An Original Theory of Constitutional Moments and Transformative Legal Change in Nigeria: From Military Decrees to Democratic Constitutionalism

Bruce Ackerman's Constitutional Moments Theory identifies extraordinary political mobilisation episodes that produce transformative constitutional change outside ordinary politics as the primary mechanism of constitutional evolution in democracies. Nigeria's constitutional history, marked by military coups, constitutional conferences, and social movements, presents an analytically rich context for testing and extending constitutional moments theory beyond its United States origins. An original theoretical examination of constitutional moments in Nigeria's constitutional history and their implications for future transformative constitutional change has not been conducted. This study develops an original theory of constitutional moments in Nigeria, applying and critically extending Ackerman's constitutional moments framework to the Nigerian context, examining the 1950 Ibadan Conference, the 1966 military coup, the 1978 Constituent Assembly, the 1994 National Constitutional Conference, and the 1999 democratic transition as potential constitutional moments. The methodology combines a historical constitutional text analysis of all major Nigerian constitutional instruments with qualitative analysis of constitutional conference proceedings, military decree texts, and political mobilisation records from the National Archives. Ackerman's Constitutional Dualism Theory, Critical Constitutional Change Theory, and African Transformative Constitutionalism provide the theoretical foundations. The study's original contribution is an African Constitutional Moments Theory that accounts for military rupture, ethnic compact formation, and civil society mobilisation as constitutional moment triggers specific to post-colonial federal states. Findings generate a theoretically grounded constitutional transformation roadmap for Nigeria. Keywords: constitutional moments, transformative constitutionalism, constitutional change, Nigeria, Ackerman.