Many here may not have known that PRONACO was basically an initiative by the arrowheads of the then defunct NADECO, led by Chief Enahoro, to get the ethnic Nationalities of Nigeria, to revalidate the Aburi Consensus as basis of the Constitutional Framework and Architecture of Nigeria.
Ojukwu, Soyinka, Beko, Onoh, were some of the other leading lights from the South that drove the process. Buhari was a part of the Northern Delegation to the Conference which was why the PRONACO featured as the anchor of his 2007 Campaign as we can see in the MNN pictures posted here this week. It was a Delegate from Katsina that moved the Motion on the Floor of the Plenary that Ratified and Adopted the resultant Draft PRONACO Constitution.
The United States and the EU had Observer Missions with us THROUGHOUT the Conference, with Plenaries that sat in rotation from Lagos, to Port Harcourt, to Enugu, to Jos, to Kano, returning to Lagos for Conclusion.
It may interest us to learn that the Enugu Plenary was Moderated by Chief Nnia Nwodo, now Ohanaeze PG.
I was the engineroom of that entire process, being the Secretary of the Harmonization Committee which distilled Conference Issues from the Memoranda submitted by the 164 Ethnic Delegations from all over Nigeria, including those who had become fed up with Nigeria at the time. I was also a Part of the 3-man Rapporteur Team (other 2 being Prof K. Ogundowole of Unilag and Mrs Ngozi Iwere), which took the Conference the rigorous debates and resolution of Contentious Issues at Plenary.
There were the Management Committees and Technical Teams in the background where tasks took us almost on weekly basis to one remote part of Nigeria or the other for consultations with one group of Stakeholders or another, at times just myself going to places like the Ostrich Farm of Col Dangiwa Umar or meeting with Shehu Sanni (now Senator) in Kaduna who led the Northern wing of the Civil Society at the time.
Bola Tinubu who was in NADECO and who had become Governor in Lagos at the time of the Conference had, as a part of the general facilitation for the Conference, provided a safe haven of sorts, by way of an expansive Lodge in the Government House Annex for Chief Enahoro and the Inner Crew, to shield the Conference from the physical attacks on the Conference Venue and Main Secretariat at Magodo, Lagos, orchestrated by goons of the Obasanjo Government, which earlier had openly threatened all of us with Treason Charges for Organizing a Sovereign Conference.
Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) now Minister was Tinubu’s Chief of Staff who presided all the liaisons required.
So it was that the onerous task of being the Secretary of the 9-Man PRONACO Constitution Drafting Committee fell on me. That Drafting Committee was Chaired by Prof Jadesola Akande, (now late). The Deputy Chair was Chief Solomon Asemota (SAN). There was Chief Olu Awotesu, a Laywer and two time Minister in the Shagari Cabinet. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) was in that Committee (though we had to excuse him from the Committee, to go set up his Campaign for the Presidency of the NBA. There were other accomplished Members.
Chief Enahoro and Ojukwu as the living protagonists of the two sides of the 1967 Aburi Sovereign Conference and Resultant Accord, were in the background to liaise and guide the Drafting Committee in its sacred task which was more like restoring life to the Aburi Accord and putting it in a Draft Constitutional Frame, after a 40-year break that witnessed much bloodshed.
Col Emma Nwobosi was physically present with Ojukwu on some of the occasions when I had to go sit down with Ojukwu in Enugu to Consult on the critical contents of the PRONACO Draft as it related to Eastern Nigeria.
That Countrywide Consensus which had in its fold all the armed agitations in the Country at the time, including Asari’s NDPVF, Gani Adams’ OPC and Uwazuruike’s MASSOB (which though not armed, evoked routine bloodshed by security forces), became basis of the 2007 lethal, legal challenge on the Legitimacy of the fraudulent 1999 Constitution as the basis of the Nigerian Federation and its Governance Structures, by Plaintiffs assembled by the LNC-inspired MNN.
Those Plaintiffs included Chief Anthony Enahoro, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Chief Christian Chukwuma Onoh, Prof Wole Soyinka, Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi, Prince Tanimoshe Bankole-Oki (SAN), then Chairman of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Fred Agbeyegbe, Alhaji Yerima Shetimma, Mujaheedat Asari Dokubo and Chief Ralph Uwazuruike.
By the unanimous decision of the Plaintiffs, upon the proposal of Retired Lieutenant-General Alani Akinrinade ( Nigeria’s Former Chief of Army Staff), the task of Preparing, Filing and being the Lead-Counsel in that Watershed Suit which has now bled One-Nigeria to its demise, fell on me.
I can report authoritatively that Nigeria did not have, does not have and will not find any viable answer to that fatal challenge on its sole convening instrument which is like its Title Deed for exercising Suzerainty over the suppressed Sovereignties.
