NINAS Open Memorandum To The Patriots’ “National Colloquium On The Constitutional Future Of Nigeria”
NINAS Secretariat, 17 March 2024
(1) Amidst Cacophonous and Charged Debates and Disputations around the Question of Appropriate Constitutional Arrangements for Nigeria, the announcement by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, early March 2024, of a plan by “the Patriots”, to Convene in Lagos, a One-Day National Colloquium on the Constitutional Future of Nigeria was received by the Secretariat of NINAS with a mixture of relief and concern.
RELIEF because Convening of this “National Colloquium” Initiative at this time is an indication of the Countrywide Consensus on the urgent need for wholesale Constitutional Reconfiguration of Nigeria; CONCERN because the Colloquium, in many ways, bears the semblance of a Mission to Reinvent the Wheel and to commence a search for direction on a subject in which a clear Pathway to Redemption has been Charted and Deployed.
(2) As NINAS considered its line of response to the Lagos Colloquium Plan, a flurry of enquiries streamed into NINAS Secretariat from members of the public many of who sought to know whether the Conveners of the Colloquium were coming together to advance the NINAS Union Reconfiguration Propositions and Campaigns. This Open Memorandum is in part, a general response to those enquiries and a direct contribution to the Colloquium.
(3) Going by the theme chosen by the Conveners of the Colloquium, namely - “Lawful Procedures for Actualizing a Peoples’ Constitution for Nigeria” NINAS is glad to share with the Conveners of the Colloquium the Proposition of the December 16, 2020 NINAS Constitutional Force Majeure Proclamation which not only presents Nigeria and Nigerians, a Lawful Procedure for Undertaking the inevitable Constitutional Reconfiguration of Nigeria but Founded and Framed by a 20-Year Process involving the Constituent Peoples of Nigeria; with watershed Milestone Events that includes:
(i) the Peoples Sovereign National Conference Convened by PRONACO 2005-2006;
(ii) the MNN Formal Challenge of the Legitimacy of the 1999 Constitution by way of a Lawsuit;
(iii) Regional Solemn Assemblies of the Peoples of Nigeria between 2015 and 2018, (Port Harcourt -2015, Ibadan-2017 and Makurdi-2018 respectively) Repudiating the Fraudulent 1999 Constitution as Basis for the Nigerian Union and culminating in
(iv) the December 16, 2020 Joint Multi-Regional Constitutional Force Majeure which tabled a Five-Point Proposition for Initiating a TRANSITIONING for Union Reconfiguration.
Here is the Full text of the NINAS December 16, 2020 Constitutional Force Majeure as published by the Guardian Newspaper of January 20, 2021 (Pages 38, 39, 40 & 41) LINK:
(4) As the search continues for a viable pathway to the Constitutional Reconstruction of Nigeria, let it be recalled that the National Assembly in March 2024, announced that it will write “a New Constitution” for Nigeria in 24 months. NINAS issued a Note of Caution and a Reprimand to the National Assembly for stepping beyond the bounds of its Legislative Mandate of Law-Making and seeking to venture into the realm of Constitution-Making which requires Constituent Powers that the National Assembly does not have as that Power vests exclusively in the Constituent Peoples of Nigeria.
Here is the link to the NINAS Note of Caution LINK:
and the Reprimand to the National Assembly LINK:
(5) It will be recalled in December 2023, Olisa Agbakoba, citing what he referred to as Prof Ben Nwabueze’s Postulations. had at the Birthday Colloquium of Godswill Akpabio at Abuja in the Presence of Tinubu, propounded a strange Jurisprudential Theory in which he was guiding the National Assembly on where to draw some imaginary powers from Section 4(1) of the Fraudulent and Rejected 1999 Constitution to Write a New Constitution for Nigeria without recourse to the Peoples of Nigeria. NINAS issued a Rejoinder to, and a Rebuke of Olisa Agbakoba for seeking to mislead the National Assembly in a grave error that will be tantamount to Compounding the Abdusalam Abubakar Treason and Fraud of 1999.
Here is the said Rejoinder to Agbakoba LINK:
(6) Against the backdrop of the Five-Point Proposition of the Constitutional Force Majeure Proclamation, NINAS by this Open Memorandum, invites the Conveners of the Lagos Colloquium to furnish Nigeria and Nigerians, its own Alternative Diagnosis of the True Ailments of Nigeria outside the Unworkable and Untenable Unitary Constitutional Arrangements of Nigeria; an Alternative Prescription for rescuing Nigerians from that debilitating Ailment; an Alternative Process of getting the sinking ship of the Nigeria State to the Harbour of Constitutional Reconfiguration outside the detailed Time-Bound TRANSITIONING Template offered by NINAS; an Alternative Framework outside those offered by the NINAS Proposition.
(7) If per chance the Colloquium does not have such clear alternatives, NINAS will expect that the Conveners and Conferees at the Lagos Colloquium will find the courage to embrace the NINAS Union Reconfiguration Template as the Most Viable and Most Lawful Procedure for Actualizing Fresh Constitutional Arrangements for the Peoples of Nigeria.
Anything short of these specific, time-bound and actionable alternatives will be tantamount to a distraction from the decisive push towards the Decommissioning and Dismantling of Nigeria’s Unitary Constitutional Arrangements for the orderly emergence of Fresh, Negotiated Constitutional Protocols dictated by the unfettered Self-Determination Imperative for the Constituent Peoples of Nigeria.
Here is a link to a March 16, 2024 NINAS Milestone Bulletin that beamed the searchlights on a wide range of issues relating to the Disputed Constitutional Arrangements of Nigeria LINK:
Tony Nnadi
For: NINAS Secretariat
March 17, 2024.
Please read and share... and do not forget to check out NINAS videos on their YouTube channel, link here:
For NINAS updates
If you would like to receive regular updates from NINAS Movement on Telegram app, please join here:
FREE NINAS Movement News Subscription
Subscribe and join others to get our articles sent directly to your email inbox as soon as they get published!
Required urgently d lagis colloquium link...