valid in itself. And each contributes to the current state of things and mood in 
Nigeria. Each of them, however, cannot, in isolation, make Nigeria to be El Dorado. There 
is an inextricable connection between the three of them. They are contiguous terms. This 
is why this paper regards them as a trinity of factors necessary for the political 
transformation of Nigeria.  

The Trinity of Factors
In this section, practical examples are given to showcase that these three factors are 
relevant and must all be there for political transformation to take place. We begin with the 
failure of leadership, which has become a hobbyhorse and which many believe to pose the 
most significant challenge to Nigeria. Chinua Achebe emphasises leadership failure as 
the irrefragable cause of the political imbroglio in Nigeria. In his words: "The trouble with 
Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership" (Achebe, 1983). Emmanuel Idike 
subscribes to this view by saying, "leadership is also the greatest problem of Nigeria" 
(Idike, 1998). This opinion has been repeated by other thinkers ad nauseam. It has been 
hyped so much that it appears to be nothing but the truth. It is not the whole truth, however. 
It is only partially true. The coup plotters in Nigeria had also claimed that the problem of 

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Nigeria was leadership failure. Each of them had accused his predecessor of failing to 
provide the required leadership. In his coup speech in 1983, for example, Muhammad 
Buhari said that "The corrupt, inept and insensitive leadership" was the source of 
Nigeria's problems (Olajide, 1983). President Babangida, however, while assessing the 
performance of the ousted military administration of Muhammad Buhari, said in his coup 
speech, "The last twenty months have not witnessed any significant changes. Contrary to 
expectations, we have so far been subjected to a steady deterioration in the general 
standard of living…" (Babangida, 2006). The military juntas who affirmed leadership 
failure as the fons et origo of Nigeria's hydra-headed problems did little or nothing 
significant themselves to buttress their claim. 

Be that as it may, if we direct our gaze to the African scene, it can be seen that Africans had 
had some good leaders. Some of them include Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere, 
Nkrumah, etc. They had something praiseworthy attached to them but not significant 
enough to lift their respective countries away from being classified as developing 
economies; neither did they set up viable and virile political structures that would bring 
some lasting effects in the lives of their people. Perhaps they were hamstrung by the 
defects in their respective constitutions, for good leadership is always dovetailed with a 
good constitution.

So, the hackneyed belief that the cardinal source of Nigeria's malaise is leadership should 
not be adopted hook, line and sinker. Despite their desire and determination to succeed, 
the coup plotters failed because they suspended the constitution and acted arbitrarily. 
They rejected the rule of law and worked according to their whims and caprices. They 
governed by decrees issued by themselves and not by the constitution drafted by the 
people. Even the civilian administrators who received the reins of power from the military 
dictators act with gross impunity towards the constitution. They ignore and flout extant 
laws without scruples, ending in failures like their military predecessors. Beyond this, the 
civilian administrators are destined to fail in their political agenda even if they have the 
good intention to succeed because the constitution under which they operate is defective 
and flawed in many ways. It was not framed to reflect the ethnic and religious diversities 
of Nigeria. There are wild hues and cries over it. The people themselves did not even draft 
it. They did not gather to decide how to live together and be governed. 

Searching for the factors that would bring Nigeria out of the woods, there is the need for a 
constitution that is all-inclusive and acceptable to all sections of the country. That is the 
first thing. The second is good leadership. The third is obedience to the constitution, the 
rule of law. The leader and the subjects must obey the law. These three factors are 
symbiotically related. They constitute a trinity of factors. The idea of a trinity of factors is 
drawn from three Persons in one God – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son is 
begotten eternally by the Father. The Holy Spirit is the bond of Love that binds the Father 
and the Son. These three persons worked in synergy for the salvation of man.

Analogically to the Trinity of Persons in God, political leadership should take its origin 
from the constitution. At the same time, the rule of law should be the ligament or the 

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umbilical cord that binds the constitution with the leadership. The trinity of factors must 
be functional to realise the political transformation that Nigeria desperately needs. When 
any of this trinity of factors is dysfunctional, there is always a morass in the polity. A 
constitution is in inertia when it has no leader to enforce it. A leader is politically blind and 
ineffective when he has no constitution to guide him. Both the constitution and the 
leadership are tenuous without the rule of law. A good constitution without a good leader, 
or a good leader without a good constitution, or a good constitution in which the leader 
and the people act outside the law cannot lead to a political paradise. Let us now see how 
the dynamism of the relevant factors can be activated.

