By Innocent Anaba

Movement for New Nigeria, MNN, made up of Lower Niger Congress, the Federation of Oodua Peoples and the Middle Belt Congress, has called for the amendment of the 1999 constitution, to allow the people decide whether they still want to be together, in view of fact that some Nigerians are not welcomed in certain parts of the country.

The movement, noted that until the people engage in a talk that will decide the way forward, the agitations of groups, such as the Islamic fundamentalist sect, Boko Haram; Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta, MEND’ Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB; Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC; among others, will continue to threaten Nigeria’s corporate existence.

MNN’s President, Fred Agbeyegbe; Secretary, Tony Nnadi; Kwara State chapter Chairman, Yoruba Council of Elders, Senator Suleiman Salawu; Ayuba Andrew Butswat, Leye Akinmodiro among others, recently address the media on the persistent and stead slid of the Nigerian union toward disintegration by actions and activities of some nationalities with the union and the administrators of the state, who carry on as if the Nigerian state was their private property.

It said that the present state of affairs in the country “is totally intolerable and unacceptable to us, as successive governments had breached each and every one of the foregoing provisions towards the peoples of the Lower Niger, Oodua Land and the Middle Belt, with impunity. We say that the 1999 Constitution was imposed in breach of our sovereignties.”

Agbeyegbe noted that his group had already instituted two separate suits in court, demanding a declaration “that the 1999 Constitution is a forgery; that the preamble be set aside and that the Government of the day be ordered to initiate a process for the negotiation and re-enactment of our Union Document (Constitution) via a Sovereign National Conference, SNC, to which they have turned deaf ears to date.

Having, therefore, been at the receiving end of the injustices meted out to us over the 12 years, we share the views of the inheritors that the 1999 constitution is incapable of affording justice.”

The group queried the imbalance in the distribution of largesse in the Nigerian arrangement, saying “while the three regions of the South at Independence had to become only 17 states against the one region of the North’s 19 states and 1 Federal Territory, the latter garnering to itself a majority in the National Assembly and a greater number of the 774 local government structure enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, all structured to enable inheritors keep a larger piece of a cake to which they contribute nothing.”

He said, “we had now come to the realisation that we have stood and folded our arms for too long as if we are in captivity, whilst our resources are plundered, hacked and carted away to far away places for the betterment of other people and to our detriment, our environment is despoiled while we are being reduced to a state of poltical extinction, inspite of our huge contributions to the Nigerian economy.

On the whole, nothing works under the 1999 Constitution, resulting in failed everything: education, health care, electric power, roads, food security, personal security and job security; all of which breed unemployed and restive youths.”

Further he said, “we acknowledge the inalienable right of the inheritors not to want to have anything to do with democracy whilst asserting our own inalienable right to continue our belief in and desire for democracy in our own homelands, both in exercise of our mutual rights as the Indigenous Peoples of our respective Homelands, in accordance with The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007, particularly Articles 3, 4 and 5 thereof, applicable in Nigeria.

“Provided the peoples of Southern Kaduna and similar borderline communities, who are not of their own stock and who do not subscribe to Sharia Law are excluded, we acknowledge the inalienable right of the inheritors that Sharia Law be applicable in their homelands, whilst also asserting our own inalienable right not to have Sharia Law apply to our own homelands, both in exercise of our mutual rights as the Indigenous Peoples of our respective Homelands, in accordance with The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007, particularly Articles 3, 4 and 5 thereof, applicable in Nigeria,” he added.