Southern, Middle belt leaders want constitutional review, petition UN, others

Eminent Nigerians, numbering 127 under the aegis of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination, have described the 1999 constitution as a fraud; an impunity and a confiscation of the sovereignties, powers and assets of the South and Middle Belt People of the country by those who clandestinely designed it.

The group which included former Chief of Staff, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (retd); former Governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang; Second Republic Senator, Professor Banji Akintoye; President-General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo; former Minister, Prof. Yusuf Turaki and many others also petitioned the United Nations Security Council, African Union, European Union, and others on the need to urgently convoke a Sovereign National Conference to discuss the constitutionality of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria and the 1914 Amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Nigeria within 90 days to save the people from oppression, stagnation and squalor.

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“We gather here today before the global community, to formally proclaim a sovereignty dispute in rejection of the further operation of the imposed, unity constitutional arrangements of Nigeria and in assertion of our inalienable right to self-determination.

“That the Prevailing 1999 Constitution of Nigeria which was a wholesale adoption of the 1979 edition via Decree No.24 of 1999, revalidated and reinforced the aforementioned Hijack and confiscation of the Sovereignties, Powers and Assets of the Four Erstwhile Federating Regions by the aforementioned Illicit Federal Government of Nigeria

According to the group, between 2005 and 2006, a Sovereign Conference of the Ethnic Nationalities of Nigeria, convened by the Pro-National Conference Organizations (PRONACO), deliberated exhaustively and produced a draft Peoples’ Constitution 2006, which had the potential of restoring Nigeria to its damaged federal foundations, but was ignored by successive federal governments.

“It is pertinent to note that across all the regions of Nigeria, various socio-cultural and ethnic-interests vanguard organizations have also been vehement in expressing the constitutional grievances of their own people.

“Several notable statesmen in Nigeria including Generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Yakubu Gowon, both have lent their voices to the urgent imperative of the Fundamental Reworking of the Damaged Constitutional Basis of Nigeria, warning that any further delay may lead to the catastrophic collapse of the Distressed Nigerian Union.