Guest Writer
| By Chinweizu |
Introduction
In September 2013, as public clamor intensified for a Sovereign National Conference, SNC, to resolve Nigeria’s multitude of problems, Junaid Mohammed, a Caliphate Colonialist militant, threatened civil war to prevent an SNC that could jettison the fraudulent 1999 Constitution: ‘Supporters of SNC asking for civil war’—Junaid Mohammed http://www.punchng.com/news/supporters-of-snc-asking-for-civil-war/ .
Despite that threat, President Jonathan on October 1, 2013 announced a National Dialogue to discuss the fundamental problems undermining the corporate existence of Nigeria, a National Dialogue that would prepare the way for the National Confab that eventually took place in 2014.
Now that the Caliphate’s political champion, Gen. Buhari, has come to entrench that fraudulent 1999 Constitution, Northern leaders have started moving publicly to block implementation of the Confab Report, [Northern leaders move to block implementation of confab report http://sunnewsonline.com/new/northern-leaders-move-to-block-implementation-of-confab-report/]
And as part of these public moves, Junaid has resumed beating his war drum to intimidate those who reject the Caliphate-imposed, fraud-filled, corruption-promoting constitution and its master-and-slaves, development-unfriendly brand of Nigeria.
Bamboozling statements by Junaid and the ACF
I think it is in the public interest to publicly reply to Junaid Mohammed and the ACF on two recent statements they have issued to bamboozle Nigerians.
(1) “Mohammed said, …if they [Biafra] had seceded, there would have been no Nigeria today. As people who acted outside the interest of Nigeria as a country, to expect compensation is a very odd logic. If the Igbo don’t like it, they can attempt secession again. If they do, they must be prepared to live with the consequences.”
— Buhari owes Igbos nothing, Junaid tells Ezeife, http://www.punchng.com/news/buhari-owes-igbos-nothing-junaid-tells-ezeife-2/
(2) “Chairman of the forum [Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF] and former Inspector- General of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Coomassie, at a news conference in Kaduna, . . noted that ACF had observed with serious concern the continued agitation by some Ndigbo elements for the creation of Biafra Republic out of the present Federal Republic of Nigeria.” . . .
(3) He “described the alleged calls by MASSOB for secession, 45 years after a bitter civil war, as undemocratic.”
— ACF carpets Igbo leaders for supporting MASSOB, secession, http://www.punchng.com/news/acf-carpets-igbo-leaders-for-supporting-massob-secession/
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My reply
I shall now reply to these three points one by one.
(1) According to Junaid’s presumably conventional, non-odd logic: If Biafra had seceded, there would be no Nigeria today? Well, well, well! Let’s ask Junaid. Are Malaysia, Pakistan Indonesia and Sudan still there today? I just checked. The readers can check for themselves.
Singapore seceded from Malaysia in 1965, and Malaysia is still there today; Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan in 1972, and Pakistan is still there today; East Timor seceded from Indonesia in 2002, and Indonesia is still there today; South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011, and Sudan is still there today. They are all still there. So, why would Nigeria have been different and ceased to exist by now if Biafra had seceded? Is there something peculiarly wrong, and rickety, about Nigeria whereby Biafra’s secession would have caused it to disappear? If so, what is that ricketiness? And why don’t we fix it and make Nigeria strong and durable?
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(2) The MASSOB and secession issue. The ACF is obsessed with this issue. So too are its disinformation agents, including whoever doctored The Cable News’s report of Wole Soyinka’s Harvard lecture to make it parrot the ACF dogma that “Igbos remained unrepentant and resolute towards their strategic objective of secession at worst; or a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction at best.” Wole Soyinka Reportedly States “Igbos Put Their Votes Where their Stomachs Take Them”
By the way, Soyinka disowned the Cable News’s doctored version of his lecture; and The Cable News management subsequently apologized to Soyinka, Ndi-Igbo and its readers for the disinformation it had peddled. The Cable Apologizes To Professor Soyinka
https://www.naij.com/434243-the-cable-apologizes-to-professor-soyinka.html
The necessary question is: Are Igbos the only nationality in Nigeria whose members are publicly calling for secession? Like the mainly but not exclusively Igbo organization MASSOB, some non-Igbo organizations have voiced their desire for secession. In case the ACF has been too obsessed with Igbos to have noticed the others, here is a report, from 2011, on a call for splitting up Nigeria into its ethnic nationalities and creating an Oduduwa Republic out of its Yoruba section:
Only a split of Nigeria into its traditional ethnic groups can save Nigeria from the impending carnage, the Apapo Oodua Koya, (AOKOYA) the Yoruba self determination group has said.
