Tony Nnadi, LNC-NINAS
05 July 2024
As the Countrywide Cacophony on the “Restructuring of Nigeria” reaches new decibels and as Angry Debates rend the air about the Grave Constitutional Grievances of Nigeria’s Constituent Components, it has become necessary to dissect and bring clarity to the issues driving the Debates and the Trenchant Demands for the Constitutional Reconstruction of Nigeria which has now acquired the street parlance of ”RESTRUCTURING”.
Amidst the unending confusion that trails these Debates and Demands for Restructuring, the three Main Issues that seek resolution relate to
(a) the Question of UNION,
(b) the Question of the STRUCTURE of the Federation and
(c) the Question of the SYSTEM of Government.
These three relate to WHAT needs to be addressed, but there is also the Question of HOW which relates to the Sequence in which those three Main Issues can be addressed.
As to be expected on a subject as complex as the Constitutional Arrangements of a Diverse Country like Nigeria, there is a substantial deficit of clarity among many of those leading these Union Debates and Discussions.
It is in the light of the foregoing that the following clarifications have become necessary:
In terms of sequence, let it be known that we must first deal with:
(1) the overriding Question of UNION (ie Have WE, the diverse ethnic constituent components of Nigeria Agreed to be One Political Union?) AND then:
(2) the Question of the STRUCTURE of the Federation (ie in what Formations have we AGREED to relate as one Political Union – Federal or Unitary, who are the Federating Units, how many tiers of Government and what are the Power Relations between the tiers?), before we can get to:
(3) the issue of the SYSTEM of Government (ie whether we prefer a Presidential or Parliamentary System).
Those who wish to understand the three questions above and the sequence in which they must be addressed will do well to examine the three egregiously False Claims in the Preamble to the 1999 Constitution which asserts:
(i) that “We the Peoples of the Federal Republic of Nigeria” (ie the Ethnic Constituent Components of Nigeria)
(ii) “Having Firmly and Solemnly Resolved to Live in Unity as One Indivisible and Indissoluble Sovereign Nation” (ie to form ourselves into One Political Union in Perpetuity), and
(iii) “Do Hereby Make, Enact and Give To Ourselves, The Following Constitution” (ie that we therefore codify our Union Agreement as discussed into the Document we now call “the Constitution”).
With the three issues highlighted in this note of clarification, it is easy to understand the contention of those who insist that under the Fraud labeled “the 1999 Constitution” ” we Do Not Have a Union.
It is also easy to understand the contention of those who demand the immediate Restructuring of Nigeria or the NINAS that formally declared a Union Dispute by way of the December 16, 2020, Constitutional Force Majeure.
For the same reasons, it is easy to understand the absurdity of talking about a “New Governance Model” eg by Akin Fapohunda (which translates to the tertiary Question of System of Government) without first settling the Question of Union and then after that the Question of Structure of Federation.
Unless we find the discipline to soberly dissect these issues and the honesty to engage them, the guaranteed outcome is that Unitary Nigeria will collapse unceremoniously under the weight of its contradictions, with catastrophic consequences for the trapped victims of the Failed Lugardian Experiment of 1914.
Tony Nnadi, NINAS Secretariat
July 5, 2024.