Tony Nnadi, NINAS 05 August 2025
The 1963 Constitution was an amendment to the 1960 Constitution.
The 1960 Constitution itself was enacted as an Act of the British Parliament.
The Main change sought by that 1963 Amendment was the excision of the Midwestern Region from the then Western Region according to the process outlined in the 1960 Constitution which includes a Plebiscite in the Territory to be excised (Midwest).
That Plebiscite took place to finalize the creation of Midwestern Region.
The main shortcoming of the 1963 Constitution is that it was also an Act of the Nigerian Parliament, even if the Amendment that created the Midwestern Region featured a Plebiscite of the Peoples of the Midwest Territory.
Accordingly, Neither the 1960 nor the 1963 Constitution was a Sovereign Act of the Peoples of Nigeria (Autochthonous).
Let it be understood that the Sovereignty of the Peoples of Nigeria, forcefully hijacked by Colonial Conquest, was Conscripted into the Nigeria Project by the Fiat of British Amalgamation in 1914 without the consent or approval of the various Peoples locked into one Political Union by that Amalgamation.
Let it be recalled that the Constitution-Making processes to usher Nigeria into Independence in 1960 had culminated in the 1960 Constitution enacted by the British Parliament.
At no time were those processes dictated by the Sovereign Will of the Constituent Peoples of Nigeria (ie Ethnic Nationalities) either by way of direct Negotiations and Agreements or approvals by way of Referendums and Plebiscites. It was always the local political actors groomed by Britain for its purposes and who later took over the reins of power from British Colonial Government, not the Peoples of Nigeria, in exercise of their Sovereignty.
What all these mean is that the Nigeria that emerged in 1960 was a local Suzerainty that replaced the departing British Colonial Suzerainty while the Sovereignty of the Indigenous Peoples remained Hijacked and Suppressed.
The 1963 Amendment to the 1960 Constitution did not address the question of the hijacked and suppressed Sovereignty of the Peoples of Nigeria even for the Peoples of the Midwestern Region who merely voted in a Plebiscite to separate from the then Western Region as a Region of their own, but still under the Nigerian Constitution of 1963 which was enacted by the then Parliament of Nigeria.
Just like the 1914 Amalgamation by British Fiat, the subsequent 1979 and 1999 Constitutions were imposed by Military Fiat via Decrees and are therefore a continuation of the hijack, confiscation and suppression of the Sovereignty of the Peoples of Nigeria by a Unitary Nigeria that is essentially a Suzerainty in succession to the British Crown and the now defunct “Federal Military Government of Nigeria”.
Now faced with multiple existential threats including the Fulani Conquest Invasion and the Brazen State-Capture by the Tinubu Interregnum, WHAT the Indigenous Peoples require now to extricate themselves from these many decades of Subjugation and Hijack of their Sovereignty by both Foreign and Local Suzerainties (since 1914) is a Union Reconstruction Process in which the owners of the Sovereignty will freely Negotiate and Agree on:
- (1) Whether they wish to Federate and
- (2) On the Terms of Federating.
AND in which the outcome of those Negotiations and Agreements will be Codified as CONSTITUTIONS and Ratified by way of REFERENDUMS and PLEBISCITES.
The Five-Point Proposition of the NINAS Constitutional Force Majeure, offers Nigeria and Nigerians an immediate, orderly Framework and Process to undertake this inevitable Union Reconstruction for the Nigeria that is now clearly at the risk and brink of a sudden catastrophic collapse.
With the Countrywide Consensus against the Unitary Constitution of Nigeria, the first urgent order of business will be to shelve preparations for another round of National Elections in 2027 under the 1999 Constitution and the initiation of a Transitioning Process that will midwife the Union Reconstruction.
What the Proprietors and Enforcers of Unitary Nigeria, masquerading as Politicians, who had been clinging to the 1999 Constitution as the non-negotiable basis of the Nigeria Union, are doing, is to block that Union Reconstruction Process that will restore SOVEREIGNTY to the Traumatized and Subjugated Indigenous Peoples of Nigeria.
We can see from the foregoing processes that the Union Reconstruction Undertaking is not a business for the National Assembly or the Government of Nigeria, contrary to the erroneous supposition of many who imagine that Constitution-Making is all about writing another booklet to replace the one Fraudulently labeled “the 1999 Constitution.
Link to the 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 Of Nigeria, published in The Guardian (Nigeria) newspaper:
