The Illegitimate Mandate Of Nigeria’s Political Class By Ndidi Uwechue
We know how it is, very young children just naturally want to tell things as they are. They will tell their parents the bad thing that big brother did. They will see someone who looks different and go up to them to ask them why they are different.
Little children are curious about the world and, it is not a selfish curiosity, but open, wanting to know and to understand why things are the way they are. Parents in the West, encourage this in their children, and so does Western society through the cartoons, children’s programmes, and school education they devise for their children.
In Nigeria though, children are socialized to be frightened of saying the truth. When a child is honest and says things as they are, parents will say, “Be quiet! Do you want to get me into trouble?”. So the child learns to be silent, and learns not to question things. The child learns to equate “truth” with “trouble”. Later, the child starts primary school when both teachers and parents encourage him to copy others’ work, and to cheat in tests and exams. The child grows to understand that “this is Nigeria” and that lying, cheating, DISHONESTY helps individuals to progress, and is the way to have power over others. Now an adult, say, in the civil service, there would be various office schemes to get undeserved personalprofit. Besides, having learned from school days that copying can bring benefit, when a consultant should come along with an excellent proposal, it gets copied, sometimes retitled, thenfraudulently claimed by another.
In such a falsehood-accommodating society, it becomes quiteeasy to impose the forged 1999 Constitution upon the people. The middle class and elite know that this Constitution is a forgery but being accustomed to dishonesty and hearing lies, the response of many is “Be quiet! Do you want to get me into trouble?” As long as they are making money, or hoping to do so, SILENCE is the response.
It is the poor masses who have yet to know that the 1999 Constitution that impoverishes them, is also a forgery. It is these poor ones who trudge to their farms and using Iron Age tools toil under the sun to produce food for the middle class and elite, and while there, also fear for their safety from trespassing Fulani herdsmen. They cry for help but nobody listens. It is these poor ones who die in agony from preventable or treatable medical conditions in primitive “hospitals”. They cry for help but nobody listens. It is these poor ones who are the worst victims of the unpassable “roads”. They cry for help but nobody listens.
These poor folk do not know that the imposed illegitimate 1999 Constitution holds them down and is the source of their miseries, through the 68-item Exclusive List. Then also Chapter 2 that promises them social welfare, is then craftily made non-justiciable (not enforceable) by Section 6 (6c).
Then also, young Nigerians flee abroad having been forced to escape the dishonesty-laden Nigeria created by the 1999 Constitution either in order to get a normal education, or to live a normal life, or both.
Being abroad, or having access to what happens in the world via the internet, has enabled young people to know that a different type of life is possible. Such young people are becoming “woke”. There is the End SARS movement, theirprotests may for now not be happening, but the movement remains. There is the Revolution Now movement. There is the “Our Mumu Don do” movement. All these young people’s movements share the same desire of wanting a new type of country. That starts with having valid Constitutions which would then create valid governance structures.
Nigeria’s situation is quite easy to grasp, but it requiresHONESTY. Since the Constitution creates government, an illegitimate 1999 Constitution creates a government with that same status! That is just simple logic. This applies to government at central, state and local levels. The take home point is this: the status of the 1999 Constitution is the status of government at all levels. It also means that the positions of president, vice-president, senator, representative, governor, etc– all the positions created by the 1999 Constitution are illegitimate. Please do not panic – the United Nations (UN) has procedures to deal with such a situation.
When the status of a government is illegitimate, that situation is remedied by having a time-limited temporary government called a “Transitional Government”, where the wrongs get corrected. That is following due process guided by UN protocols. Those in Nigeria’s government at all levels, know that this process has started. It officially began on 16thDecember 2020 when a Constitutional Force Majeure (“Confom” for short) was declared by NINAS, the indigenous ethnic nationalities of the Lower Niger Bloc (South-South and South-East together), the Oodua Bloc, and the Middle Belt Bloc, in alliance. The entire Confom procedure, an ORDERLY PROCESS to decommission the illegitimate 1999 Constitution is known to government and has been made known nationally and internationally. For the benefit of repetition, the Confom’s democratic UN-based due process dictates that (1) general elections in 2023 under the repudiated 1999 Constitution be suspended so political parties are to Close Shop, even if temporarily, so that the time-boundTransitional Government can begin. (2) During this transitioning process, the Sovereignty/Union Dispute will be resolved by ethnic nations conducting their Regional Referendums to decide whether or not to re-commit to the Union. (3) The results of these Referendums determine whether there will be Restructuring or Dissolution of Nigeria. That is a decision for “we the people” to make, and not for any “strong man” to impose upon the people.
Continuing the fraud of upholding a sham Constitution will no longer work for those who benefit from this crime. When government has an illegitimate mandate, and when that government itself is illegitimate through the illegitimate 1999 Constitution, then government is only ruling from the primitive position of MIGHT-IS-RIGHT. That just makes Nigeria increasingly a land of “savages”. It also reduces the chances of Unionists who want Restructuring, and increases the chances of Non-Unionists who want Dissolution.
Opinion AddThis : Original Author : Ndidi Uwechue Disable advertisements :
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