As Nigeria marks her 62nd independence anniversary, the group that fought Abacha military junta to a standstill in the 90s, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) has thrown its weight behind ethnic nationalities that have either declared their intentions to secede from Nigeria or vowed not to “participate in any purported elections under the disputed and forgery document called 1999 Constitution.”
NADECO, in a statement by its General Secretary and spokesman, Ayo Opadokun on Friday September 30, also implored the United Nations (UN), its Security Council and other global bodies concerned with peaceful co-existence of the world “to urgently fast-track their preparations to conduct variously demanded referendum to ascertain the wishes and aspirations for self-determination of the entrapped indigenous ethnic nationalities of Nigeria who have been on their ancestral lands, owning their waters, vegetation, natural resources etc. for several thousand years before the invasion by the British colonial masters.”
The statement titled ‘Historical Facts and Consequences’ warned that a stitch in time saves nine, saying the UN, its Security Council and other global bodies should accept that their failure to act timeously on these legitimate demands for their intervention may tantamount to an invitation to possible national conflagration and unmanageable national crisis, which may result to consequential deleterious situations on the West African Sub-Region, the African Continent and the world in general.
The statement read: “Since the military staged its violent insurrection and toppled the Alhaji Tafawa Balewa-led Federal Government on January 15, 1966, the politicians in military uniform had halted the national progress, and development. They have equally dashed the hopes and aspiration of most Nigerians at independence that the country would be a beacon of light that would provide credible leadership to the black race and contribute significantly to human progress and civilization;
“Regrettably, the political-military clique by their suspension and abrogation of the negotiated Federal Constitution upon which Nigeria secured its independence substituted for it a pack load of military decrees which centralised and unitarised governance thereby destroying and abrogating the very basis upon which our nationalists agreed to be part of the forced cohabitation of various ethnic Nationalities that now make up Nigeria.
The negotiated Federal Constitution was the basic instrument upon which Nigeria was admitted into the committee of nations under the United Nations Organisation (UNO);
“It is needless but necessary to restate that the centralisation and unitarisation of Nigeria had since created injustice, unfair play, inequity, wanton disregard and disrespect for the rule of law. And therefore the foundational progress and development witnessed in Nigeria and the regions since the Richardson/MarPherson
Constitutions that empowered Nigerians to govern themselves were halted and subverted leading to retardation and underdevelopment while other countries who got their independence at the same time as Nigeria including the Asian Tigers like Indonesia and Malaysia etc. are now competing favourably with advanced western countries;
“Whereas the sectional ruling class from the North West and North East had always instigated, supported and collaborated with incessant military insurrections to ensure/guarantee their unbroken control of the powers of government (except in circumstances of death as it happened and promoted Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan under the ruling class control) because the sectional leaders and their citizens have been the beneficiaries of the skewed and lopsided national structure;
“Whereas the sectional ruling class from the North West and North East have always pretended that given a good leadership, Nigeria will be a success story even though they know that what is true is that Nigeria has been hijacked by the military clique which suspended and abrogated the negotiated federal constitution and substituted it with military decrees which had centralised and unitarised governance for the undue dominance and advantage to themselves and their civilian collaborators to the exclusion of other indigenous nationalities;
“Whereas the sectional ruling class of the North West and North East have usually wanted Nigerians to accept as a fait accompli, or an accepted iron cast position that the violent and treasonable acts of military coups against the 1960 and 1963 Constitutions to which most Nigerians subscribe as well as the atrocities-human right violations including disappearances, eliminations, illegal detentions and humiliations which they visited upon Nigerians when the fact remains that all the institutions and agencies including their roguish 1999 Constitution brought into effect by Decree 24 of 1999 remain illegitimate and illegalities;
“Whereas NADECO has repeatedly demanded the politicians in military uniform and their successor civilian collaborators, confederates, loyalists, sympathisers and surrogates that Nigeria should return to Federal System of Government to save the country from collapse and disintegration because it guarantees substantially, equity, justice, fair play and respect for the rule of law but have been ignored till date. Justice Dahiru Mustapha (former Chief Justice of Nigeria) at Chief Alani Bankole’s 75th birthday lecture highlighted the fact that Nigeria is more divided today than it was before the Nigerian Civil War 1967-1970;
