Tony Nnadi, 11 July 2022
As reactions continue to trail the recent frank postulations of Mr Dele Farotimi on Sahara TV (link to it is in the NOTES section), regarding the candidacy of Mr Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu in the 2023 electoral cycle, suggestions are turning up from all kinds of quarters, especially the Igbo, about how all who want change should aggregate around Peter Obi-Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed’s Labour Party ticket.
First is to remind us that the LNC-NINAS Campaign to Take Down the 1999 Constitution and therefore for the Suspension of further National Elections under that Constitution, had been ongoing long before Mr Peter Obi emerged on the scene as the presidential candidate of Labour Party for the 2023 Elections. The reasons for our Campaign were also fully articulated before the Public.
Just that we may know, Mr Peter Obi had since 2012 been engaged by those pushing to oust the death-dispensing 1999 Constitution but he believes that Nigeria can somehow become “great” by the sprinkling on of some economic waters.
As a sitting Governor of Anambra State and Chairman of the South East Governors Forum of the time, Mr Peter Obi attended the 2012 World Igbo Congress (WIC) Convention in Orlando, Florida where I had been invited to present to the Igbo global audience, the LNC-MNN (now NINAS), Propositions as encapsulated in the ALADINMA Epistle of May 30, 2012 (link to it posted below in the NOTES section).
That ALADINMA Epistle 2012 which was issued in the period immediately following the farewell ceremonies for Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu in March of 2012, was informed by the need to reassure our people (the Igbo) that something concrete was being done about the Igbo situation in Nigeria.
Ohanaeze leadership of the time led by Amb Raph Uwechue was in attendance at that Orlando Convention; Dr Ogbonna Onu, (then Chairman of ANPP) was in attendance. So were many other Igbo stakeholders from far and near.
My invitation to the Orlando WIC Convention in early 2012 followed the condolence visit by WIC Executive to the Ojukwu family in Nnewi but was more particularly prompted by Prof Chinua Achebe’s desire for the Igbo Leadership Collective to fully examine and interrogate the LNC Propositions, just as he (Achebe) had done and to therefore, make informed choices on Options for engaging the Igbo situation in Nigeria.
Unfortunately, Prof Achebe passed on before the Convention in August-September of 2012 and it seemed a new wisdom which chose to block my Presentation prevailed.
I can say without equivocation that that singular WIC action of blocking that Presentation in 2012 is partially responsible for Igboland being plunged into the darkness and confusion that pervades it today because in 2013, what became IPOB emerged to fill the void for the apparent DIRECTIONLESSNESS of the Igbo in Nigeria.
Although my Presentation scheduled for Plenary was unexpectedly and inexplicably blocked by the then Leadership of WIC, hard copies of the ALADINMA Epistle 2012 along with other LNC-MNN leaflets, were handed to all Conferees while meetings and discussions continued on the sidelines throughout the Convention. Later again, in 2014, there was a one-on-one on the subject between me and Mr Peter Obi at Federal Palace Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos when he came to present Mr Willie Obiano to Igbo stakeholders in Lagos as the candidate of APGA in the Anambra Governorship election scheduled for November of that year. I handed our Key Project Documents to him (Peter Obi) in that meeting. (A mutual acquaintance had prevailed on him to meet with me and be fully informed and updated on the LNC Propositions).
Between 2015 and 2021, there were numerous similar engagements on the subject and to let us know that he is fully aware of the grave issues we were raising against the UNWORKABLE constitutional arrangements of Nigeria, Mr Peter Obi had, in response to suggestions for him to run for office, declared that the brain box of the Nigerian vehicle is damaged and so, for Nigeria, the search should not be for a new driver (ie President) but for a new engine or vehicle (ie better constitutional arrangement).
In choosing to run for office under the 1999 Constitution, Mr Peter Obi is in my estimation, therefore clear in his choice to “save Nigeria” by preserving that Constitution via Elections 2023, rather than being a part of the efforts to “save Nigerians” from the catastrophic consequences of that Constitution by pulling down that Constitution via NINAS Electoral Shutdown as any talk of Reconstruction of the constitutional arrangements of Nigeria after Elections in 2023 (if he wins) amounts to a reckless gamble and mere beer-palour talk.
This was what Mr Dele Farotimi was trying to point out in his interview.
Finally, as you can see in the ALADINMA Epistle 2012 (link below), and as has become manifest by the NINAS Constitutional Force Majeure outcome, the onslaught against the 1999 Constitution is not limited to some research work by Tony Nnadi. It involves a large number of clear-minded, courageous and committed statesman from all across Nigeria, particularly in the South and Middle-Belt, together executing a Grand Strategy that spanned a 20-year period, culminating in the December 16, 2020 Constitutional Force Majeure by which the consensus of the peoples of Nigeria, built over the aforementioned 20-year period is being enforced.
Let us be assured that Mr Dele Farotimi knows exactly what he was speaking about.
As already posited by Mr Peter Obi himself, the condition of Nigeria cannot be resolved by change of Personnel which is what Elections are for, neither is there anything anyone can point to at this time, as basis of any confidence that Mr Peter Obi understands the gravity of the Union Dispute raised December 16, 2020 on account of the Grave Constitutional Grievances that have been lingering for decades.
The 1999 Constitution guarantees the opposite of all that people may be expecting from candidate Mr Peter Obi.
No Viable Union or Democracy can be built on a TOTALLY DAMAGED constitutional foundation but it appears Mr Peter Obi is convinced to the contrary.
At a time the Fulani Invasion that seeks the violent conquest and annihilation of the rest of Nigeria is in full ferocious swing, the Salvation of Igboland cannot be found in elections being organized by the Fulani under the 1999 Unitary Constitution that ties the hands of the rest of Nigeria to their back.
We are being invited to a Battle of AK-47 by people who are issuing us plastic PVCs as our only weapon while they are piling up and freely using AK-47s.
May wisdom prevail.
Tony Nnadi
July 11, 2022
NOTES:
- Link to the Dele Farotimi interview of 8 July 2022 referred to in this article.
- Link to ALADINMA Epistle 2012 (the Self-Determination Framework produced by the Igbo caucus of the Lower Niger Congress)