APC is not a political party – Nnadi

Posted by admin | 9 years ago | 4,498 times



Tony Nnadi is the Secretary of Lower Niger Congress (LNC), a group that is working to have Nigeria restructured. He holds the view that Nigeria has been run into a cul-de-sac by the insincerity of its leaders from certain sections of the country. In this interview withEmma Maduabuchi, he says holding elections in Nigeria at the moment, without resolving the issue of the country’s ‘illegitimate’ Constitution, would amount to courting violent disintegration.

 

In several places that I have heard you speak, you seem to give the impression that Nigerian constitution is the problem of the country. Why is this so?

In recent bulletins, we have been taking the trouble to tell the whole world why we would rather dissolve the Nigerian union than remain in enslavement in it. It is the same reason for which Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and others insisted that the apartheid constitution in South Africa could no longer be the basis for the governance of that country.

Likewise, we are saying that this constitution that is a product of imposition and force can no longer be the basis of Nigerian union. And if we are not discussing to come to an agreement; to come to a consensus in place of force, in place of imposition, we would rather dismantle the monstrous enterprise they call Nigeria.

 

How easy do you think that would be?

The thing has already divided itself; the 12 states that passed sharia law, have already opted out of the Nigerian union. Boko Haram was merely an enforcement arm. The Yoruba west is a cohesive block that could be a country of 65 million people. We saw them saying clearly when the conference was on that “either we go to regional autonomy” or they would pull out of Nigeria.

Those who said it have the capacity to take themselves out of the failed union of Nigeria, because the single thing that ties the people into place today is this constitution. To the extent that it lied in its preamble that we the people have agreed to live by it, to that extent the Nigerian title document is bad beyond redemption.

We have waited since 1967 to conclude the discussions that began in Aburi, for us to recommit to Nigeria. But they say over their dead body. They say they are born to rule the rest of us. That is why if we do not come to that agreement; to that recommitment, we will immediately take steps to retrieve our various portions. In the eastern side, we call it the Lower Niger Congress; you saw when the Ijaw people came with the map of 1885, which showed the one they called the South-east and South-south together as one territory now. It will be a country of about 76 million people.

Of course the middle belt that has been playing the role of willing tools and attack dogs are now on the front line of being beheaded by a monster in the name of sharia. They are not Muslims and they have said it that they would rather leave the union if the Nigerian union is what will compel them to remain the sacrificial lamb to be killed at will.

Of course in that formation where you see the map of Nigeria that is broken in four, the caliphate is already in place with people shooting and pretending to be fighting terror in the place, the matter is simple: the Northern political leadership were clear in what their mission is. Now Boko Haram has come to enforce their threat of making the place ungovernable. We must remember that the enforcement of making the country ungovernable started on the day of election when coppers were killed. From there they marched on to a Police station, burnt it down; they marched on to Army barrack, and then the franchise became more and more popular all over.

Looking at what is going on in Iraq today – ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant), what is their mission? It is to establish a caliphate. You saw all the bulletins that Boko Haram is giving, the matter is simple, they want to Islamise the place. Look at their method, how is it different from the one we watch on CNN, from ISIL? They behead people and do all kinds of things that are not different.

 

Many people will not agree with you on that.

Boko Haram is adopting girls for sale, and if anybody is thinking that Boko Haram fell from the sky, no! It was 12 states that passed sharia law. Remember that their champion at that time was Sani Yerima, who is now a Senator in Nigeria. He was chopping off people’s hands while as governor of Zamfara State. Today, Shekau is blowing off people’s heads. What’s the difference?

We go from there to the matter of girls for sale in the name of marriage. Sani Yerima went to Egypt in year 2000 and bought a 13 year old girl in the name of marriage because that is his own understanding of sharia. Shekau went to Chibok to adopt 16-year olds and have been advertising them for sale. So how do you want me to make a distinction between what Sani Yerima and his co-travellers had in mind when they imposed sharia in 12 states of the North, and what Shekau and his Boko Haram are doing? I cannot make that distinction. I will be dishonest if I want to make such a distinction.

To that extent, they have a right to self-determination in that territory to go and do their sharia since democracy is what offends them. In the same vein, we also have a right to live by ourselves. They have made the Nigerian union impossible. If we make the mistake of proceeding into an election, they don’t need to win that election in order to bring the sort of violence they had in mind in the threat of “ungovernable” and the blood of monkey mixing with that of a baboon.

 

But All Progressives Congress (APC) that party Muhammadu Buhari is flying their flag insists that elections must hold.

It may look like APC to you, it does not look like APC to me. It is a determined march toward imposing authoritarianism in the land, which would lead to the extermination of one part of the contraption. Our answer to all of it is that the dissolution of the union is what we prefer at this time.

If since 1967 till date, we cannot go to regional autonomy which has been the demand, because even the MEND is all about regional autonomy – to recognise your land as your own – which the Constitution today forbids. They say my land belongs to a man in Kano who is not willing to come to discussion with me.

It is our proposal; we are going to pursue it because we have a right under the United Nations instrument governing the situation. You saw Scotland go through referendum the other day. People have made Constitutions for the three territories that are not sharia. In the Eastern side, those six languages there have made their Constitutions – the Ijaw, the Itshekiri, the Urobo, the Annang, the Efik, the Igbo – as we were in the 60s when Eyo Ita led his party to victory in Eastern Nigeria.