“Whereas the Nigerian State has been exhibiting unbelievable contemptuous response to the creditably popular, loud and reasonable agitations of the leaders of the ethnic nationalities who have equally been demanding that Nigeria should return to federal governance and to halt the further false claim that our country is the Federal Republic of Nigeria when in fact it is an over-centralised and unitarised governance under a sectional ruling class;
“Whereas the Nigerian State has failed to provide security for lives and property a fundamental right which is its primary responsibility under the UNO Protocols, African Charter on Peoples Rights, and its domestic legislation;
“Whereas Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram/ISIS gangs and other bandits have killed, maimed and kidnapped for ransom several thousands of Nigerians including school children as well as ethnically cleansed several native communities in the North Central, North West, North East and Southern Nigeria without any manifest government successful counteraction to deter these outlaws from their assault on most Nigerians;
“Whereas the Nigerian State in clear violation of their Oath of Office has failed to use available modern technology for the counter insurgency to track down, arrest and or kill these outlaws at the points where they are harvesting several billion which central and state governments and civil populace have been forced to pay as ransom; thereby exposing that the government is directly or indirectly complicit in their deadly violations of peoples rights and terrorist attacks;
“Whereas the President Buhari-led government had frustrated in Nigeria any legal avenue where the entrapped ethnic nationalities can seek redress for the many instances of humiliation, repression, hounding and subjugation of the majority of Nigerians by the sectional dictates and wishes of his Fulani-controlled security agencies and outlaws;
“Whereas the majority of ethnic nationalities in accordance with their legal and constitutional rights to self-determination as contained in UNO Protocols and African Charter have now decided to seek the intervention of the United Nations, its Security Council, European Union, Great Britain and all other global bodies in that regard to conduct a Referendum to ascertain the express wishes and aspiration of the people from the South and the Middle Belt to have their own country as provided for under global laws and protocols;
“Whereas Nigeria at 61 remains an underdeveloping and retarded country with no hope for better prospects under the 1999 Constitution brought into effect by Decree 24 of 1999 which lied against itself: “We the People” when it was a forgery just manufactured in secrecy by the Military and was not released to the public until after the election in 1999;
“Whereas the Fulani ruling clique in their usual desperation to survive have embarked again on their divide and rule tactics and manipulations of the ethnic nationalities of the South and the Middle Belt areas unsuccessfully and are now misusing state instruments of coercion to silence, intimidate and humiliate activists and media outfits that are professionally covering the current national crises;
“Now, therefore, we, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) on behalf of the majority of the Nigerian Ethnicities from more than four out of the six zones comprising about two-thirds of Nigeria’s population, hereby resolve as follows: That even though this administration prefers to trivialise the genuine refusals of the entrapped, humiliated and oppressed ethnic nationalities to guarantee further obedience and subservience to the forged 1999 Constitution that has transformed them into enslaved and conquered nationalities and had been used to appropriate to the Fulani ruling oligarchy other ethnic nationalities’ God-given natural and human endowments, by making them avowed unwilling guests of DSS and misuse of state coercive instruments;
“NADECO supports the vows of the entrapped ethnic nationalities, not to be bound again nor participate in any purported Elections under the disputed and forgery document called 1999 Constitution in which they had no participation.
“NADECO implores the United Nations, its Security Council and other Global bodies concerned with peaceful co-existence of the world to urgently fast-track their preparations to conduct variously demanded referendum to ascertain the wishes and aspirations for self-determination of the entrapped indigenous ethnic nationalities of Nigeria who have been on their ancestral lands, owning their waters, vegetation, natural resources etc. for several thousand years before the invasion of the British colonial masters;
“NADECO hereby requests the UNO, its Security Council and other Global bodies to critically accept that their failure to act timeously on these legitimate demands for their intervention may tantamount to an invitation to possible national conflagration and unmanageable national crisis which may result in to consequential deleterious situations on the West African Sub-Region, the African Continent and the World in general. Let it be remembered that Nigeria as the most populous black nation in the world has about 200 million citizens residing in a suffocating geographical and political space, the possible reaction of the entrapped ethnic nationalities who are already overwhelmed with repression, discrimination on religion, gender, ethnicities can quickly result to national upheavals, forced dispersal and migration with their attendant global consequences. A stitch in time saves nine.”