The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) has said it has no option but to join those insisting that there should be no more elections under the 1999 constitution, while also demanding the return to the 1960 and 1963 Federal Constitutions which were in operation in the First Republic. It added that the ‘Fulanisation Policy’ of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and its disregard for the constitution was fuelling secessionist agitations.
The General Secretary and Spokesman of NADECO, Mr. Ayo Opadokun, stated this in an open letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations Organization, (UNO); The Security Council of the UNO; the President of the United States of America; the Speaker of the Congress and Leader of the Senate of the United States of America; European Union and European Parliament; the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the House of Commons, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the President of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs of Nigeria.
NADECO, in the letter dated June,15, 2021, a copy of which was made available to THISDAY on Sunday, also decried the deterioration of national security and political instability under Buhari’s administration.
It said: “Other than diminishing Democracy to a virtual dictatorship, NADECO wonders by which Section of our Ill-founded and presently extremely beleaguered so called Federal Republic of Nigeria Constitution 1999.
“Do the trio of your good self, Mr. President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives aided by your hound dog, the Minister of Justice, public service officers all, with specific functions set out in the Constitution, find the justification to judge yourselves entitled to jump uninvited, with decrying statements, into the compendium of frays between trespassing Fulani herdsmen and ancestral land owners exercising their primordial rights to decide whom they want or do not want on their lands? (Local lands, i.e. upon which the Chief Security Officers of the State localities of the arguendo, do not only have supervisory authority, but were also already mentoring),” he said.
NADECO said perhaps, it should be wondering whether because the President is the Patron of the Fulani Herdsmen and Cattle Traders, (Miyetti Allah), land owners’ rights must be suspended in awe of such trespassers.
It said needless to say that it was such defence for specially preferred ethnicities that had led to the various discomfort experienced by groups like Ndigbo and the whole of the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria, who have reached the end of their tether, seeking to get out of Nigeria.
NADECO noted that this was due to “the unacceptability of this administration’s now obvious Policy of Fulanisation and the President’s refusal to discontinue operating Nigeria in accordance with a ‘Constitution concocted to fraudulently obtain the consent of the people of Nigeria to surrender their sovereignty, lands, resources and rights to the control of the promoters of the forged constitution and a clever ploy to transfer the resources protected by the independence constitution for the ethnicities in the spaces where they are found, to the 1999 Constitution and the President’s preferred and substituted beneficiaries.”
“In all the circumstances of this matter, NADECO has no alternative but to join in the insistence that there better be no more elections under the 1999 so called Federal Constitution, until we return to the negotiated 1960 and 1963 Federal Constitutions to which Nigerians subscribed at independence and when we became a republic,” he explained.
NADECO stressed that out of the total of 360 House of Representatives members, the entire South has 169, while the North has 191. It also decried the injustice in the distribution of oil revenue.
Citing Nigeria Bureau of Statistics report of 2017, NADECO noted that the North Central receives 20 per cent of oil revenue and contributes 0.00 per cent, while the North-east receives 16 per cent and contributes 0.00 per cent.
It added that the North-West receives 21 per cent from the oil revenue and contributes 0.00 per cent. NADECO said every month, the 19 Northern states receive a minimum of 57 per cent of 100 per cent of oil revenue to which they contribute 0.00 per cent.
It said South-west receives 16 per cent, contributes 6.36 per cent, while South-east receives 11.00 per cent; contributes 3.12 per cent and South-South receives 16.00 per cent and contributes 70.64 per cent.
Working with the data from the office of the Accountant General as published by the Ministry of Finance (2013 April), NADECO stressed that the 357 LGAs of the 17 Southern States receive 45.1% and contribute 100 per cent, while the 419 LGAs of the 19 Northern States receive 54. 9% and contribute 0.00 per cent.
NADECO added: “The foregoing narrative explains why the owners of Nigeria were not given the opportunity to participate in Constitution making whilst the Tables of Rights of the component parts of the Country show the reasons why you, Mr. President and your preferred citizens will forever not allow Nigeria to go back to what was agreed and formed part of the Independence Constitution; making One Nigeria the biggest fraud ever.”
NADECO further decried the nepotic, ill treatment, inequitable and unjust nature with which Buhari’s administration has governed Nigeria. It pointed out that Section 6 of the1999 Constitution ousts the jurisdiction of Nigerian Courts and therefore there is no local Nigerian Legal Forum the entraps ethnic nationalities who constitute the majority and are occupying four out of the six zones in the country can seek redress.
NADECO stressed that Buhari has rejected all entreaties and appeals by eminent Nigerians, ethnic nationalities leaders for the country to return Nigeria to the Independence Constitution as negotiated by the founding fathers and upon which Nigeria sought membership of the United Nations, but would rather accuse the protagonists of seeking to break up the country whilst ridiculing and threatening them with the charge of secession.
It said it was based on this that it decided on behalf of Nigerians to put world leaders on notice through the open letter.
NADECO stated categorically that it supported and endorsed the clarion call made by Gen. Theophilus Danjuma and the ‘Save Our Soul Plea’ of the Ilana Omo Odua led by Prof. Banji Akintoye asking Nigerians to exercise their rights of self defence.
It said its reason was because the federal government had failed to fulfil its Constitutional responsibility as contained in section 14 (2) (b) of the 1999 Constitution which states “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
(THISDAY)
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