In a statement yesterday, the group said the Christmas Day bombing in Suleja and Jos, shows how vulnerable public institutions are, how helpless the Nigerian security services are and how hopeless the future of the country stands.
AOKOYA said it has embarked in an intensive campaign to realize self determination for Yoruba people and their Itsekiri brothers in a peaceful and civilized manner. “We shall doggedly pursue the realization of Oduduwa republic, where peace, love and brotherhood are the guiding principles.”
— Yoruba group demands secession, calls on UN to conduct referendum
http://www.nairaland.com/835706/yoruba-group-demands-secession-calls
December 27, 2011
And here is a report, from March 2014, on the threat by the people of Adamawa to secede from Nigeria:
The National Conference continued on a rancorous note on Wednesday morning with one of the prominent monarchs at the forum, Muhammadu Barkindo Aliyu Musdaphar, the Lamido Adamawa, threatening to pull his people out of Nigeria over what he described as the “behaviour of some elders who claimed to be supporters of President Jonathan.”
—National Confab–Adamawa Threatens Secession
And here is another report, from May 2014, on a threat by the Yoruba to secede from Nigeria:
At a news conference on Monday in Lagos, Nigeria, the Yoruba, under the aegis of The Yoruba People of Nigeria formally presented a publication on ‘Regional Autonomy or Nothing,” saying that they are ready to secede from Nigeria if the conference fails to meet their demands.
Chief Tokunbo Ajasin, Chairman, Atayese Yoruba Group, said one would expect that all should seize any opportunity to build consensus and reclaim the country from wrong-footed ideas and practices that brought Nigeria to this sorry state where it is difficult to imagine a better future.
“We are therefore baffled at the take-it-or-leave-it attitude of delegates from other ethnic nationalities, particularly the Northern delegates who circulated a document full of fallacies few weeks ago. Those fallacies have now been exposed by the facts and figures contained in the publication we are unveiling today.
— Give Us Regional Autonomy Or We Breakaway From Nigeria -Yoruba Group Threatens
http://www.africanexaminer.com/give-us-regional-autonomy-or-we-breakaway-from-nigeriayoruba/
Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest News, News Monday, May 19th, 2014
I have presented three examples of recent threats made to secede from Nigeria, with two of them made in 2014. With threats of secession coming from three of the six zones of Nigeria—Adamawa in the North East, Yoruba in the South West and Igbo in the South East–why is the ACF beating war drums only about the threat from one zone, the South East? Why is the ACF creating the false impression that only Igbo organizations are seeking secession?
It should be noted that, whereas Afenifere, the apex organization of the Yoruba, their counterpart of the ACF, has publicly threatened secession by the Yoruba; Ohaneze, the Igbo counterpart of Afenifere and the ACF, has never expressed an interest in secession. So, what bloodthirsty war crimes or crimes against humanity is the ACF dedicated to committing by its dogged refusal to admit that two of the three biggest ethnic nations in Nigeria are dissatisfied enough to want to secede? For which item in its Hitler agenda is the ACF laying the groundwork by trying to sell the world the falsehood that all is well with Nigeria but for the Igbo and their peculiar ambition to secede from the paradise that Nigeria presumably is? If the threat by Afenifere is not enough to open the ACF’s eyes to the rickety realities of Nigeria, I invite them to note the reply to Junaid Mohammed by a leading Yoruba politician, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode:
“I daresay that if Junaid Mohammed’s Nigeria ever butchers over 100,000 innocent Igbo civilians again, as they did in the north in 1966 just before the civil war, there will indeed be another attempt to secede, but this time it will not only be successful, but they will also take many others with them.
— FFK Reveals Why Igbos Will Break Away From Nigeria Soon, https://www.naij.com/521754-fani-kayode-believes-igbos-will-soon-break-away-nigeria.html
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(3) Is a call for secession undemocratic, as the ACF claims? From the example of Scotland, where the Scottish National Party, SNP, has been seeking independence from the UK since the 1930s, I dare say it is not. In any case, how democratic is it for a country to be ruled using a constitution that is fraudulent, a constitution that opens with a fraudulent “We the people” claim, and contains several other demonstrated frauds? Here are the frauds as I listed and documented them during the National Dialogue in 2013:
THESE fatal frauds are four: the “We the people” fraud; the “Federation” fraud; the “Fighting corruption” masquerade/fraud; and the “Socially responsible State” masquerade/fraud. Let’s examine them.
