Igbo-Presidency Proposition Is a Ruse, Distraction: Imposed Fraudulent 1999 Constitution Negates Igbo Aspirations – Iroanya

Many do wonder why some Nigerian political operatives, especially from the North, are peddling the notion of an Igbo presidency as the preferred outcome of the next general elections cycle in 2013. The 2019 presidential election outcome is still being contested in the court. Yet, some are quite at ease pontificating over the next electoral cycle, which is still almost four years down the road. Nigerians are always animated by political discourse, especially the aspect dealing with elections. The government is the biggest distributor of the national largesse and this explains why contest for elective executive positions is seen as a matter of life and death in some circles. The Igbo have their just grievances against Unitary Nigeria because it is predicated on the 1999 Constitution which was tailor-made to militate against the strategic interests of Ndiigbo. The Igbo elite corps have painstakingly concluded that Unitarism must be replaced with federalism that offered the political stability and economic prosperity of the First Republic. Is the offer of the so-called Igbo presidency aimed at ameliorating the Igbo disgust for the status quo or is this option regarded as a lesser burden for the Northern aristocracy than having to deal with jettisoning the widely repudiated 1999 Constitution?

Dr. Clifford Iroanya, a Houston-based project engineer, spoke with the conviction and erudition of a learned brother. This video is used to show the folly of those who believe that peddling the Igbo-presidency bogie is a plausible means to throw the Igbo hearth into a frenzied confusion. The mere dangle of the much-touted Igbo presidency is enough to arrest the attention of a segment of the Igbo political class who would eagerly jump into the queue for the plum post come 2023. It is, therefore, quite useful that Dr. Iroanya has reacted to this Igbo-presidency red herring early enough in the forthcoming electoral cycle so as to forewarn the usual political jobbers about all the implications of this bait. Minders of Unitary Nigeria are keenly aware of the fact that a majority of Igbo stakeholders wish to see an immediate restructuring of the country before an inevitable implosion supervenes. A smart way to sow division in the Igbo political elite corps is to dangle the plausibility of the Igbo presidency before them by the minders of the status quo. Some shall surely jump for it. But on the flip side, however, such intrigues make the self-determination agonists to become more inspired to deal a death blow to Unitary Nigeria which cannot be saved, even by an Igbo president.

Dr. Iroanya argues that the 1999 Constitution was designed to make it a near impossibility for the Igbo to win the presidency of Nigeria through the electoral process. But even if the sun rises from the west and an Igbo becomes an elected president of Nigeria, there is little he can do to alter the set path for Unitary Nigeria which is propped up and governed by the dictates of the imposed fraudulent 1999 Constitution. The first thing that an Igbo president shall be required to do is to swear an oath to uphold the disputed fraudulent 1999 Constitution. He then asked nine rhetorical questions to spotlight aspects of Nigeria’s governance about which an Igbo president can do nothing, whatsoever, because of clear constitutional guidelines that must be followed. The Igbo president shall violate his oath if he takes any actions that contradict the 1999 Constitution. There are also many facts on the ground within the country’s political economy which an Igbo president can do NOTHING to alter. He gave instances with the twelve Northern states that voted to adopt the Sharia legal system and the near impossibility of removing Nigeria from membership of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) by an Igbo president.

He cited many sections of the 1999 Constitution to show how this “Book of Lucifer” is used to assure the enslavement of Ndiigbo and confiscate all their ancestral lands by particular parts of the constitution in which the Igbo had no role, whatsoever, in writing or ratifying. He spent some bandwidth to flesh out and explain Section 162 subsection 1 & 2 which deals with the creation of a Federation Account to collect all revenues nationwide before sharing allocations to states based on the three criteria of the jurisdictions’ population, landmass and the number of local councils. He used raw data from crude oil revenue to illustrate the fact that a state like Kano, which contributes nothing to the revenue stream, gets more receipts from Abuja than a combination of Imo and Abia states that jointly provide more than $20 million monthly to the Federation Account. Kano, with its large population, landmass and same number of local councils as Imo and Abia states combined, gets the lion share of the $20 million revenue earned from Imo and Abia states. Kano state and other locations like that in the North and elsewhere are parasitic leeches that survive by reaping where they have not sown. The 1999 Constitution promotes opportunism and parasitism while negating competition and increased productivity.

Dr. Iroanya unleashed his venom on Section 4, subsection 2, which houses the infamous 68-item Federal Exclusive Legislative list. The essence of this segment of the 1999 Constitution is to completely disable the peripheral states from making laws which can empower regional growth and development that are not allowed by the controllers of the Aso Rock Villa in recent times. The 68 items include transportation infrastructures like roads, airports, seaports, railroads and riverports. Even registration of businesses is controlled from Abuja. The state governors act as mere extensions of the incumbent president and little else. In short, the culture of corruption, cronyism, lack of accountability, low productivity and autocracy is enabled by the widely repudiated 1999 Constitution.

The video ends by urging the Igbo to uniformly reject the ruse of Igbo presidency and stay focused on the path of Restructuring and self-determination for all enslaved stakeholders in today’s Unitary Nigeria. The minimum required for either is the jettisoning of the widely repudiated fraudulent 1999 Constitution. He proposed the formation of a transition government to oversee the orderly removal of the 1999 Constitution and the initiation of solemn deliberations about the stakeholders’ future.