A Good Constitution
Nigeria is a heterogenous entity, a mismatch or hotchpotch of more than 250 ethnic 
groups with different worldviews and ideologies. The ethnic groups had respectively 
used oligarchy, aristocracy and democracy and their different formulations as their 
preferred forms of government before they were forcefully brought together, through the 
contrivance of the colonial masters, to occupy the geographical space called Nigeria. This 
union is weak. It is not cohesive, nor is it integrative nor harmonious. Because its 
constituent parts are disparate and lack internal harmony, the union has failed to produce 
rapid development. The current constitution was framed without considering the different 
traditional forms of government already in existence. And so, there has been the problem 
of integration. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, in his attempt to proffer a solution to 
the integration problem, proposed that Nigeria should enact a law in which any Nigerian 
can acquire a political right in his place of birth and marriage (Ojukwu, 1989). But this 
suggestion has largely been ignored.

Nevertheless, through dialogue, Nigerians should come together to decide how they wish 
to be governed. The intermittent alterations in the 1999 constitution made by members of 
the National Assembly do not satisfy the people's yearnings for a new constitution. 
Nigerians must gather as equals and engage themselves in fruitful dialogues and 
arguments. As Habermas would say, "In discourse what is called the force of the better 
argument is wholly unforced" (Habermas, 2007). In dialogue, a superior argument is 
evident and is easily adopted. Besides, Nigeria needs this national conversation because 
Africans are known for using dialogue to achieve consensus. They dialogue until they 
reach a consensus. The consensus is negotiated through compromises and adjustments of 
positions. In consensus, the opinions of the minorities are accommodated, or their 
voluntary consent is respectfully sought and obtained in any course of action (Wiredu, 
1995). If people reach a consensus about anything, they will likely give that thing the 
cooperation it requires. This is because belief and action go together (Copi, 1978). If 
someone believes in something, it reflects consciously and unconsciously in his action. If 
people believe in a constitution, they give it their maximum support. If the constitution 
does not reflect their wishes, compliance with it will be a mirage or, at best, it will be done 
haphazardly. And no leader can successfully implement its contents. 

The national dialogue will help mitigate ethnicity and religion's negative impact on 
national politics. It will set the limit of these elements in politics when it is done with 

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honesty and sincerity. The result will be tolerance and the absence of the tyranny of the 
majority; it will lead to a situation in which every section will feel a sense of belonging 
and national pride, ultimately stimulating patriotism. So, the national dialogue should 
fundamentally aim at improving the current constitution.

A constitution is a body of laws and principles that serve as a guide on how the members of 
a group ought to act and ought to be governed. And a constitution is good if the people 
themselves draft it. Constitution is, indeed, the expression of the people's desires, wishes 
and expectations. It is not separable from the people. It is the aspirations of the people that 
are incarnated in written form. And as the people did not draft the present Nigerian 
constitution, it must be reframed to reflect their wishes and desires. Some grey areas need 
to be addressed to make it the people's constitution that has all the potential to bring about 
the transformation required for development. The national dialogue will do it better than 
the National Assembly, whose decisions are often influenced by party and ethnic 
considerations. Those who gather for the national dialogue can deliberate on the 
following:

a. How to prevent the making of money out of office. The Nigerian constitution should be 
reframed in such a way as to prevent public office holders from making money out of 
office. This has become necessary because money is easily stolen from the common 
treasury. It was reported, for example, by Economist Magazine that an estimated amount 
of 600 billion dollars was pilfered from the national treasury from the time of 
Independence in 1960 to 2019 (Ayo-Aderele, 2019). While the stealing continues today, 
the country is going on a borrowing spree. On June 30, 2022, the country's total public 
debt stock was 42.84 trillion Naira, equivalent to 103.31 billion dollars (Debt 
Management Office Nigeria, June 30 2022). So, public office holders must be stopped 
from siphoning money from the national purse. If the mechanism for doing this is firmly 
and successfully established, the resultant effect would be that not every Tom, Dick and 
Harry would present himself as a candidate for a political office. It will be the preserve of 
those who are prepared to serve. The poor will not attempt it, for he knows already the 
obstacles put in place to prevent one from using political office to lift oneself from 
poverty. However, he may decide to run for political office to have the opportunity to 
create an enabling environment for wealth creation in which many people, including 
himself, will be beneficiaries. Similarly, the rich may also shun political office since it is 
not a good investment; it does not bring good returns. Nevertheless, he may dare to enter 
politics to serve his compatriots and help them escape poverty.

Besides, reframing the constitution to prevent the embezzlement of public funds will 
enfeeble ethnic agitations for power, especially at the federal level. This is because as the 
political office holders who usually exploit and deploy primordial ethnic sentiments to 
win elections will be receding from partisan politics because it is no longer profitable to 
do so, the negative impacts of ethnicity on body politics will drop significantly and 
eventually peter out. The cry of marginalisation and the call for the rotation of political 
offices will also fizzle out. 

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If we look at the developed economies, we see systems with structures that prevent office 
holders from benefitting unduly from office. In these systems, politicians demonstrate 
maximum detachment from the trappings of office and show commitment, unconditional 
and unalloyed loyalty to the state. They donate themselves for the service of their people. 
They do so even though they stand to lose financially. For example, President Bill Clinton 
and President Barack Obama were poorer when they left office. Bill Clinton was in debt 
of 16 million dollars when he left the White House. He paid off this debt later and 
increased his net worth through speeches he made within and outside U.S. Obama 
increased his net worth by writing books and making paid speeches. President Donald 
Trump said he would not receive the 400,000 Dollars, which is the annual salary of an 
American President. His net worth also dropped significantly at the time he left office.

The recent resignations of government officials in Britain point to the fact that the British 
people are not in office to make money but to serve. The former Prime Minister, Mr David 
Cameron, resigned when his position on Brexit was defeated in a referendum. Mrs 
Theresa May resigned as British Prime Minister because of her failure to negotiate well 
the withdrawal of Britain from the E.U. Mr Boris Johnson stepped aside as British Prime 
Minister due to some of his actions that were inconsistent with his office. Mrs Liz Truss 
resigned after less than two months in office as Prime Minister because she could not 
actualise her promise to the British people. This is an eloquent epiphany that her desire for 
the job of Prime Minister was predicated on service to the people. She quit when her 
ambitious program was no longer feasible. She would have trudged on if her motive in 
politics was to make money from the office. Mr Michael Bates, the British minister of 
state for international development in 2018, offered his resignation just because he 
arrived one minute late when the debate in the parliament was scheduled to begin. He felt 
his lateness was very disrespectful.

Nigeria needs people ready to serve, not predators or people who want to siphon the 
public treasury. And it is necessary to understudy countries like U.S., UK, Germany, 
France, etc., which have established structures that do not make it easy for politicians to 
steal into the public treasury. Nigeria has intellectuals who can make such data quickly 
available. 

b. There is a need to reform the electoral system such that no clear winner emerges at the 
end of an election. It is to be such that the party whose candidate scores the highest votes 
goes into coalition with other parties to get the required number of votes. In Nigeria, a 
presidential candidate, for example, must score the highest number of votes and obtain 25 
per cent of the total votes in each state in at least two-thirds of the 36 states and Abuja. The 
highest number of votes ought to be defined in the new national dialogue. The bar of the 
highest number of votes vis-à-vis the total number of votes cast must be raised and fixed. 
Similarly, the percentage of the votes required to secure a point in a state ought to be 
raised. The parties will align and realign with this new arrangement to produce a clear 
winner. In this way, many ethnic groups and members of other political parties will be part 
of the new government. In Germany, Israel, etc., parties go into coalition with other 
parties with different ideologies to form a government.

