NINAS PRESS STATEMENT
PROLOGUE:
“For a Distressed Federation Desperately seeking a Return to its Damaged Federal Foundations, it is clear to all discerning minds that permutations for Political Power in 2027 is at the center of the current reckless plunge by the President of Nigeria into an ill-defined “Local Government Autonomy”. This is tantamount to Trading off the Sovereignty of the People in perpetuity for Temporary Political Power for a few.”
As sharp reactions continue to trail the July 11, 2024 Judgement of the Supreme Court of Nigeria on the Question of Financial Autonomy for Nigeria’s Local Governments, in a Suit brought by Federal Government of Nigeria against the Thirty-Six States of Nigeria, NINAS Secretariat deems it necessary to address the many issues raised by that Judgement, particularly the Far-Reaching consequences of foisting a Third-Tier of Government on an already Distressed Federation.
(1) Following several failed attempts to railroad the creation of RUGA Settlements via Constitution Amendments and various Legislations initiated via Executive Bills, including for Grazing Routes, Grazing Reserves, Water Resources, National Livestock, Local Government Autonomy and other dubious schemes that bordered on facilitation of Land-Grab for Invader Fulani Populations, the Federal Government of Nigeria, under the Interregnum Presidency of Bola Tinubu, decided to recourse to Judicial Bypass in driving the same agenda, thus the invitation to the Supreme Court by the Federal Government in June 2024, to make a pronouncement on the issue of Financial Autonomy for Local Governments in Nigeria.
(2) Citing the Monumental Corruption that characterize the disbursement and management of State/Local Government Joint Account, the Federal Government’s approach to the Supreme Court on the Question of Financial Autonomy for Local Government was marketed as a measure for curbing corruption, enhancing accountability and facilitating development in the Local Government Areas.
(3) Considering the humongous Corruption oozing out of the Federal and State Governments, NINAS was curious about the unusual zeal shown by the Federal Government in this extraordinary effort ostensibly intended to curb Corruption at the Local Government level.
(4) This curiosity led to a closer look at what could be the real motives behind this vigour and the undue haste with which the Federal Government went about this Local Government Autonomy pursuit. Answers began to fall in place when NINAS established that the condition attached to the Direct Federal Allocation to Local Government Councils is that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will Take Over the Conduct of Elections into Local Government Councils from the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs), which means that the Federal Government will take Direct Charge of both the Finances of, and Elections for Local Government.
(5) The implication of this dangerous double-barrel usurpation of grassroots control by an already over-empowered Federal Government becomes even more alarming when we reckon the fact that 5% of the Monthly Allocation to Local Government Councils is disbursed as Monthly Allowances to Traditional Rulers across Nigeria according to their domains. This translates to complete Federal Government Control of Communities and the Grassroots throughout Nigeria, including the Control and Management of Chieftaincy Matters, Ancestral Lands and ancillary matters by the Caliphate-Controlled Federal Government of Nigeria. That is RUGA Countrywide on a Grand Scale.
(6) Still curious about what other motives there could be behind the zeal of the Federal Government of Nigeria in this decisive push for Local Government Autonomy, a clue emerged from the incendiary rhetorics and political fireworks raging in Rivers State between the camp of Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara and that of his estranged political godfather, the immediate past Governor of Rivers, (now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory), Nyesom Wike, with altercations swinging from Membership of the House of Assembly to Control of the 23 Local Government Councils of Rivers State.
(7) These developments began to point us to calculations and permutations around 2027 General Elections. This is because from the utterances of Wike about the impossibility of defeating Bola Tinubu in the 2027 Presidential Election as well as the boasts of Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, about how Tinubu still has seven years to go, it became clear that the Federal Government’s push for Local Government Autonomy at this time has much to do with the bid to control the Grassroots Power Structures to which Local Governments are pivotal. The Governors of the 36 States of Nigeria, present and past, are acutely aware of the fact that financial and electoral control of the Local Government Councils is the most important determinant for who controls the Grassroots Political Structures of a State.
(8) A further analysis of the situation brings us to the conclusion that in the desperation to secure a smooth sail in the 2027 Electoral Round, Interregnum President Tinubu and his henchmen in Abuja, (particularly the FCT Minister, Wike and the Senate President, Akpabio) have travelled the Judicial Route of the Supreme Court to capture the control of Local Governments in circumstances that hand control of Local Governments over to the Federal Government, thereby Trading off the Sovereignty of the People for the porridge of Political Power.
(9) In the aftermath of the Supreme Court Judgment on LG Autonomy July 11, 2024, NINAS republished the recording of its June 12, 2024 Townhall under the Theme: ”Tinubu’s Local Government Autonomy is RUGA In Disguise”, in which it addressed Tinubu’s invitation to the Supreme Court to make a pronouncement on the Question of Financial Autonomy for the 774 Local Governments of Nigeria, (after botched attempts at Constitution Amendments to grant Financial Autonomy to the Local Governments), against the backdrop of the condition attached to Direct Monthly Financial Allocations to the Local Governments from the Federation Account is that Elections into Local Governments Councils will henceforth be conducted by INEC.