#1] The ‘We the people’ fraud
On May 23, 2007, the Movement for a New Nigeria (MNN) launched a legal attack on the 1999 Constitution by filing Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/367/07 in the Federal High Court, Abuja and, in 2009, Suit No. FHC/L/CS/558/09 before the Federal High Court, Lagos Division, seeking the termination of the operation of the 1999 Constitution on the ground that it is a forgery and a fraud in that it was made via Decree by one ‘Gen. Abudusalami Abubakar’ who lied in the preamble that ‘We the people of Nigeria….’ made and enacted it.
#2] The ‘Federation’ fraud
Its federalism is a fraud because:
(a) It falsely parades Nigeria as a federation whereas Nigeria ceased to be a federation in 1966, with the abrogation by the military of the 1963 federal constitution.
(b) With the demobilization of the earlier federating units, its present states, the alleged federating units, have no constitutions of their own, making them false federating units;
(c) It lacks fiscal federalism: its behemoth Central Government (falsely called “Federal Government”) takes for itself a lion’s share of the country’s resources and gives crumbs to the 36 states and the 774 local governments; they are thus not economically self-reliant entities but subsist on allocations from the central government; they are, consequently, mere economic dependents and administrative agents of the central government – which is contrary to federalism;
#3] The ‘Fighting corruption’ masquerade/ fraud
The 1999 Constitution is the godfather of corruption, through the immunity clause 308. (1), which protects, and thereby implicitly invites, looting by the highest officials who have brazenly set the terrible example that the rest of society have emulated. However, it ostentatiously declares in Section 15. (5) that ‘The State shall abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power’, thus giving the false impression that it is for fighting corruption. But it then surreptitiously annuls Section 15(5) by its ouster clause (See fraud No.4, discussed next). It is a fraud for the godfather of corruption to give the impression that it is against corruption, and the fraud is compounded when it empowers the state to fight corruption but then surreptitiously discourages it from doing so. That’s double duplicity!
#4] The ‘Socially responsible State’ masquerade/ fraud
The 1999 Constitution surreptitiously relieves the Nigerian State of the customary and fundamental responsibility of a state for the welfare and security of the people it rules: This is done by technically annulling the obligations clearly and ostentatiously stated in its own ‘Chapter II: Fundamental Objectives and directive Principles of State Policy’. Chapter II is surreptitiously ousted in Chapter I, by section 6. (6)(c) thus: (6) The judicial powers vested in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this section – (c) shall not except as otherwise provided by this Constitution, extend to any issue or question as to whether any act of omission by any authority or person or as to whether any law or any judicial decision is in conformity with the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy set out in Chapter II of this Constitution;
This is the ouster clause, since nobody can go to court to enforce any Ch. II provision. That is to say, if the government omits to act on Ch. II, it cannot be sued by anybody or be compelled by any court to do its constitutional duty. This clause, by making Ch. II non-justiciable, effectively makes it unenforceable, thus ousting it. This covert ouster allows the Nigerian state to masquerade as a socially responsible state whereas it is no such thing. This masquerading gives it false legitimacy, and is a fraud.
— Chinweizu–Four reasons to scrap 1999 Constitution, —The Guardian, http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php/opinion/columnist/137652-chinweizu-four-reasons-to-scrap-1999-constitution
Perhaps examining these frauds is where to begin the search for why Nigeria would have disappeared had Biafra seceded. That, perhaps, is where to start to address the issues that have driven Afenifere, MASSOB, AOKOYA and other organizations to threaten secession. Removing the frauds in that constitution, rather than warmongering, could well be where we should start the fixing of Nigeria to make it durable, like Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Sudan. And I suggest that President Buhari, the Pied Piper of Change, should get that fundamental change going by immediately implementing the Report of the 2014 Confab. He should convene a follow-up Confab on how to give Nigeria a truly democratic, non-fraudulent, people’s constitution. For giving credibility to his #change rhetoric, that’s probably an easier way than his anti-corruption posturing and shadowboxing.
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Chinweizu’s most recent book is Caliphate Colonialism: The Taproot of the Trouble with Nigeria, Lagos: Clear Coast Communications, 2015; email: cityvoiceng@yahoo.com
— Sep 14, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT
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