The chairman of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self Determination (NINAS), Prof Banji Akintoye on Saturday declared that his group will lead the “dismantling of the fraudulent 1999 constitution to end the unworkable unitary union it foists and champion the process of self-determination by which sovereignty is restored to the constituent regions of the alliance.
Prof Akintoye stated this at a press conference held at the Secretariat of the Ilana Omo Oodua at Bodija in Ibadan, to mark the expiration of the 30-day period of consultations with elected officials from alliance territories following the initial 90-day period of Notice of Grave Constitutional Grievances issued against the Federal Government by NINAS on December 16, 2020, adding that the group is moving consultations to the people who are the true owners of sovereignties.
According to him, the dismantling which will automatically free up hijacked sovereignties of the trapped constituent components of Nigeria is being driven in a manner that will precipitate an orderly transitioning arrangement that will midwife the emergence of Successor- institutional protocols anchored strictly upon the self-determination rights of constituent components of the defunct Federation of Nigeria, aggregated in formations of their choice, to be ratified by regional referendums and plebiscites.
“While NINAS shepherds the task of dismantling the 1999 constitution, the constituent regional organisations/initiatives will under the guidance of NINAS, midwife the emergence of cohesive regional charters/ constitutions that will form the basis of UN-SC mandated self-determination referendums to terminate the failed Lugardian experiment of 1914.
“NINAS has activated what the world calls peoples power in the difficult debates and dialogues emanating from the Constitutional Force Manure proclamation of December 16, 2020, which is essentially machinery of the people of Nigeria to peacefully ease out the unworkable, imposed unitary constitution of Nigeria 1999 and to distil successor- constitutional arrangements anchored upon the unfettered self-determination rights of the constituent components of Nigeria.
“Let it be known that in response to interventions by people of goodwill from within and outside Nigeria including foreigners who are sympathetic to Nigerians for the horrifying plight, NINAS will in the interest of our people, be willing to reopen the window dialogue and engagement with the two tiers of government in Nigeria if they turn up in the course of the 120-day period consultations with the people of Nigeria and the international community,” Prof Akintoye said.
He emphasised that in what seemed like a choreographed response from agents of the Federal and State governments of Nigeria to NiNAS grand propositions, attempts were made to distort and criminalise the straightforward self-determination campaign of the aggrieved constituent component blocs of the distressed Federation of Nigeria in a bid to erect a false narrative around the campaign.
Tribuneonline
