Atlantic Post

(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 the Convening of this “National Colloquium” Initiative at this time is another indication of the Countrywide Consensus on the urgent need for a 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 the NINAS Secretariat from members of the public many of whom sought to know whether the Conveners of the Colloquium were coming together to advance the NINAS Union Reconfiguration Propositions and Campaign. 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 Propositions 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 the Nigerian Union but also the Critical Foundation of being Framed by a 20-Year Process involving the Constituent Peoples of Nigeria;  with watershed Milestone Events that include:

(i) the Peoples Sovereign National Conference Convened by PRONACO (2005-2006); 

(ii) the MNN-Inspired Formal Challenge of the Legitimacy of the 1999 Constitution by way of a Lawsuit in 2007; 

(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 of, and Governance for the Nigerian Union. These Painstaking People-Led Processes culminated 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 as an Advertorial in the Guardian Newspaper of January 20, 2021 at Pages 38, 39, 40 & 41; https://guardian.ng/features/notice-of-constitutional-grievances-declaration-of-constitutional-force-majeure-and-demand-for-transitioning-process-for-an-orderly-reconfiguration-of-the-constitutional-basis-of-the-federation/)

(4) As the search continues for a viable pathway to the Constitutional Reconstruction of Nigeria, let it be recalled that the National Assembly in February 2024, announced that it will write “a New Constitution” for Nigeria in 24 months and that 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 are the links to the NINAS Note of Caution

https://ninasmovementnews.substack.com/p/fraud-alert-2-compounding-the-treason

and the Reprimand to the National Assembly: https://youtu.be/Emde1rz-OXc

(5) It will be recalled that in December of 2023, Olisa Agbakoba, citing what he referred to as Prof Ben Nwabueze’s Postulations, had at the Birthday Colloquium of Godswill Akpabio in Abuja and 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 Dead 1999 Constitution, to Write a New Constitution for Nigeria without recourse to the Peoples of Nigeria. NINAS issued a Rejoinder and a Rebuke to Olisa Agbakoba for seeking to mislead the National Assembly into a grave error that will be tantamount to Compounding the Abdusalam Abubakar Treason and Fraud of 1999. 

(Here is the link to the said Rejoinder to Agbakoba:  

https://ninasmovementnews.substack.com/p/rejoinder-to-olisa-agbakobas-frying

(6) Against the backdrop of the Five-Point Proposition of the aforementioned Constitutional Force Majeure Proclamation, NINAS by this Open Memorandum, invites the Conveners of the Lagos Colloquium to furnish Nigeria and Nigerians, (a) its own Alternative Diagnosis of the True Ailments of Nigeria outside the Unworkable and Untenable Unitary Constitutional Arrangements of Nigeria; (b) an Alternative Prescription for rescuing Nigeria and Nigerians from that debilitations of that Ailment; (c) an Alternative Process of getting the sinking ship of the Nigerian State to the Harbour of Constitutional Reconfiguration outside the detailed Time-Bound TRANSITIONING Template offered by the NINAS Constitutional Force Majeure Propositions; and, (d) an Alternative Framework outside those offered by the NINAS Propositions and Processes, for Undertaking the Constitutional Reconfiguration of Nigeria. (Here is a link to the March 16, 2024, NINAS Milestone Bulletin that addressed a wide range of issues relating to Nigeria’s Disputed Constitutional Arrangements and Appropriate Remediation Processes.

https://ninasmovementnews.substack.com/p/countdown-to-altar-call-a-ninas-milestone

(7) If perchance 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 by NINAS towards the Consensual Decommissioning of Nigeria’s Failed Unitary Constitutional Arrangements and the orderly emergence of Fresh, Negotiated Constitutional Protocols dictated by unfettered Self-Determination Imperatives for the Constituent Peoples of Nigeria.