Video: Nigeria Must Now Return To A Federal Arrangement Or Cease To Be One Political Union – Farotimi

Against the backdrop of Dele Farotimi’s excellent encapsulation in his June 26, 2026 podcast (link above) where he traced the Constitutional Development of Nigeria from the twilight of British Colonial rule (1950-1959) through Independence and the Post-Independence period between 1960 and 1999, which saw Nigeria swing from being a carefully negotiated and rapidly developing Federation to a unilaterally imposed stagnating and retrogressive Unitary State, it is rather astonishing that his prescription for returning Nigeria to a Federal Framework is the adoption of an already written “Draft Constitution” reflecting Nigeria’s informal Six Geopolitical Zones as Federating Units. For the mechanism of bringing the said Draft to become the “Federal Constitution of Nigeria”, he suggests that a Political Party should place that Draft on their ballot by adopting it as what that Party will emplace if elected into Power. 

A few questions arise:

1. Will it not be tantamount to building a house from the roof instead of from its foundation, if the process of returning Nigeria to a Federal Framework begins with the drafting of a “Federal constitution” without any discussions by the Peoples of Nigeria, because going by the historical facts of diversity and disagreements as brilliantly encapsulated in the podcast, if there are no discussions and clear agreements between and amongst the constituent Peoples of Nigeria who are being invited to Federate into a Nigerian Union, are we not fully back to the mischief of 1914 as codified by the fraud of 1999?

   In other words, why are we avoiding a thoroughly discussed Constitutional Arrangement? 

   Why do we seek to ambush the Peoples of Nigeria with a Constitutional Draft distilled from the very same untenable Unitary Constitution by the mere regrouping of the Caliphate-Imposed 36 States instead of allowing them an opportunity to Discuss and Agree on the Terms of Federating into one Political Union, away from the British-Imposed mischief of 1914 and the Caliphate-Imposed Fraud of 1999?

2. The so-called Six Geopolitical-zone structure being bandied around as the agreement of all, is anchored on the Thirty-Six-State Structure that came from the brigandage of 1966-1999, framed and underpinned by the pernicious and wicked Dot-In-Circle Igbo-strangulating, Igbo-excluding and Igbo-subjugation conspiracy of the 1967 Alliance of the rest of Nigeria. A look at the Map of the Six Geopolitical Zones of Nigeria will show that the South-East is the only one with nether Access to the Sea nor International Borders quite apart from several other demographic gerrymandering that fractured Igboland into meaningless aggregations we call States, sitting in Nigeria’s South-South.  

3. NINAS is happy that a growing number of Nigerians, including those who led the march to the botched 2023 National Elections, against the counsel and campaign of NINAS. are now coming round to realize and acknowledge that the core problem of Nigeria is Nigeria’s Dysfunctional Constitutional Arrangements codified by the imposed Unitary Constitution of Nigeria (1999), which produce the endemic Corruption and Bad Leadership that had for decades, been hoisted as the core problems of Nigeria. 

   For those who genuinely seek Positive Changes in the fortunes of Nigeria, it is clear that what Nigeria requires most urgently is a Transitioning for Constitutional Reconfiguration rather than another round of National Elections in search of Change of Leadership. 

   It is therefore either dishonest or stupid to continue to push towards another round of National Elections in 2027 that will only renew the life of the 1999 Constitution instead of joining the push for immediate Transitioning to Rework the Distressed Nigerian Union. And we may ask those who are still confused about sequence: Is it not now past debate that we must fix Nigeria’s faulty Constitutional foundations by returning Nigeria to Federal Arrangements if we desire to prevent the looming catastrophic collapse of Nigeria?

4. If we truly seek to rework the defunct Federation of Nigeria currently being operated as a Unitary State under the Caliphate-Imposed, fraudulent Constitution of Nigeria (1999), why can’t we (the Peoples of Nigeria) unite behind the structured demand upon the Federal Government that Nigeria must now proceed to Union Reconfiguration in the more honest sequence of:

   1. Acknowledgement by the Government of Nigeria that the failures and dysfunctions of Nigeria are as a result of Nigeria’s complete departure from its agreed Federal basis.

   2. An express commitment by the Federal Government of Nigeria to the wholesale decommissioning of Nigeria’s current untenable unitary constitutional order via the initiation of an orderly Transitioning process that will midwife fresh Constitutional Protocols dictated by the self-determination imperative for the Peoples of Nigeria, in place of further National Elections under the Death-Dispensing 1999 Constitution, just as South Africa did in 1990 to ease itself out of the apartheid Constitutional bind via CODESA.

   3. An Announcement by the Federal Government of Nigeria, suspending the doomed voyage to 2027 National Elections under the rejected 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, accompanied by a time-bound Transitioning process for Union Renegotiation and Reconfiguration, ratified by Referendums and Plebiscites – all guided by the Five-point Proposition of the NINAS Constitutional Force Majeure Proclamation of December 16, 2020.

Link to Notice of Constitutional Force Majeure published in The Guardian Nigeria newspaper:

https://guardian.ng/features/notice-of-constitutional-grievances-declaration-of-constitutional-force-majeure-and-demand-for-transitioning-process-for-an-orderly-reconfiguration-of-the-constitutional-basis-of-the-federation/