Then the Middle-belt, it is all the balance of the country except the sharia states, but including the borderline cases of Southern Kaduna and others. The people who are going to make it happen in their territories are going to insist on their right of self-determination. Nobody is going to keep them by force in the union of Nigeria, election or no election.

 

Some people think that the problem is with the current President and that once he is out of the way, the polity will stabilise. Can’t you agree with them?

If in 1964-65, the situation which led to the whole collapse was stopped by those who ought to have stopped it, 1966 would not have occurred, because the Constitution had suffered a major setback. In fact the Constitution had collapsed by the time that election was coming. It was like a low intensity fire. You now go and bring an election which was like carrying fuel to an already burning fire, of course the whole thing collapsed.

We are now faced with that same scenario in which the Constitution by which Nigeria was being governed has been rejected across board – whether you are looking at Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) that was questioning the internal security in Yoruba land; or you look at Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) that was questioning the ownership of the oil in their land; or you are looking at even Boko Haram that was questioning and is still questioning why Nigeria has imposed democracy on their sharia territory. These are constitutional questions and as I speak, we have managed to construct those questions in a mode that could be answered in a form of conference, and that was what became the push for Sovereign National Conference.

 

But President Goodluck Jonathan instituted a National Conference, is that not enough?

Of course, Mr. President understood what the problem was because he knew how the presentations were made for there to be a conference. Then he told them in writing at the time of convening that the conference was designed to realistically examine and generally resolve the long-standing impediment to our cohesion as a united country. If you read the speech by which he inaugurated the Okurounmu committee, you will see it.

So, we have a situation in which the President was clear to them that it is a matter of how we live together that was going to be discussed on the floor of the conference. What was the first decision on the floor of the conference? The same elements from that part of the country, the North, working with their allies from the Yoruba west, decided that the matter of our unity was not to be discussed at the conference. Of course they set up 20 committees to share the money that was made available in the period they had to seat in Abuja. Bottomline, nothing has been discussed.

Now, they thought that they could wobble the thing through and go for election, but there is a third force that is far bigger than all the politicians and all the political parties put together that is going to stop them from renewing their mandate in the pretence of having done an elections. Our position is that whoever wins the election is going to govern with that Constitution that enslaves the majority at the hands of a minority, and it is in rejection of that constitution that we insist that no further election shall be tolerated under it, because it will just mean the renewal of our enslavement by another four years.

To make it worse, that same alliance has managed to wear the garment of a democratic political merger of APC. I am not seeing any APC, I am seeing the sharia North with the renegade wing of the Yoruba west forming a majority in the name of a political party to choke out what they call the minority man from Eastern Nigeria. And we are saying that quite apart from, and in addition to the prospect of violence that will ensue when either party wins, the issue of how we live together must be addressed before we go for any election.

Remember that apart from the threats of Buhari, we have also heard Asari Dokubo say that on account of this gang-up, if Jonathan is not allowed to govern, but chased away, that they would have no obligation than to re-enact what they did in 2010/2011 before Jonathan became President, which was to blow up all oil facilities in their region, so that no money will be available to anyone who becomes President.

Therefore, we are saying that we are not going to fold our arms and watch those who have not discussed how we want to live together, how education and healthcare can get to the people, just in an attempt to go to hold the head of the knife drag us into the situation we saw in 1964/65, that became 1966 and therefore 1967 to 70, where up to three to five million got killed.

If we go into this election, we are thinking that up to 10 million would have been buried before we go back to what we would have done in the first instance. We are going to confront the politicians. We are already mobilising for massive civil disobedience if they insist in going for elections because we are rejecting that constitution. We are not looking at who the winner or who the candidate is. We are looking at what instrument they will use to govern because that is the job description of the government. So if it already takes anything away from the citizens, particularly people from one section of the country, who bring what is being shared, we have to go to test it out in the coming days.

 

 

Despite the concerns many Nigerians like you have been showing on the dangerous path the country is towing, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) the other day organised a debate on whether Nigeria is ready to lead Africa. What do you think?

It is all part of their age-old shenanigans. They know what they are doing because when we gave bulletin 1, 2, 3 and 4, what did we get from the British High Commissioner? He was telling us that amalgamation was the biggest blessing that happened to us, and that we would have been fighting like rag-tag kingdoms. But we said to him, whoever told him? who asked him; are we not able to reason by ourselves? When they came here to enslave us, who was fighting who?

They are talking of who will lead Africa? If you have a house that is fallen apart, do you leave it to go and lead people? That house cannot stand, how then can you talk about being a beacon for others. They know that the house they erected on quicksand; they know that the country they erected on the blood of the innocent is falling apart, and so they want to divert the attention of people with such a debate. But we are not going to pay any attention to them. They are in faraway London, we are here, the Constitution they manipulated their stooges to write will be discarded with, and the people arranged into viable countries. They will cooperate like Germany and France and Italy and others that are doing European Union.

The Constitutions are ready and it is now going to be a matter of referendum in each of the territories. Once the people vote yes, let us sees the politicians that will come and beat them down and to say they must remain in a master-servant relationship.

 

                          To be continued …


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