Sir,
This Letter is a response to the
myriad of issues facing Nigeria under your
Presidency especially now that your
efforts at curbing corruption are
really revealing the depth to which
the malaise had crept into Nigeria’s
body politic. This is aggravated by
the recent disclosure about top civil
servants conniving to sabotage the
2016 national budget to satisfy their
corrupt appetite and aspirations, in
an emphatic revelation of the descent
of the entire state apparati into
the cesspit of corruption.
Needless to say, all of these point to the
imperative of CHOICE between a maintenance
of the current political order or
CHANGE of the structures of governance.
We do recall that as an aspirant as
well as the leader of the party in
power, you did promise CHANGE for
which reason APC is popularly referred to
as the Party of Change.
While the efforts to sanitize
Nigeria’s finances and retrieve stolen monies
are commendable, Egbe Omo Oduduwa
says that the simultaneous pursuit of
both the economic and the political
components of Change is the surest
guarantee against a subversion of
the promise of CHANGE. Your
Administration must do no less.
Nigeria’s entire political structure
was and is still based on an economy
which is no longer able to support
that structure. All of the efforts by
your administration at economic
diversification will come to naught if a
substantial part of its dividends
are applied towards the maintenance of
those structures. The central issue
has to do with the raison d’etre of the
STRUCTURE and not the slashing of
salaries and allowances.
Today’s global economic reality clearly show that a
country’s economic buoyancy is
determined by her ability to not
only compete within the global space, but
also her ability to determine the
content and context of her economic
activities. Thus, when the economic
aspirations are not in tune with the
political architecture, the synergy
for development will be lacking.
Egbe Omo Oduduwa posits that
Nigeria’s economic diversification will be
meaningful only if it proceeds from
the standpoint of combined political
and economic reordering as a
fundamental necessity.
While all the world’s geo-political
territories are one way or the other
engaged in redefining their global
positioning, Africa is still stuck in
maintaining its colonial legacies,
primarily based on the negation of the
Peoples as drivers of their economic
destinies thus making Africa a
developmental dump-site where all
sorts of experimentation that cannot
support any form of development are
carried out, all based on aspirations
to accumulate foreign reserves or
attract foreign investments with
political structures that are
fundamentally at variance with the real
developmental needs of the Peoples.
This you can see from the pressures
being piled on the NAIRA, which has
been on-going for the past 30 years
without a respite in sight. Our ability
to manage financial resources
without regard to the ends of development
becomes a pursuit of an end in
itself. All your noble efforts to ensure
prudence, savings, sanitation of the
economy and “diversification” without
corresponding political coordinates
will become mere statistics that do not
reflect on the lives of our peoples.
The relationship between the
political and the economic can be seen in the
abolition of the Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade because of its continuous
economic unviability culminating
politically in direct colonialism which
itself succumbed to the
anti-colonial “Wind of Change” in order to avoid
the economic collapse of the
colonizing countries. It is also clearly
indicated in the coming into being
of Nigeria vide the 1914 Amalgamation
which was informed by economic
necessity. In each of these instances, the
political and economic solutions
were simultaneously engaged where one
became a consequence of the other.
Can we act differently in today’s
Nigeria? When the country “diversifies”
through any economic activity, and
assuming that it succeeds, would its
proceeds go toward sustaining the
extant political structures? Doing so
would defeat the purpose of
diversification, more so when these political
structures have become so entrenched
in corrupting the State Apparatus and
becoming clogs in the wheels of our
desire for Development.
Nigeria is now faced with two
choices: Your Administration can proceed on
its anti-corruption/diversification
course while
utilizing/maintaining/challenging
the corrupt and corruptive structures of
the State, resulting in your
Administration’s continuous political fights,
with all of its uncertainties,
including, but not limited to, the emergence
of new political formations,
alliances or tendencies anchored on perceived
political lapses and/or
manipulations, the end result being neither
economic nor political freedom,
which the pursuit of Change demands. On the
other hand, diversification, as an
economic necessity must involve
“diversification” of the political
system; meaning, economic proceeds
cannot be used to sustain extant
structures but must create its own
political structures for the
necessary synergy to apply.
There is no room for a military
attempt at consolidating or promoting any
change process, either in the form
of fighting corruption or economic
diversification, not in the least
because the military, as an institution,
was and is directly responsible for
Nigeria’s current state of affairs and
cannot be expected to provide any
solution as the problem cannot be the
solution. You and some members of
your Administration had, at one time or
the other, participated in the
Institution’s incursions and it is our
belief that lessons have been
learnt. This does not imply that a “military
solution” may not be attempted but
we are certain that it will only
compound the problem rather than
resolve it.
The question your Administration
faces thus becomes the Constitutionality
of any political action you may want
to take. Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution,
with a preamble falsely anchored on
“We, the People” cannot operate outside
the manifest interest of the Peoples
of Nigeria. Accepted that this
Preamble does not, by itself, grant
any powers and rights not specified in
the Constitution; its being a
statement of the principles in this
Constitution means it cannot also be
based on a false premise. That such a
premise as “We The People” is false
implies that the entire principles,
powers and rights it purports to
embody are also false since “We, The
People” had no hand in its making,
directly or indirectly, being a product
of military fiat which was not
acting and did not act on behalf of “We, The
People”, even as by so doing, the
producers of the Constitution unwittingly
affirmed the Peoples’ sovereignty.
This false preamble only means, on
the one hand, not binding on “We, The
People” on whose behalf such an
assumption was made. On the other hand,
“We, The People” need to exercise
our right to correct this anomaly by
ensuring that the Constitution is
indeed a product of “We, The People”, the
only guarantee of its legitimacy.
Since no such authority was
delegated to the military, it implies that at
any and all times, only “We, The
People” have the power and the right to
make, amend or change the
Constitution, partially or in its entirety and
such powers and rights cannot be
circumscribed by whatever provisions
contained therein once the “We, The
People”, on our own initiative, decide
to express ourselves and make any
changes, to the extent of overriding
whatever provisions that had been
provided for any changes at any time,
based on the exclusivity of the
rights of “We, The People” to always have
the ability and the need to make
such decisions, partially or wholly, and
at any point in time, thus voiding
all the two-thirds of states and
National Assembly provisions for its
amendment; especially when the
National Assembly itself has
serially abused the Constitution.
Consequently any effort at political
changes cannot be limited or
circumscribed by the provisions of
this Constitution and your
Administration’s way out of the
quagmire is the enablement of Peoples
Constituent Assemblies among the
various Peoples and Nationalities within
Nigeria organized along Regional or
Zonal geo-political lines. The outcome
of their deliberations and
proceedings would be tabled for acceptance or
rejection at Regional Referenda
which must have been enabled by Executive
Order.
This would lead to the replacement
of the National Assembly with a single
House of Representatives and
creation of a National Federal Council, with
equal representation from the
Federating Regions, regardless of size,
entrusted with
choosing/electing/selecting a Head of State/Head of
Government.
Furthermore, your Administration’s
current attempt at retrieving stolen
monies would gain more traction when
those who have partaken in the sharing
of our monies and have so far
refused to refund same would be handed over
to their Federating Regions with the
shared monies becoming the Region’s
debt to the Federation, which can be
either in totality or as a negotiated
percentage. It will be left for the
Region to find any means necessary to
retrieve or choose to pay the debt;
with the Federal Government empowered
to collect its debt from the
Federating Region by any means at its disposal.
For the Peoples Constituent
Assemblies, the Movement for National
Re-Formation(MNR) has what can serve
as a template, a Federation of 18
Regions out of which 12 would be
mono-nationality with 6 being
multi-nationality based on the
equality of all the nationalities,
regardless of size, as well as being
autonomous federating units of equal
value to the whole.
Mono-nationality Federation Ibibio
Federation,Ijaw,Igbo,Urhobo,Edo,Yoruba,Nupe,Tiv,Gbagyi,Hausa,Fulah,Kanuri.
Multi-nationality regions: (i) A
federation comprising minority
nationalities in Cross River and
Akwa Ibom states (i.e. Eket, Annang, Oron,
Ibeno, Efik, Ejagbam, Korop, Boki,
Bakwara, Yakurr, Yala). (ii) A
federation comprising the minority
nationalities in Rivers and Bayelsa
states (i.e. Ikwerre, Etchei,
Ekpeeye, Engeni, Ogba, Eleme, Ndoni, Ogoni,
and Andoni). (iii) A federation
comprising the minority nationalities in
Delta State (i.e. Ika, Ndokwa, Warri,
Isoko). (iv) A federation comprising
the minority nationalities in West
Middle Belt, i.e. Zuru, Kambari, Bariba,
Bussa, Karekare, Ngizim, Angamo,
Bola, Funne, etc. (v) A federation
comprising the minority
nationalities in Central Middle Belt, i.e.: (a)
Ebira Group: Ebira, Uku, Ebira-Ugu,
Ebira-Panda, Etuno-Igarra, Ebira Mozun,
Bassa-Nge. (b) Igala Group (c) Upper
Benue Group: Alago Eggon, Gwandara,
Mada, Kakanda, Mighili, Bassa-Komu,
Ninzom, Arum etc. (vi) A federation
comprising the minority nationalities
in East Middle Belt, i.e. (a) Plateau
Group: Ngas, Berom, Afezere Taroh,
Goemai, Nmavo – Jukun, Amu, Pyem, Youn
etc. (b) Taraba Group: Chamba,
Jukun, Kuteb, Mambila, Kona, Kunni, Kaanab,
Ndoro, Abakwa, Mumuye, Yububen, etc.
(c) Savanna Group: Bura, Tangale –
Waja, Bachama, Manghi, Kilba, Yungu,
Mwanna, Bwazza Mbula, etc.
The quest to redeem Nigeria deserves
and demands no less.
Thank you, Sir.
Shenge Rahman Akanbi, Femi Odedeyi
For and on behalf of Egbe Omo
Oduduwa
(egbeomooduduwa1945@gmail.com)
