*Wrong Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription, Wrong Treatment And The Patient Died
By Tony Nnadi
Listening to this interview of November 2018 by Prof Pat Utomi on Channels Television about the urgent need to stop and reset the dial for Nigeria, it takes a trained eye to see the gross misdiagnosis of what the true ailment of Nigeria is, which has accounted for decades of wrong prescriptions and wrong treatments for which the Patient (Nigeria) is now heading to it’s sure demise.
Anyone who wants to find out what is wrong with the sick Nigerian State and what viable Treatment Options are available at this time, should soberly examine the Trinity of relationships between the FOUNDATION of a Building, the PILLARS/WALLS and the ROOFING of that Building.
This sober examination will disclose crystal clear Parallels with the make-up of a Country in terms of the definition of the POLITY which dictates the POLITICS that in turn produce the POLICIES.
It is akin to the ROOTS of a tree, the STEM and the LEAVES.
A clear understanding of the imperatives of these three distinct legs informed the Popular Definition of Democracy as “Government OF the People, BY the People, FOR the People”.
“Government OF the People” means that Sovereignty belongs to the People, who in exercise of that Sovereignty, make the Constitutional Arrangement creates a Union (Country), defining the boundaries of Power and Authority, both for the Government and the Citizen; in other words, the People dictate the Constitution of the Country. The interplay of all these results in the Definition of the POLITY and that is the FOUNDATION upon which the Union rests and by which it’s Affairs are moderated.
“Government BY the People” simply means that only the Votes of the People should confer Governmental Powers/Authority. Standing on the firm Foundation of the first leg, the whole gamut of processes by which the selection of those who would be so conferred with Governmental Powers/Authority (ie Elections) as well as the mechanisms for manipulating the levers of Governmental Powers/Authority, is the definition of POLITICS and this intermediating role between the State and the Citizen constitute the PILLARS/WALLS of Society.
“Government FOR the People” simply means that Governmental Powers/Authority, as Legitimately conferred by the People in the second leg, are wielded FOR the Benefit of the People by way of POLICIES.
Still building upon the Foundation and Pillars/Walls the first two legs of “OF” and “BY”, this third leg of “FOR”, constitutes the ROOFING that shelters the People from the vagaries of a Hobbesian Society where life nasty, brutal and short.
If for any reason something damages the FOUNDATION upon which any big building rests, the only effective remedy is to rebuild that FOUNDATION and the first step in that rebuilding, necessarily entails the Demolition of the badly compromised Structure which utterly endanger the Occupants.
Beyond the deadly landmines laid by the British Colonial Enterprise in the 1914 Foundation it laid for Nigeria, it is an undisputed fact of history that what happened to Nigeria in 1966 when the 5 Federating Constitutions (4 Regional + 1 Federal) were toppled and jettisoned by Military Coups, occasioned a total damage of the FOUNDATION of the House of Nigeria, and General Yakubu Gowon who was thrown up as the Head of State by the Counter-Coup of July 29, 1966 expressly admitted that much when in his Coup Broadcast announcing the Secession of the Northern Region from the rest of Nigeria, he said that “the basis of the Nigerian Federation was no more”.
Despite the best efforts of those who had been shouting from the rooftops for a Fundamental Reconfiguration and Reconstruction of the Constitutional Foundations of Nigeria (RESTRUCTURING), what the controllers of Nigeria had done since 1966, had been to OBDURATELY continue the building of the House of Nigeria upon this completely damaged Foundation, and with a combination of brute force and guile, imposed a false Foundation by way of the so-called “1979 Constitution”, transmogrified by Abdulsalam Abubarkar’s Decree No. 24 of 1999 into the so-called “1999 Constitution”. This Fraud of 1999 which creates an inverted Federation, (Unitarism) has remained the rickety Foundation upon which the Nigerian State and it’s mockery of Democracy is being erected.
