Self-Determination Group Calls For Abolishment Of 1999 Constitution, Cancellation of 2023 Elections

The agitation by the people of the southern part of Nigeria to pull out of the Nigerian state, the most populous black nation in the world, is getting more interesting by the day. While there have been different groups clamouring for segregation and self-determination from the country, a group, the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS) is advancing this self-government with a new dimension and is doing so with serious vigour and purposeful crusade.

Rising from a meeting held in Lagos, southwest Nigeria on Sunday, 19 December 2021, the NINAS, in what can be described as the stocktaking, status and next-steps statement, called on the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to repeal the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, as this is the source from which the woes and miseries of Nigeria and Nigerians flow. 

According to the leadership of NINAS, a five-point demand has been forwarded to the Nigerian government. The demands include a formal announcement by the Federal Government of Nigeria acknowledging the constitutional grievances and sovereignty dispute now declared by the peoples of the south and middle-belt of Nigeria. A formal commitment by the Federal Government of Nigeria to the wholesale decommissioning and jettisoning of the 1999 Constitution as the basis of the Federation of Nigeria as was done by the Government of Apartheid-Era South Africa in 1990, to commence the process by which the Apartheid Constitution of the then South Africa was eased out. A formal announcement by the Federal Government of Nigeria suspends further general elections coming up in 2023 under the disputed 1999 Constitution since winners of such elections will swear to and be governed by that Constitution. A formal initiation of a time-bound transitioning process to midwife the emergence of fresh constitutional protocols by a Two-Stage Process in which the Constituent Regional Blocs will at the first stage, distil and ratify their various constitutions by Referendums and Plebiscites and in the second stage, negotiate the terms of federating afresh as may be dictated by the outcomes of Referendum and Plebiscites, and a formal invitation to the peoples of the south and middle-belt of Nigeria to work out and emplace a Transitional Authority, which shall specify the modalities for the transitioning process including the composition and mandate of the Transitional Authority as well as the time-frame for the transitioning and other ancillary matters.

Professor Yusufu Turaki, leader of Middlebelt Nationalities, who spoke on behalf of NINAS said that “we want to announce to our people and the concerned international community, the success of our December 16, 2020, Constitutional Force Majeure in precipitating the countrywide consensus required for the immediate decommissioning of the Caliphate-Imposed 1999 Unitary Constitution of Nigeria by which we are in bondage in our homelands and from which all the many miseries, woes and failures of Nigeria and Nigerians flow. 

“The woes include, but are not limited to the killings going on everywhere in Nigeria, the general insecurity, the seizure of all economic assets including oil and gas, the ports and other maritime assets, solid minerals including gold, the monumental corruption we see, quota system and skewed opportunities distribution, the egregious impunity constantly on display, the decay in infrastructure, the lack of electricity and mounting tariffs, the broken down refineries and the frequent hike in petroleum prices: as everything flows from the 1999 Constitution, especially the 68-item Federal Exclusive Legislative List. Also, there is no possibility of the rule of law under a worse-than-apartheid 1999 Constitution.  Nothing will get better in Nigeria under this Unitary Constitutional Order no matter who gets to power,” Prof. Turaki warned. 

How do NINAS tend to achieve its set objectives considering the political structures currently in place in the country? Prof Turaki noted that “to current political office holders in Nigeria, NINAS says that our campaign is not to get you out of office nor are we, anarchists. That is the reason for the transitioning process contained in our five-point proposition under which current governance structures will remain in place (on an adjusted basis) for the period of the transitioning just as apartheid-era South Africa had to do in 1990 to ease itself out of the quagmire of apartheid constitution.

 
“We cannot continue to play the role of the Judas Goat, luring our own people to deeper damnation, impoverishment and slaughter every four years when elections hold. We could be statesmen for once even in our own enlightened self-interest as the kind of societal collapse staring Nigeria in the face right now will not spare anyone.  

“To the media, NINAS says, Nigeria is in distress and the people are dying in large numbers. The task of taking this redemption message to the masses of our people, falls squarely on you, just as was the case during the fight for independence from British Colonial Rule.  

“To the religious leaders in Nigeria, NINAS says: on which side are you in this contestation between light and darkness. Where are the Bishop Desmond Tutus in this land? Ditto for the lawyers in Nigeria, where do you stand in this debate that is costing lives and blood? 

“To the peoples and masses of Nigeria, NINAS say: the prison gate is open. Let us get up and walk swiftly past it to our freedom. All we need to do is to firmly tell the political parties and merchants that we shall not go with them to renew our enslavement yet again in 2023. That choice is one between life and death as failure to stop the vicious cycle only leaves us open to the invasion of those who are on a mission to conquer us and who are being enabled by the 1999 Constitution they imposed on us,” Prof Turaki said.

Since March this year, NINAS has not relented in its determination to ensure that both the authorities and the international communities hear its voice and the grievances.

He said:  A 90-day period of notice to the Government of the Federation of Nigeria, within which formal commitments must be made by the Federal Government of Nigeria for the resolution of those grave grievances, failing which the peoples of the alliance territories may reconsider the limited toleration and allegiance being extended to 1he disputed 1999 Constitution.  

“At the expiration of the 90-Day notice, March 16, 2021, a 30-day period of consultations was extended to the state governors and other elected officials from March 17, 2021, after which another 120-day period of consultations was extended to the peoples of Nigeria and the stakeholder-segment of the international community from April 17, 2021, concluded August 16, 2021. Thereafter, a million-man freedom march was staged at the UN Headquarters in New York September 14-24, 2021 during the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly.   

“The outcome of these notices and consultations has been spectacular and successful as they forced to the front-burner, a much more enlightened debate around the agitations for a grand reconfiguration of the damaged constitutional foundations of the distressed Nigerian federation, producing a countrywide consensus against the Unitary Constitution of Nigeria.  

“Specifically, the Federal Government of Nigeria in response rushed to the National Assembly for constitution amendments targeted as some kind of palliative to the grievances raised, but the National Assembly for the first time confessed it does not possess the constituent powers required to make or remake Constitution for Nigeria.” 

NINAS’ secretary-general, Tony Nnadi declared that Nigeria is on the verge of war which the people will declare on the those who don’t want to give way for self-determination, adding that “it has just got to the state that people don’t want to take the injustice anymore.

“Our fight for independence did not just stop with the British handing over the country to indigenous rule in 1960, but it is still ongoing. Whereas, we all know that ethnic nationalities own the constituent of Nigeria, while is it that some people now arrogate the power to rule to themselves? 1999 is the bane of all these anomalies we are experiencing now and it must go. The constitution sets up avenues for corruption to thrive, as everything is centralised in the federal government,” Nnadi said.