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c. On Security – According to data from the security incidents tracker report on security 
breaches between January 1 and July 29, 2022, 7,222 Nigerians were killed, 3,823 were 
abducted, and 2,840 incidents of insecurity were witnessed. About 1,499 Nigerians 
sustained injuries in violent attacks in 505 local government areas (Odeniyi, 2022). The 
abovementioned number of Nigerians, that is, the 7,222 Nigerians, that were killed in 
seven months, from January to July, is much more than 3,144 Nigerians who died as a 
result of the coronavirus from its inception up to July 15, 2022. Security of life and 
property is the primary duty of the government. That is the reason why the government is 
formed. As John Locke would emphasise, "The great and chief end…of men's uniting into 
common-wealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their 
property. To which in the state of nature there are many things wanting" (Locke, 1980). By 
property, he means "life, health, liberty and possession."  So, this problem of insecurity 
needs to be addressed seriously.

The best way to address it is to introduce state police. It should not be an option but an 
imperative. This proposal is rooted in what Aristotle says, that some sense of preciousness 
is observed when things are privately owned (Aristotle, 1990). This preciousness is more 
when there is private ownership than when things are communally owned. There is less 
interest and concern when a thing is a common property. A personal thing, on the other 
hand, is guarded jealously. This is in line with the claim that the first instinct is the instinct 
of self-preservation. Even the idea of Thomas Hobbes and Spinoza that man is 
fundamentally selfish bolsters the claim that the sense of preciousness accompanies 
privately owned property.

Hence, in Nigeria, the police in any state should be people whose place of birth is in that 
state. The advantages of state police are: 1. They know the nooks and crannies of the state. 
With this knowledge, they are in a good position to flush criminals out of their hideouts. 2. 
They will work with a sense of preciousness, knowing that the state belongs to them. 3. 
They can respond to emergencies under the governor as the state's chief security officer. 
The state police should work in pari passu with the federal police. Their respective roles 
are to be clearly defined to avoid conflict.  

d. Those who gather for the national conversation should discuss whether to adopt 
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu's proposal that a place of birth or marriage ought to 
offer someone a political right in that place. Barack Obama's parents were migrants from 
Kenya. Because they acquired American citizenship, Barack Obama, born and bred in 
America, worked there and later became the first black American President. Kamala 
Harris, the first female Vice President of America, was born in California to her parents, 
who migrated from India and Jamaica. While her Father was from Jamaica, her mother 
was from India. Mr Rishi Sunak, the current British Prime Minister, was born to Indian 
parents who migrated from East Africa to Britain.   

Some advantages accrue from using the place of birth to acquire political rights. The first 
is that it helps in the subtle and gradual weakening of the impact of ethnic struggle in the 
polity. When a person from Yoruba parents, born in Anambra State, can contest and win 

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an election there and vice versa, it signals a political turnaround in Nigeria. It means that a 
new spirit in political and ethnic relations has arisen. In this spirit, the office holders will 
be more alert to their responsibilities, for they have nowhere to fall back on when they 
renege on their political promises. Ethnic ascription is why a President cannot be 
impeached in Nigeria. No matter the number of breaches he commits against the 
constitution and his clear display of ineptitude, his people in the National Assembly will 
be up in arms against any attempt to impeach him. So, there is an urgent need to adopt 
Ojukwu's proposal to enervate ethnic affiliation.      

Good Leadership
Plato's popular saying is that the problems in the states would be insoluble "till 
philosophers become kings in the world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really 
and truly become philosophers" (Plato, 1983). This claim is founded on reason, which 
Plato says, is eminently possessed by the philosopher kings. However, Aristotle notes that 
"passion warps the rule even of the best of men" (Aristotle, 1990). If Aristotle's claim is 
accepted, it means that the philosopher king can be influenced by his emotions to such an 
extent that he can veer away from the end of the state. The philosopher king is not only 
rational. He is a rational as well as an emotional being. Even Kant would also criticise 
Plato as he said, "It is not to be expected that kings philosophise or that philosophers 
become kings, nor is it to be desired because possession of power corrupts the free 
judgement of reason inevitably" (Friedrich, 1949).

