Movement for National Reformation (MNR) has expressed confidence in President Bola Tinubu-led federal government to steer the affairs of the country, considering his proven competence, and capacity to address the needs and wellbeing of the country's diverse nationalities, coupled with his international appeal to attract favourable bilateral relationships.
Drawing on my years of systematic study of politics as a discipline and decades of continuous observation of political practice in Nigeria, I consider the following as the critical ingredients for getting politics right: a devolved federation, good democratic practice, and administrative competence. After discussing each ingredient in turn, including attention to their varying potential…
• Give 90-day ultimatum for talks
Prominent Nigerian leaders have faulted the 1999 Constitution describing it as being skewed in favour of the northern region.
The eminent leaders, which include former Chief of General Staff, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (rtd), former Governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang, Second Republic Senator, Prof. Banji Akintoye, erstwhile President-General, Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, former Vice-Chairman of Arik Air, Senator Anietie Okon, leader of Middle Belt Forum, Dr. Bitrus Pogu, professor of religion, Prof. Yusuf Turaki, among others, yesterday, in a communiqué issued after a virtual meeting held in Lagos, said unless the Constitution was changed, Nigeria may not come out of its present challenges.
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Eminent Nigerians, including former Chief of Staff, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe (retd); former Governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang; Second Republic Senator, Professor Banji Akintoye; President-General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo; former Vice-Chairman of Arik Air, Senator Anietie Okon; Commodore Idongegist Nkanga, (retd); of PANDEF, the leader of Middle Belt Forum, Dr. Bitrus Pogu; former Minister, Prof. Yusuf Turaki and 121 others, have all came to the conclusion that the 1999 constitution was skewed in favour of the North.
They also petitioned the United Nations Security Council, African Union, European Union, United States and the British Government on the need to urgently convoke a Sovereign National Conference to discuss the constitutionality of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria and the 1914 Amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Nigeria within 90 days to save the people from oppression, stagnation and squalor.
Speaking on the platform of the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination, the leaders, numbering about 127, described the Nigeria’s 1999 constitution as a fraud.
They said they gathered to “pronounce an end to our toleration of Nigeria’s Unitary Constitutional Order, unilaterally imposed and forcefully maintained by a section of the Nigerian country, in negation of the federal basis upon which Nigeria became one political union at independence in 1960 and in brutal subjugation of our collective sovereignties currently being forcefully and fraudulently appropriated by the Nigerian State.”
They added that the Nigerian constitution was a confiscation of the sovereignties, powers and assets of the people of the South and Middle Belt of the country.