Many ask, “What is the current status of the Suit?”.
The answer is that once a document is shown to be a forgery, it dies instantly. Just like your forged cheque dies in the hands of the forger the moment the bank discovers you did not sign it. No court order is required to activate consequences of that forgery.
Nigeria is exactly in the position of that forger of a criminal.
The Sole Instrument by which rogue Nigeria:
(1)daily cashes the value of 3million barrels of crude oil;
(2)under which marauders from Katsina, Sokoto and Kano, come in Army and Police Uniform to kill people in Aba, Onitsha and Port Harcourt;
(3) under which I am forbidden at Law from using the Coal I find in Enugu to generate the Electricity Nnewi, Aba and Onitsha needs so badly;
(4) under which I am forbidden at Law, from tarring the Highway that runs from Enugu to Port Harcourt because it is “Federal Asset” (the list goes on to number 68 which are all on the Federal Exclusive Legislative List), is the forged 1999 Constitution !!.
The first dividends from that Suit was the collapse of the Treason Trials of Asari Dokubo and Ralph Uwazuruike and I had the privilege of receiving those two men into their freedom from the Abuja Courtroom of Justice Binta Nyako on two different dates in the second half of 2007.
I went into this narration to illuminate the background and the trajectory to where things how we arrived where we are now on the Restructuring and Self-Determination.
The point in 2011 when the MNN led by the LNC moved on from the many years of driving the Reconstruction of Nigeria by way of Restructuring, to the total Reconfiguration of the defunct Nigerian Federation, was a carefully crafted transition to a the default mode imposed by the clash of civilizations represented by the sharia complication introduced by the Feudalist Caliphate in a manner that renders impossible any Union of Nigeria that will leave Igbo within the reach of the determined enemy that seek the hurt and ruin of Igbo, just like asking Israel to be a part of a large Country that would include Iran, Syria and Egypt.
Ugo raised a simple question on what new compelling levers the Igbo proponents of Restructuring have in their own hands to compel Nigeria to tow that line at this time. Nothing. Absolutely Nothing.
As Osita pointed out yesterday, the only levers available to the East in the 50-year bloody dispute that erupted since 1967 after the unilateral abandonment of Aburi, is the far reaching Self-Deternination exertions of the LNC and the various “Biafra” Agitations including MASSOB but especially the IPOB and its “Biafra-or-Death” Radio opium.
What the LNC has done differently and for well considered reasons too, is to leave the highly inflammable nametag “Biafra” out of its Campaign for the Self-Determination in Eastern Nigeria to the degree of outright independence.
The reversal and remediation of clearly articulated Constitutional Grievances of Eastern Nigeria, form the mainframe of the LNC Campaign thus ousting the possibility of criminalization all the way Treason, which had been the enemy response to the Biafra Agitation.
The LNC avoided the deathtrap of “Secession” which immediately isolates the East and unites the rest of Nigeria back to the 1967 Alliance.
Using its MNN One-Nigeria undertaker platform, the LNC rather went for the asphyxiation, incapacitation and dismantling of the Nigeria monstrosity into viable cohesive independent blocs that will forge fresh Protocols post-One-Nigeria as willing compatible contiguities.
Referendum is the landing mechanism emplaced by the LNC rather than the “Conquer-and-Occupy” death designs of the Biafra now, now Campaign.
The LNC has in place an orderly Transitioning Sub-Template that accommodate existing governance structures which shut out the violence that would naturally attend the “Conquer-and-Occupy” strategy of the “Biafra” Agitation.
The LNC has a clear picture of the day after One-Nigeria in terms of building the Democratic and Orderly Society of equal opportunity, founded on shared values, we aspire to, that would be totally different from the distorted Nigeria we reject. Democracy
Guided by the events of 1970 and the sad reminder by the Lamido Adamawa in 2014 at the Abuja National Conference as well as the Oba of Lagos vote-against-and-drown fatwa, the LNC has a clear design of an ASSET PROTECTION AND GUARANTEE SCHEME that would protect Igbo Assets situate outside the East.
As somone already noted, Nations live in the heart of men. Nigeria died long ago in the heart of the Masses of Eastern Nigeria. Biafra has taken the place of Nigeria in their hearts. Some are willing to die in pursuit of that choice of an independent homeland over the toxic Nigeria.
The responsibility of a responsible Elite/Intelligentsia should be to help set and drive a framework and process that could better navigate and settle these jarring Sovereignty disputations that had cost Igbo much blood, pain and misery, without violence and fresh bloodletting which seems assured if no intervention happens.
It is this this Navigation Template that the LNC has tabled before all concerned including the Igbo, the rest of Nigeria and the rest of the Global Stakes.
Respectfully
Tony Nnadi
20/05/17
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