Nevertheless, a trustworthy and competent leader is needed to pilot the ship of the state. 
For anything composed of parts, there is always a dominant part that concatenates the 
other parts and makes them functional and harmonious. Without the dominant part, the 
other constituent parts are disparate; there cannot be coherence and cohesion in the 
whole. This is why, with regard to a political community, a leader is very important. 

In line with the trinitarian principle explained earlier, a leader should emerge according to 
the constitution's stipulation. Accordingly, a leader should be a member of a political 
community, empowered by the same community to implement what the community 
decides for itself. He is not, by this very fact, superior to the community. As a community 
member, he must abide by the decisions and principles guiding the community just like 
everyone else. He ought not to act arbitrarily or outside the constitution. That would mean 
going beyond his mandate. If he has fresh ideas that would benefit the community, such 
ideas must be submitted to the legislators, the people's representatives, for proper 
scrutiny. He should not arrogate to himself the absolute power of Hobbes' representative 
personality. 

For this reason, the constitution should be reframed to ensure that only the leaders elected 
by the people should emerge as winners at the end of an election cycle. People ought not 
to be allowed to rig themselves into office. Anyone who foists himself into office by hook 
and crook has acted, by so doing, disdainfully against the constitution. He has poorly 
begone. He is more likely to govern without adhering to the principles and stipulations of 
the constitution. He is destined to fail, for he would raise strong opposition against his rule 
for spurning the constitution. This will have additional consequences for not fulfilling the 

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wishes and aspirations of the people.

In reframing the constitution, it ought to be ensured that a political leader must have the 
requisite education, moral integrity, predictability and competence. Education will afford 
him the tool to understand the constitution and how to apply it concretely to achieve 
results. It will help him to understand global politics and its socio-political implications, 
particularly as it affects the country. He should be someone whose moral life is not 
questionable. He lives above board. He is irreproachable and predictable. He is competent 
in the sense that he is visionary, innovative and able to apply theory to practice. How 
would the people know whether a candidate possesses these qualities?

To know this, all contestants should have mandatory public debates. Absence from 
debates should disqualify one from running for the office in question. The people have the 
right to know to whom they are handing over their government. The debates help them to 
make wise decisions. Public debates by aspirants are now in vogue in developed 
democracies like the US, Germany, France, etc.        

The legislators should be honest and courageous to impeach any executive for dereliction 
of duty or for acting in contradistinction to the stipulations of the constitution. If they do 
not do so, the people should be at liberty to rise to take back their mandate from both the 
executives and the legislators through protests. Protests have not worked in Nigeria 
because of entrenched ethnic affiliation and tribal sentiments. But they can begin to be 
effective when the proposals made earlier to weaken the negative impacts of ethnicity are 
adopted. If the measures are meticulously applied, ethnicity would be massively 
downgraded. People should not look askance at protests. As John Stuart Mill would say, 
"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and 
do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in 
his name, and with the means which he helps to supply" (Mill, 1867). Protests have 
worked in some countries. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, who was in 
power for 23 years, was ousted through popular civil resistance that lasted for 28 days. 
The people revolted against the harsh economic conditions, corruption and denial of 
political freedom. In 2011, a popular uprising in Egypt forced President Hosni Mubarak to 
step down as President. It was led by the youths who accused his government of poverty 
and repression. 

Rule of Law
Amnesty International reports that from 2015 to 2019, the Nigerian government has 
disobeyed 40 court orders. This is the latest figures released by the organisation (Sesan, 
2019). Disobedience to court orders causes disequilibrium in the trinity of factors. This is 
part of the reason things have gone haywire in Nigeria. A personal example is the hallmark 
of leadership. If leaders do not respect and obey the constitution or the order of the 
competent court of law, it precipitates the rule of the jungle, which is a recipe for anarchy. 
It is said that the court is the last hope of the common man. But this mantra should not be 
sounded only when a court's ruling is in one's favour. Court judgement should be 
welcomed, willy-nilly.