(Here is the re-published Recording of the said NINAS Townhall of June 2024)
(10) While Corruption, Non-Accountability and Lack of Development have been cited by the Federal Government as its reasons for seeking Financial Autonomy for Local Governments, especially in the face of the well-known recklessness and corruption of State Governors in the management of the State/Local Government Joint Accounts, the concern and contention of NINAS is that the Strangulation of the 36 States of Nigeria by virtue of the 68-Item Federal Exclusive Legislative List of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, that Strangulation is by virtue of this Supreme Court Judgment being extended to the 774 Local Government Areas of Nigeria and therefore to all Communities across Nigeria. This is the very opposite of Federalism and Regional Autonomy being clamoured for across Nigeria, and it is a Tragedy that Lawyers in Nigeria including Femi Falana, Mike Ozekhome and a long list of others who hitherto masqueraded as advocates of Federalism and Regional Autonomy, are hailing this Judicial Murder of Federalism under the guise of Curbing of Corruption.
(11) NINAS Posits that for a Union that is wobbling dangerously in the throes of its choking Unitarism, this Judgement by the Supreme Court of Nigeria thrusts Nigeria further away from the Redemptive path towards Federalism upon which the very continuation of Nigeria as One Political Union depends.
(12) In the face of the undisguised Fulani Conquest Agenda and onslaught, NINAS contends that the dangerous consequences of Direct Federal Monthly Financial Allocation to Local Governments and the concomitant Takeover of the Conduct of Local Government Elections from State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) by the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), is tantamount to handing over the entirety of Nigeria to the illicit Caliphate-Controlled “Federal Government of Nigeria” by Nigeria’s current helmsman, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, at a time that an Alliance of the Non-Caliphate Rest of Nigeria, cooperating under the aegis of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS), is pressing for the Decommissioning of the Imposed Unitary Constitutional Arrangements by which the Federating Units (States) in the Distressed Federation of Nigeria are Castrated and are rendered utterly impotent. This is a sad reminder to the 1979 episode in which Olusegun Obasanjo as Head of State, presided over the railroading and imposition of a Caliphate-Dictated Unitary Constitution on the Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria, returning in 1999 as Civilian President of Nigeria, to continue the preservation and reinforcement of that Constitution, carried forward as “1999 Constitution” by the fiat of Abdulsalami Abubakar’s Decree No.24 of 1999.
(13) In the midst of these unsettling developments, the announcement of the creation of the Ministry of Livestock Development by the Tinubu Presidency compounds the situation as it bears the mark of several other attempts in the past to advance the Fulanization Agenda with Legislations dressed up as “Grazing Routes”, Grazing “Reserves” “National Livestock Development”, “Water Resources” and the like. This exposes the so-called “Ministry of Livestock Development” as another design for RUGA Development. NINAS Rejects, and will mobilize the Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria to reject any Federal Government initiative, howsoever designated or described, which will entail the appropriation of Lands by Federal, State or Local Government, for the purpose of the private Livestock business of any group since that would be tantamount to RUGA.
(14) NINAS observes with grave concern that the Conquest Agenda of the Fulani which, with the facilitation of the British, seized control of the Federal Government of Nigeria at Independence in 1960; AND which in 1967, through the Military Wing of the Caliphate, decapitated and seized control of the Federating Regions (fractured into 12 States, now 36), HAS by virtue of this Supreme Court Decision on Local Government Financial Autonomy, launched the final onslaught to Capture absolute control of the Grassroots Governance Structures across Nigeria. To beam the floodlights into the dark chambers of these heinous manipulations around the Structure of the Nigerian Union, NINAS also raises the Question: “How did Local Government get into the Constitution of Nigeria and how did Local Governments become the Third-Tier of Government in the Federation of Nigeria?”.
(15) NINAS, by this Special Bulletin, alerts the Peoples of Nigeria that the Conquest Agenda of the Fulani has by the greed and shortsightedness of the Political Merchants of the day, engaged a very dangerous gear which represents an Extraordinary Emergency that must be addressed with the utmost sense of urgency. NINAS Posits that the only escape route left for the Constituent Components of Nigeria now trapped in the Union of Death that Nigeria has become for them, and now confronted with the potent threat of Fulani Conquest, is the Overturning and wholesale Decommissioning of the Toxic 1999 Constitution. NINAS further Posits that its 5-Point Transitioning Proposition offers Nigerians the most potent strategy for halting the Fulani Conquest Onslaught and the most viable Framework for Initiating an Orderly Constitutional Reconstruction of a Nigeria that seems doomed for a disorderly dissolution, with catastrophic consequences.
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NINAS Secretariat.
July 14, 2024.
