Imposed Fraudulent 1999 Constitution Is Worse Than Apartheid Constitution of South Africa; It Must Be Taken Down – vows LNC’s Nnadi

Mr. Rudolf Okonkwo of Iroko TV, New York, has serially engaged leading self-determination groups in today’s Unitary Nigeria intending to elucidate better the struggle as well as controversial matters and obstacles that stand in the path of such an endeavor. This YouTube video is the 2nd part of an interview with Mr. Tony Nnadi, who is the Secretary-General of the Lower Niger Congress (LNC). The interview was to initially delve into the recent public outcry by the Media Assistant to the Buhari presidency against the foreign activities of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) that the incumbent administration had classified as a terrorist entity. Mr. Nnadi quickly disposed of the gambit from the Aso Rock Villa as a mere gimmick aimed at distracting international attention now beamed on Nigeria as a chronic violator of the citizens’ religious freedoms through ethnic cleansing and jihad targeted at the Christians of the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria.

Mr. Nnadi noted that the main reason why the Christians in the Middle Belt cannot defend themselves and protect their ancestral lands from the AK47-toting Fulani herdsmen militia and jihadist is because of the 68-Item Federal Exclusive Legislative List in the current constitution which prohibits states and geopolitical zones at the periphery from making laws that can better guarantee their residents’ rights to live in peace on their very own ancestral lands. He blames the same imposed constitution and its Exclusive List for making it impossible for states and even business interests to engage in the generation and distribution of electricity. The same imposed fraudulent 1999 Constitution was arbitrarily deployed by a military junta, without a popular mandate, to replace the Republican Constitution of 1963 that shepherded the relative peace, stability and prosperity of the First Republic. To free the enslaved stakeholders of today’s Unitary Nigeria, the imposed fraud that had seized the assets the indigenous peoples of the South and Middle Belt must first receive the same treatment as the Apartheid Constitution of South Africa before a new understanding was negotiated to bring about the majority-rule democracy that Madiba Mandela presided over.

It is a matter of great shame that, despite the unanimity of views that the imposed fraudulent 1999 Constitution is the cause of the woes of today’s Unitary Nigeria, there is no shortage of partisan political jobbers in the South and Middle Belt whose focus is already being directed to the 2023 INEC-scheduled electoral charade. As long as the imposed constitutional fraud maintains its mythical image in the minds of greed-obsessed political jobbers, it makes no difference who gets elected into whatever post. The only ones who benefit after the election under such a fraudulent setup are those who swear with the Koran or the Bible to defend and protect the fraud in perpetuity. The hoodwinked masses whose votes are used to ride into power are left to stew in their own broth until the next election cycle four years down the road.

This is the debut of a new tune that you will hear more of from the LNC and its Alliance Partners in the Movement for New Nigeria (MNN). The message is simple. The promising giant of Africa died as a six-year-old toddler on May 27, 1967 when the then Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon permanently destroyed the four-regional federal structure that gave birth to a stable, prosperous and self-ruled Nigeria and replaced it with 12 states by issuing a military. Since that infamous historical landmark, Nigeria has been carved up into a total of 36 states plus the Abuja Federal Capital Territory (FCT) – all done through military fiat. Before they finally left in 1999, the last Mohican, General Abdulaami Abubakar, made a compilation of all the ordinances and decrees of the military era into a document that he promulgated as Decree No 24 of 1999.  This Decree No 24 of 1999 was later baptized to answer the 1999 Constitution soon after the former General Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn-in as the first “civilian” president of the Fourth Republic.

There is unanimity among stakeholders regarding the imposed fraudulent 1999 Constitution as the cause of all the woes of Unitary Nigeria. Corruption, indiscipline, squandermania, lootocracy are all symptoms of a malignant constitution that was not autochthonously derived.

There are disparate demands being made on a Unitary Nigerian state that cannot meet any expectations of it. From the Boko Haram terrorist insurgents and ISWAP in the Lake Chad Basin, the bandits and Fulani herdsmen militia that terrorize the Middle Belt to the Niger Delta militants as well as the self-determination agonists that operate among ethnic nationalities of the South, the imposed fraudulent 1999 Constitution is fingered as the object of disputation. The stakeholders of the Yoruba, Lower Niger and Middle Belt emergent federations have separately and jointly repudiated and rejected the 1999 Constitution as the basis for charting Nigeria’s future. Paradoxically, only the 12 Shari states of the Islamic North seem to be at ease with the status quo, possibly because one of theirs is at the helm at the center in the interim.

Whoever are not just paying lip service to the unity, peace and progress in Africa’s most populous country must see the reason and also the urgency in taking down an imposed fraud that has brought so much unease, insecurity and mass impoverishment and premature deaths to the citizens of an otherwise well-endowed country like Nigeria.