The hashtag #EndNigeriaNow continues to trend on social media. If only the young people using it knew that Nigeria has actually ended, and all they now need to do is to activate that reality. Nigeria ended in 1966 but that truth was hidden from young people by removing History from the national curriculum for more than a decade, and by encouraging their parents to bring them up not to ask questions.
The #EndNigeriaNow young people rightly renounce the Nigeria they find themselves in. They should be told that rejecting One-Nigeria is being honest and being intelligent.Those that could, have fled by going overseas. Tens of thousands of others are also planning, or hoping to escape abroad too.
To understand what has happened to them, young people need to go back in time to late 1950s pre-Independence Nigeria. There were three Regions, each with its own Constitution and being more-or-less like three countries. The Regions then chose to retain the Union of Nigeria if certain conditions would be met and kept. Each Region decided how much self-determination they would keep for their Region, and what they would give up for the collective good in the Union. They now wrote a Union Agreement, that means a Constitution(federating) that would set out how their Union would be. This also meant opening a Union Office ie a Central Government to manage those things they would have in common. Thus, at Independence there were four Constitutions: one for each of the three Regions plus the federating Constitution. Later, a fourth Region, the Mid-Western Region was carved out, so now there were four Constitutions plus a fifth one, the federating Constitution. This arrangement came to an abrupt end with the military coups of 1966.
What the coups did was to topple that federating Constitution, ie the UNION AGREEMENT was overthrown. Thus, without a Union Agreement there was no longer any Nigeria. However, the Regional Constitutions were still there. What should have happened is that the now four Regions should have said: Since our Union is over, the ethnic nationalities in our different Regions will need to decide whether we will remain as we were before the Union, ie, as Regions, or whether we will re-commit afresh to any Union. However, the military prevented that from happening by using military might to force a Union that had ended.
A marriage can be used to illustrate it further for young people. Essentially, a marriage is a Union Agreement: as long as certain conditions are kept, the Union ie the marriage, remains. If however a husband goes on to commit adultery, that very act can end the marriage Union. A divorce ensues to make the end of the Union official. Now, if say, ten years later this same couple decide that they still love each other, and can make their Union work, traditionally the man will have to ask his ex-wife if she would like to re-marry him. He does not just grab her and force her into a re-marriage! She must first agree to re-commit to a new Union again.
The position of that ex-wife is the position of indigenous ethnic nations of Nigeria. The Union has ended. There has been no Nigeria since 1966! They have been abducted into a false Union by military decrees, and now by the imposed 1999 Constitution that is a known forgery. The only acceptable way forward is in doing the right thing, and in doing the right thing the right way. Just as a divorced ex-wife must first decide if she wants to re-marry her ex-husband, ethnic nationalities must decide whether or not to re-commit to the ended Union called Nigeria.
That is why the NINAS Movement is going to win. Justice always defeats injustice. The NINAS Movement Proclaimed a Constitutional Force Majeure (CFM) on 16th December 2020 .That CFM raised a Union Dispute ie stated that there is no Union since the indigenous ethnic nationalities are no longer going to submit themselves to a fake Constitution.
The CFM Proclamation made Nigeria a Disputed Project. The NINAS Movement rightly insists that preparations to general elections in 2023 that would renew the life of the Repudiated illegitimate 1999 Constitution be halted, and a transitioning arrangement be set up, with Regional Referendums, to correct the fraud. Since that 1999 Constitution is a forgery, everything it creates including government is a fraud. The truth that had been hidden from the people has come out – there is NO UNION. Nigeria is the hoax of the century! So it can no longer be elections business as usual. An illicit government should not even try to defy the people, and defy human decency.
Ndidi Uwechue is a British citizen with Igbo heritage from the Lower Niger Bloc. She is a retired Metropolitan (London) Police Officer, she is a signatory to the Constitutional Force Majeure, and she writes from Abuja.
