By John Moyibi Amoda

By the 1999 Constitution it is the people of Nigeria who in order to exercise their sovereign power in the conduct of their public and private affairs constitute themselves into the electorate

SUB-SECTION 14(2)
declares that the people of Nigeria to whom sovereignty belongs implicitly instruct all organs of government, all authorities and persons exercising legislative, executive, executive or judicial powers to:
Conform to, observe and apply the provisions of this chapter of this Constitution:
*In the execution of their responsibilities;
*In the knowledge that government in its entirety derives all of its powers and authority from the people through this Constitution;
*In acknowledgment of the fact that the Constitution itself is an instrument of instructions for regulating government, which in turn is an instrument for executing the will of the sovereign people from time to time in accordance to the provision of the extant constitution;

*In acknowledgment also of the fact that both the Constitution, and structure of government provided therein and powers and authority delegated to government therein can be reviewed and changed at the pleasure and by the initiative alone of the People, for “sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority”.

The people of Nigeria by this Constitution, the 1999 Constitution are organised into 36 states or 774 local government areas and the Federal Capital Territory.  Sovereignty in Bauchi State therefore belongs to the Bauchi State component of the people of Nigeria and the Bauchi State Government and all of its organs: executive, legislative and judicial derive all their powers and authority from the Bauchi State component of the people of Nigeria to whom sovereignty belongs.
Recent events in Bauchi State have therefore to be interpreted from the provisions of Chapter 2 of the 1999 Constitution.

Thus, the first questions to be asked are: Is it not the duty and responsibility of all organs of the Bauchi State government and of all of its authorities and persons, exercising legislative, executive or judicial powers, to conform to, observe and apply the provisions of this Constitution in Bauchi State in the exercise of all powers and authority ascribed to its Bauchi State component by the people of Nigeria organised as a federal sovereignty?

If state governments behave as the current Bauchi State Government is behaving, will they be exercising the powers and authority of governments in conformity to, in observation of and application of the provisions of Chapter Two of the 1999 Constitution?

And if the Bauchi State Government rejects as its duty and responsibility the exercising of all powers and authority of the state government in conformity to, in the observance of and application of the provisions of “this Chapter of this Constitution” will it be a government constituted by the people of Nigeria through the 1999 Constitution?

The people of Bauchi State have organised themselves for the purpose of administering the governmental powers and authority into INEC recognized political parties, of which they have chosen three of such parties, namely: the CPDP and AC as their argents.  Divisions within the Bauchi component of the people of Nigeria is thus manifested and resolved through an INEC multi-party competition for the privilege of being adopted by the Bauchi component of the people of Nigeria as their agents in office.

All of the above are of course inferences from the Constitution to explicate the relationship between the Bauchi State Government and the people of Nigeria as constituted in Bauchi State.  There is a difference, however, between the actual character of INEC electoral parties in Bauchi and the logical constitutional character of electoral parties that should be chosen by the Bauchi people as instruments for the exercise of the powers and authority of the Bauchi State Government.

The INEC parties, that is the actual parties that participated in the 2007 elections, are different from what parties should be according to the 1999 Constitution.  By the 1999 Constitution it is the people of Nigeria who in order to exercise their sovereign power in the conduct of their public and private affairs constitute themselves into the electorate; it is they that decide the rules by which their will on any matter is decided; it is they as the Bauchi electorate that decide that they will reconstitute themselves into electoral parties to articulate differences that are to be harmoniously managed in the exercise of their sovereign will; it is the people as the Bauchi electorate that decide the rules of representation and representative republican democracy.

These rules made by the people are the same that are drafted and promulgated as the Constitution.  In contrast to the above logically inferable relationships between the people, the parties and the government from “Chapter Two of this Constitution is the actual relationship between the INEC electorate, the INEC government and the INEC operational constitution.  It is the INEC parties of Bauchi that have chosen to act in ways strange to Chapter Two of the 1999 Constitution.