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Socrates was a shining and paradigmatic example of someone who obeyed the law. Under 
trumped-up charges by his adversaries, namely, Meletus, Anytus and Lycon, he was tried, 
convicted and condemned to death (Plato, 1982). He was thrown into prison, waiting for 
the day he would be summarily discharged from this world. His bosom and boon friend, 
Crito, came to the prison to inform him that he and his two other friends, Simmias of 
Thebes and Cebes and his numerous other friends were ready and prepared to contribute 
money to facilitate his escape from prison to Thessaly or any other place of his choice. 
Socrates jettisoned their plan on the ground that this would be tantamount to disobedience 
to the court order and disrespect to the constitution. He had already accepted the court 
ruling against him even though it was manifestly a travesty of justice, a glaring 
miscarriage of justice. For him, a city would be topsy-turvy if laws were not obeyed.

The political leaders would set dangerous and tragic examples when they did not obey 
court orders. It would make them not even have the moral courage to compel their 
subjects to comply with court decisions. Besides, disobeying the court orders would be a 
gross violation of the separation of powers enshrined in the constitution. The separation of 
power was clearly articulated by Montesquieu, who had warned of the dangers of 
interference in the judicial process (Montesquieu, 2008). 

The citizens, whose desires and aspirations are expressed in the constitution, should not 
contradict themselves by going against it, either brazenly or clandestinely. The 
constitution and the citizens are inseparable; they are inextricably joined together. As 
noted, the constitution is the incarnate expression of the citizens' intentions and desires in 
written form. For them to act against the constitution is to act against themselves.

Law is what characterises human society. A society without a law approximates itself to 
an animal kingdom. The same is true of a society with a body of laws that are flagrantly 
flouted. Laws have their basis in morality. As Omeregbe states, "What distinguishes 
human societies sharply from the animal groups is the fact that human societies are moral 
societies…the more moral norms are flouted in any society, the more the society in 
question approximates the animal groups, and the less it develops” (Omoregbe, 2018). 
Emphasising the importance of law to society Aristotle maintains, "For as man is the best 
of animals when perfected, so he is the worst of all when sundered from law and justice" 
(Aristotle, 1990). So, man is at his best when guided by the law but worst when he 
separates himself from the law.    

Conclusion
Things in nature have essential elements under which they grow and survive. Seeds, for 
example, need water, air and warmth to germinate and flourish. One of these elements 
cannot, in isolation, make a seed to germinate. The three elements must be present for this 
to happen. Similarly, fish need food, water and oxygen to survive. When any one of these 
is wanting, there is a problem. The fish will die off. On the part of man, he needs a 
balanced diet for healthy living. Things that make up a balanced diet include protein, fat, 
carbs, water, minerals, vitamins and fibre. Each of these elements is independent of and 
interdependent with other elements to bring about the overall good health of the person, 

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just as in the Trinity of Persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit God 
play respective and collaborative roles in the salvation of man.
Similarly, a political society needs the three relevant factors to exist and to attain its end. 
These factors are a good constitution, good leadership and the rule of law. One factor 
alone is not enough to bring about political transformation. A good leader cannot achieve 
the end of the state if there is no good constitution to guide him or if he neglects to follow 
the rule of law in exercising his duty. Policy makers should look closely at these relevant 
factors in their formulation of policies that are aimed at the political transformation of 
Nigeria.

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Debt Management Office Nigeria: Nigeria's Total Debt Stock as at June 30, 2022, 

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Umezinwa The Political Transformation of Nigeria – Relevant Factors          

106

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Mill, J.S. (1867). “Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews” - 
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Sesan, K. (2019). “Buhari has Disobeyed Court 40 Times – Amnesty Lawyer” - 

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Nigeria bankrupt, hopeless without new 
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international-lawyer/

Olayinka, C, Nzor E. and Afolabi A. (2022). 

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https://punchng.com/7222-killed-3823-abducted-in-seven-months-report/
file:///C:\\Users\\Cletus\\Documents\\Gen.%20Muhammadu%20Buhari's%20Coup%20Speech%20On%2031st%20December%201983
https://wap.org.ng/read/gen-muhammadu-buharis-coup-speech-on-31st-december-1983/
https://guardian.ng/news/nigeria-bankrupt-hopeless-without-new-constitution-says-afe-babalola/
https://www.signalng.com/buhari-has-disobeyed-court-40-times-amnesty-international-lawyer/

