Tony Nnadi, LNC-NINAS
Republished 03 September 2022
In response to the popular but totally wrong suggestion that only the National Assembly of Nigeria can resolve any issues relating to the Constitution of Nigeria, Tony Nnadi of the LNC wrote as follows:
“The Legislative Mandate of the National Assembly does not extend to Constitution-making just as it is not within the powers of the hired Management of a company to make or remake the Memorandum and Articles of Association of that company. That power at all times vests exclusively in the Shareholders of the company as Owners of the enterprise. In the case of a country, that power vests exclusively in the constituent component or peoples of the country as an incident of their Sovereignty.
That power to make or remake the Constitution is known as Constituent Powers and vests exclusively in the constituent peoples of Nigeria as an incident of their Sovereignty. In fact, the authors of the 1999 Constitution acknowledged this universal truism in S.14(2)(a) of the same 1999 Constitution, which states that:
“Sovereignty belongs to the people from whom, the Government, through this Constitution, derives all its powers and authority”.
The three egregious falsehoods in the Preamble to the rogue 1999 Constitution that:
- (1) “We the People”
- (2) “Having Firmly and Solemn Resolved to Live In Unity as One Indivisible and Indissoluble Nation”,
- (3) “Do Hereby Make, Enact and Give Unto Ourselves the Following Constitution”,
were fraudulently inserted in the Preamble to the rogue 1999 Constitution by the criminal usurpers of our hijacked Sovereignties. This is to create the impression that the Owners of the Sovereignties (i.e. all the constituent nationalities of Nigeria) had discussed and agreed to be in one political union (country). They had, therefore, gone ahead to write down and ratify the terms and articles of that Agreement in the form of the “1999 Constitution”.
The lie in these false claims is made self-evident by the contents of Decree No.24 of May 5, 1999, via which Abdusalami Abubakar foisted the so-called 1999 Constitution on the country. As Decree 24 narrated step-by-step how the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council, over which he (Abdusalami Abubakar) presided, went about the business of making the so-called 1999 Constitution. That two-page Decree No.24 of 1999, published in full as part of the opening pages of the so-called 1999 Constitution, shows there was no meeting whatsoever amongst the component constituents of Nigeria, much less a Firm and Solemn Agreement to Federate. (Do find a Copy of the 1999 Constitution even online and read that Decree 24. It takes less than 5 minutes to read through. Then read the one-paragraph Preamble to that Constitution again).
These grave foundational falsehoods and forgeries were the issues the MNN Alliance [now coming as the NINAS Alliance] took before the Courts in 2007 in challenging the legitimacy of the so-called “1999 Constitution” and seeking the termination of its operation. The operators of Unitary Nigeria could not find any viable answers to this fatal challenge to their sole Title Deed over the vast expanse of the estate the world calls “Nigeria”.
The defrauded peoples or constituent components of the defunct Federation of Nigeria, whose Sovereignties were hitherto confiscated and subjugated by that defeated Title Deed (ie 1999 Constitution) are now set to recover and retake their Sovereignties. They will begin the reconstruction of their damaged lives and spaces in unfettered Self-Determination.
In all, the Nigerian situation is simply one in which the management of the enterprise (i.e. the soldiers that took over power/government and jettisoned the Constitution) has somehow overpowered the shareholders/owners of the enterprise (people and government). They have toppled the Memorandum and Articles (Constitution) and wrote an entirely different Memo and Article (Constitution) in which they made themselves the new owners of the enterprise and empowered themselves comprehensively to the exclusion of the Shareholders/Owners (the Sovereign peoples of Nigeria).
This is actually tantamount to TREASON and is made worse by the false claim in the Preamble to the rogue Constitution that “We the people” (not them the Military criminal usurpers of our Sovereignties) made and enacted that Constitution.
Even as the soldiers-gone-rogue are also Nigerians, their mandate as soldiers does not include making Constitutions for the people or operating the Government of the Union. Both Undertakings are completely outside their mandate and are treasonous aberrations that must be totally discountenanced.
The current situation of distressed Federation Nigeria, with thoroughly disputed constitutional arrangements, is therefore not one to be resolved by another set of soldiers (via a coup). It remains the EXCLUSIVE business of the constituent peoples of Nigeria to make their constitutional arrangements with the requisite Constituent Powers flowing from their Sovereignty. This includes the dissolution of the Union if finding common ground with erstwhile constituents of the defunct Federation of Nigeria becomes impossible. Sharia and Feudalism are some of those things that make common ground impossible.
What is happening now is that the people (i.e. the true Owners of the Nigerian enterprise) have organized themselves to retake their hijacked enterprise from the Military marauders. This began with the Military usurpers of our Sovereignty that forcefully imposed the rogue Constitutions of 1979 and 1999 by Decree. Unfortunately, and most regrettably, that treasonous usurpation of the Sovereignty of the people is now being continued by the National Assembly of Nigeria – which now pretends to be the custodians of our collective Sovereignty. They are not. They are committing treason against the rest of us in that pretense and this will attract the wrath of the people they claim to represent in the coming days. As the same people collectively launch the bid to recover their hijacked Sovereignties by way of the Joint Multi-Regional Constitutional Force Majeure [now having been declared on 16th December 2020].
The National Assembly is only one of the Three Arms of the Management (Government) of the Nigerian enterprise. The Mandate conferred upon them by the vote of the people at elections is merely to make laws according to a Constitution already made by the people and does not mean that the people have by voting at elections, surrendered their Sovereignty to the legislators.
The lawyers in Nigeria, including the Professors of Law or Senior Advocates of Nigeria who suggested that the Sovereignty of the peoples of Nigeria now vests in the National Assembly of Nigeria as the elected representatives of the people, are ignorant and deficient in the jurisprudence of Constitution-making.
They do not understand the meaning of a Constitution, and they have carried this culpable ignorance to the public space since the rest of the populace generally look up to lawyers for guidance on matters of Law and Constitution (which are two totally different things usually lumped together by most people including, unfortunately, most lawyers in Nigeria).
If there is any lawyer in Nigeria who holds this erroneous view of the locus of the Sovereignties (i.e. that the Sovereignty of the people now resides with the National Assembly) the LNC-NINAS will be glad to publicly cure them of that dangerous ignorance. That has been at the root of the obduracy of successive Federal Governments of Nigeria in holding tenaciously to the fraudulent and unworkable 1999 Constitution as the basis of the distressed Federation of Nigeria for which blood has been flowing all over the place, and the country’s economic and infrastructural development on reverse gear since 1966.
Tony Nnadi, LNC
May 9, 2020 (First published)
NOTES:
These two NINAS Secretariat video broadcasts help deepen understanding of the deceits committed against the indigenous peoples of the NINAS Territory, plus show how these offenses can be corrected using due process.
2023: Why No New President Can Change 1999 Constitution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY0mCwmq18w&feature=youtu.be
Why the Focus on the 1999 Constitution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkJ3gxjP4zA&feature=youtu.be