CONSTITUTIONALISM AS THE FOUNDATIONAL COMPONENT OF A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AGENDA FOR NIGERIA

Abstract

Despite the fact that Nigeria is blessed with abundant natural and human resources, the achievement of sustainable development remains faces serious challenges. These challenges are manifest in the debilitating incidents of institutional weakness, insecurity, corruption, poverty, environmental degradation, inequality, lack of proper infrastructure and accountability and other factors which continue to prevent Nigeria from harnessing its resources for sustainable development purposes. This paper contends that the above condition has remained intractable because Nigeria has not prioritized constitutionalism and good governance in its development agenda. Against this background, the paper focuses on the practice of constitutionalism as the indispensable foundational component for the fostering of any sustainable development agenda for Nigeria. The research methodology adopted is doctrinal and the hypothesis is that constitutionalism catalyses sustainable development by ensuring that all governmental powers must be exercised within the confines of legal limits and must be subject to the core elements of constitutionalism. The paper found that constitutionalism provides the basis for sustainable development by promoting constitutional supremacy, democratic governance, institutional accountability, fundamental rights, judicial independence, decentralisation and sustainable development in economic, social and environmental sense. The paper argues that constitutional recognition of development goals would be meaningless without constitutionalism in practice to control the arbitrariness of government and ensure that the institutions discharge their constitutional mandates. The paper therefore recommends measures such as increasing the independence and effectiveness of constitutional democratic institutions, providing access to justice, considering whether certain socio-economic goals should be enforceable, developing environmental constitutionalism, improving fiscal and institutional accountability, and constitutional culture among others. The paper concludes that constitutionalism is a crucial foundation for sustainable development and that Nigeria cannot achieve its sustainable development potentials through economic policies alone, unless its constitutional provisions are effectively enforced and democratic institutions are genuinely independent, competent and accountable.