Leaders across the length and breathe of the Middle-Belt and the southern part of the country have given the Federal Government of Nigeria a 90-day- notice to set up a committee on Sovereign National Conference in other to decide on the repeal of the 1999 Constitution
The leaders, who in strong terms described the 1999 Constitution as a fraud, blamed it for the insecurity, poverty and many other problems facing the nation.
They said failure to repeal the constitution, the government must be ready to dissolve Nigeria’s amalgamation of 1914 by the British colonialists.
They said this in a statement on Friday, saying future elections should be put on hold until the “faulty constitution” was addresses. They argued that since the same constitution under contention would be used to swear-in any elected officials, such elections should be postponed until the foundation of the country’s problems was addressed.
However, some of the leaders who endorsed the statement are: former Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang; Prof Yusufu Turaki; a prominent Yoruba leader, Prof Banji Akintoye; Dr Kunle Oshodi; President-General, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo; Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe; Senator Aniete Okon; Fred Agbeyegbe
Others are: Air Commodore Indongesit Nkanga (retd); Ambassador Godknows Boladei Igali; Fred Agbeyegbe and Rear admiral W. Geoffrey Yange among scores of other leaders.
The leaders who are from the Middle-Belt, South-West, South-East and the South-South said this after a meeting held in Lagos.
The leaders, who spoke on the platform of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination lamented that the constitution was crafted to favour the Fulani at the expense of other ethnic groups, saying they would no longer allow their people to be perpetually subjugated .
The statement read in part, “Furthermore, effective from today 18th December 2020, give a 90-day notice to the Government of the Federation of Nigeria, the Security Council of the United Nations, the Government of the United States of America, the European Union as well as the international community, of the intention of the peoples of the alliance territories to reconsider our continued allegiance to the disputed 1999 constitution as well as the unitary union of death, attrition and backwardness it foists on us.
“It is our demand that in the 90-day period of this notice, the following specific actions must be taken by the Federal Government of Nigeria to firmly set in motion, an irreversible process by which the aforementioned grave constitutional grievances would be addressed:
“A formal announcement by the Federal Government of Nigeria acknowledging the constitutional grievances and sovereignty dispute now declared by the peoples of South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria.
“A formal commitment by Federal Government of Nigeria to the wholesale decommissioning and jettisoning of the 1999 constitution. A formal announcement by the Federal Government of Nigeria suspending further general elections under the disputed 1999 constitution.
“A formal Initiation of a time-bound transitioning process to midwife the emergence of fresh constitutional protocols by a two-stage process in which the constituent regional blocs will at the first stage, distill and ratify their various constitutions by referendums and plebiscite and in the second stage, negotiate the terms of federating afresh as may be dictated by the outcomes of referendum and plebiscite.
“A formal invitation to the peoples of the South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria to work out and emplace a transitional authority, which shall specify the modalities for the transitioning process including the composition and mandate of the transitional authority a well as the time-frame for the transitioning and other ancillary matters.”
