Elections, says NINAS

We went into that process. It lasted two years and sat in preliminaries. We succeeded and had a consensus draft, acceptable to all sides. The only people that refused to come was the government of the day, but we knew that if we held on and pushed on, it will come to where they will have no alternative. If it goes to referendum today, it will go to 90 per cent and if anybody is in doubt, let’s go to that referendum. But if anybody is hoping that it is this Constitution that lied that we the people submitted our sovereignty, that will remain the basis and every four years they will go and renew it by election, such a person is in great error.

Don’t you believe in the ongoing efforts of the National Assembly to review the 1999 Constitution?

Let’s not waste time on that. The mandate of the National Assembly is for law making, Constitution making is far outside their mandate. They are committing treason against all of us for hanging on to a Constitution we didn’t make and assuming our sovereignty. They are assuming our sovereignty by pretending they are the ones who now have to make Constitution for us.

But Nigerians elected them?

We elected them for the limited purpose of making laws go and see section three of the Constitution. We elected them for a limited purpose for four years to go make law according to the Constitution. Is it not what is written down there? That is their mandate. If you want to know who has power to make Constitution, go to section 14( 2A) of the Constitution.

It says: “The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a state based on the principles of democracy and social justice. It is hereby accordingly declared that sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this constitution derives all its powers and authority.”

The meaning of this is that only the constituent components have the power to make a constitution. The power required to make constitution is called “constituent powers.” The National Assembly doesn’t have constituent powers, they are only stepping into the shoes of Abdulsalam Abubakar and his gang of 1999 to now become the owners of our sovereignty to sit in Abuja and begin to dictate to us the terms by which we live in union.

When you go to the preamble of the constitution, you will then see the gravity of the offense we are talking about. It says that “we the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria having firmly and solemnly resolved to live in unity as indivisible and divisible sovereign nation”, do you understand it is a false claim? It is false. So, in the attempt to pretend that what we read in 14( 2A) has happened, they lied that we the people submitted our sovereignty and also wrote the articles to manage our union.

It was assumed…

No, no, no, they knew they were lying. If it is an error, they will treat it as one but the Decree 24 by which they imposed this Constitution in 1999 told the story of how they came about the constitution. That is where they got into this trouble from which they will not be allowed to recover. That decree 24, as we see here is the story of Abdulsalam Abubakar.

Former administration under Obasanjo said the country’s unity is non- negotiable… ?

Who are they to believe and speak for me? I don’t believe that our unity is non- negotiable.

Looking at what is happening with IPOB and the likes, do you see this conversation ending in an amicable manner without force because now we have seen different groups coming up and what eventually happen is that it becomes a treasonable offence?

There is only one treason on the table now, the people that gathered in Abuja to swear to defend and uphold this fraud that seized my sovereignty with my signature I didn’t append, standing on the document as the basis of authorisation, they are the ones committing treason against me.

It is only one group of people that are shedding blood in the East, West and Middle Belt. It is only one group of people killing in Zamfara, Niger and Benue states. What is going on in the East is now a mixed up situation and it is so minute that you can’t bring it to this level of discussion. We have engaged all of them including the IPOB. To your question whether this matter can end amicable, the proposition we have on the table and when I say “we”, the NINAS constitutional force majure proclamation, which was published in The Guardian newspaper on January 20 in 2021, four pages and signed by 128 people representing all the blocks in the country at the highest possible levels. It was a proposition for how to end this matter without bloodshed. We have been through bloodshed the first time; you saw how the processes involved all the people on the two sides of the war, Enahoro that was the spokesman of the Federal government, Ojukwu that was the organiser of the Biafran side. All of them were involved.

The whole world is watching, we have gone to engage the international stakeholders both at the UN and the Security Council, including the US.

You saw when the UN sent a mission in August of 2019 to come to investigate why blood was flowing all over Nigeria and that mission came out with a verdict that the constitutional arrangement of Nigeria was like pressure cooker for injustice and under that Constitution Nigeria has become a threat to global peace, especially because of its population. Nigeria is bound to snap operating that constitution, if we do not find answers early enough. And if Nigeria snaps, 200 million people will be looking for where to run to. The global terror networks are already converging here; ISIS is here working with Boko Haram, Al Qada is already here, so the UN itself has raised the alarm that the constitutional arrangement of Nigeria is the reason all the blood is flowing everywhere. Whether is the terror we see or the agitations we see, poverty and what it can bring.

We went to the US and told them the terror network they were fighting in Middle East have converged in our sub region and that our government is complicit in how they are being reinforced to become stronger. And that if nothing happens to stop them that the US itself will pay in blood because these terror networks are going to find an unlimited number of people to proceed with their campaigns.

You have the political class to deal with, some of the people you have mentioned who you know were in PRONACO and some how, some are governors. From outside you cannot proclaim a conference, there is no weight of any law so to say. So are you going to be using the instrument of the UN?

Everything available will be used.

And then how do you overcome the political class?

Those who went to do party as they were dropping off, we gain them back, for every one person that dropped off at least a 1000 persons joined us. If you put ear to the ground now you will see that the whole country wants a new Constitution, you heard Afe Babalola saying it.

So, if that level of consensus has been built and the few people are going about waving party flag of say APC and PDP, whose turn it is, we are not going to pay any attention to them.