Ongoing Constitutional Amendment Authorizes The Seizure Of Ancestral Lands For RUGA Settlements Countrywide
Okenwa (Ezeudemba), 21st March 2022
The Nigerian National Assembly was given only a few days to review and vote on the approval of a carefully packaged legislative scheme by the minders of the status quo called “constitutional amendments” to the 1999 Constitution. Senators were railroaded into casting their votes over profound constitutional matters of great controversy without having a window for public deliberations required by such an exercise in a constitutional democracy. On March 1, 2022, the Nigerian Senate produced a list of approved amendments to the imposed fraudulent 1999 Constitution out of the blue. The process now shifts to the 36 states’ State Assemblies to consent to the product of the Senate before the said “amendments” can become laws of the land. As we speak, members of the State Assembly in the 36 states are being canvassed surreptitiously by the agents of Unitary imposition to provide the required two-thirds-majority approval to the recommendations already approved at the National Assembly.
What triggered the hasty plot for constitutional amendment at this juncture?
Decades-long disputation between the stakeholders of the South and the Middle Belt, under the aegis of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-determination (NINAS), and the scions of the Sokoto Caliphate over the arbitrary imposition of the 1999 Constitution by General Abdulsalami Abubakar military junta has attained recently a crescendo that can no longer be ignored. On December 16, 2020, the stakeholders of the South and Middle Belt initiated a Constitutional Force Majeure (CFM) and commenced a 5-step process that shall culminate in a political transition program from today’s Unitary Nigeria to a renegotiated novel order that is predicated on the principle of self-determination for all indigenous peoples. The Fulani, who are not indigenous to Nigeria, are immensely rattled by the notion of deciding the future of Nigeria’s geopolitical space on the basis of indigeneship of the constituent stakeholders. This fly-by-night constitutional amendment scheme is derived to become the counterpoise for providing a facelift to an odious imposition that has failed in delivering the most basic imperative of governance, security of lives and property, to the populace. They also wish to use the said amendment ruse as a disguised conduit for inserting the Fulani as a constitutionally recognized indigenous ethnic nationality of Nigeria.
The NINAS’ Secretariat has produced didactic video clips explaining how the seemingly innocuous amendment proposal to pay the Local Government allocations directly from Abuja, without involving the state governors, is a poorly disguised scam for introducing the much-resented Fulani RUGA settlements in rural communities throughout the Middle Belt and South. The proposed amendment on automatic indigeneship rights after living in any location for ONLY 5 years is the flip side of the same coin as RUGA. The amendment to pay the Local Government allocations directly from Abuja encompasses the extension of the INEC’s authority to also conduct the Local Council elections. With this spurious amendment, the INEC can be used to control what happens in all the 774 Local Governments in the country by the occupant of the Aso Rock Villa. In the interim, the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC) is responsible for conducting all elections in their respective jurisdictions, including the local governments, to the chagrin of Abuja.
Common sense and self-preservation imperatives demand that all states of the South and Middle Belt must vote a resounding “NO” to the Abuja constitutional amendment ruse when the matter comes up at their respective state Assemblies. A blanket rejection of the entire amendment bogie is a preferred approach.
Editor’s note:
On 6th March 2022, in an article titled, “Details of 68 passed & rejected amended Nigerian Constitution” published by News Band “Amendments” #36: Expansion of the Scope of Citizenship by Registration and #38: Qualification to become an Indigene of a State in Nigeria were both listed as having been Rejected by the National Assembly. HOWEVER, “Amendments” #1 and #2 that relate to Local Government autonomy were passed. Therefore, the aim of bringing in RUGA Fulani colonies by stealth remains the grand purpose of these “Amendments” to a fraudulent 1999 Constitution.