The tragedy of the dying Nigerian State is that both the Government and the Nigeria’s Political Elite are united in what seems to be a Conspiracy of Recklessness, to continue the doomed construction of Nigeria upon the totally ruined Constitutional Foundation, instead of stopping the Construction to first rework the damaged Foundation, like South Africa did with it’s notorious Apartheid Constitution between 1990 and 1994 under the Leadership of a courageous President Frederick De Klerk.
It becomes more tragic when a Globally celebrated erudite Professor of Political Economy, Prof Pat Utomi, is also amongst that Political Elite caught in this web of inexplicable refusal to accept that we cannot build any viable Nigeria or Democracy on the Damaged Foundation defined by the Rogue 1999 Constitution, as he joined the rest of the Political bandwagon seeking to reinforce the life of the dead 1999 Constitution by contesting Elections in 2019 under it, instead of joining hands with the redemptive forces that orchestrated the Formal Regional Repudiations of the Fraudulent 1999 Constitution across the South and the Middle, and which are now together mobilizing towards the Shutdown of the journey to the doomed 2019 Elections premised upon the Repudiated 1999 Fraud. (The 12-State Sharia Contiguous Territory of the North which Simultaneously imposed Sharia since year 2000, had by that Joint Action, Seceded from the supposedly Secular).
If I were to ask Professor Utomi the simple question: “WHAT IS NIGERIA?”, I am certain he will not find any answers that will stand the test of the Scrutiny of this piece which establishes that the Nigerian Union as currently defined is thoroughly disputed and it’s so-called “Democracy” a farce that cannot pass any of the three legs of test outlined herein in the definition of Democracy.
We must now be sensible and courageous enough to interpret the youth-driven separatist movements all over Nigeria including the “Biafra Restoration” and the “Oduduwa Republic” Campaigns within the context of the deep frustrations of the younger generation of the Constituent Component Nationalities currently entrapped in the increasingly toxic One-Nigeria (One-Nigeria being the euphemism for the Caliphate-Imposed Unitarist Master-Servant Nigeria), which emerged since the 1966 demise of the Federation of Nigeria. The Ethnic Cleansing in the Middle Belt and Gen T.Y Danjuma’s March 24, 2018 Battlecry which rings like “Defend Yourselves and Your Land from Caliphate Nigeria” brings the Middle Belt into the loop.
The lamentations contained in the Video below are evidence of the toxic EFFECTS of the 51 years of obduracy and recklessness since 1967, by the Nigerian Political Elite. One would have thought that instead of lamentations, all efforts should by now be focused on dealing with the known root CAUSE of the worsening ailments of Nigeria currently pushing Nigeria to it’s well inevitable demise. Those efforts should in the first instance and as a matter of urgency, be directed at halting the further Construction of Nigeria on a damaged Constitutional Foundation for the danger it represents to all the Nationalities currently entrapped in the Burning House of Lugard.
Whatever be their Party Colours and whether they realize it or not, ALL those currently pushing towards the 2019 Elections under the 1999 Constitution should know that they are working towards the reinforcement of the Misery and Enslavement of the Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria.
For a detailed background to this prescription for a 2018 Shutdown of the journey to the 2019 Elections, let those who care enough about the looming disaster open the following link to read the 2012 Seminal Articulation of the LNC on the Subject, titled: THE COUNTRYWIDE REJECTION OF THE 1999 CONSTITUTION”: https://www.facebook.com/618603708275794/posts/1391608857641938/
The LNC and it’s MNN Alliance Partners invite us to be on standby to engage those, especially from our own parts of Nigeria who for the humongous illicit personal benefits guaranteed them by the Repudiated 1999 Constitution are now railroading us to further National Elections under the 1999 Constitution.
Visit: lowernigercongress.org
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WhatsApp: +234-810-056-9448
Tony Nnadi is a Constitutional Law Attorney & Secretary General of the Lower Niger Congress, LNC.
