THE SENATE, LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND BOOBYTRAPS…

Press Statement by Gravitas Group for Good Governance

The faceless Cabal and its insidious Think-Tank have reared their poisonous heads again, this time striking at the very jugular of the Nigerian ramshackle unification. In their ill-digested thought and scheming, all that is needed to become a Nigerian citizen and by extension an indigene of a fraudulently created local government is the possession of a useless paper devised through an equally fraudulently devised NIN number. What a scam!

Our Organization GRAVITAS GROUP for Good Governance otherwise known as 4Gs or Quadruple G received with rude shock the release of the Rubber-Stamp Nigerian Senate on the outcome of the charade called Constitution Amendment. In the said Release the fraudulently created 774 Local Governments in Nigeria will now be reporting directly to the Unitary Government headquarters in Abuja. Councillors and Chairmen will henceforth be ‘elected’ by agents of the Dictatorship at the Centre. Chairmen of Local Governments will henceforth carry their beggar-bowls like the state governors to collect monthly allocation from Abuja.

The release also for curious, but obvious reasons confers ‘indigeneship’ of any state on anyone who has spent 5 years in a state…so that such a person can vote and be voted for, and for any position, in the adopted state.

We have always held a strong view that knives can’t carve their own handles. The Senate or indeed the National and State Assemblies, and the entire 4 Estates of the Realm are creations of the Constitution. They are direct beneficiaries of a Constitution. A child can’t create or recreate his own father. Constitution Amendments must pass through the rigours of a Plebiscite. Besides, Nigeria does not have a Peoples’ Constitution at the moment. What the country is operating with is a Military Government Decree! And it was a decree seriously screwed and shamelessly self-serving.

Nigeria is the only federation in the world where the Centre creates or controls local governments! Local governments/councils/counties are created by State/Provincial Governments all over the world. The Prime Minister of the Federation of Canada has no control whatsoever over the Toronto Metropolitan Council. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has no control over the London City Council. They derive their independence from the powers granted them by the State or Provincial Government.

Nigerians cannot be deceived any longer. The hidden Agenda behind this Local Government booby-trap is to have the Unitary Government, which is the Paymaster, to dictate the tune for piper-Chairmen of Local Governments. More dangerous than that is the long-held desire to weaken all the constituents of the so-called federation and sustain a Monster at the Centre. Creation of many unviable states has already weakened indigenous nationalities while the creation of 774 mushroom local governments has nailed the coffin of any opposition to arbitrary unitarism and fiendish oligarchy.

The most ridiculous part of this Local Government trick is like asking all departmental heads in the federal Universities to by-pass their Vice Chancellors and march to the Finance Minister for disbursements to their departments!

What the terribly flawed Local government amendment seeks to achieve is brutal destruction of nationality demography of Nigerian space. Egypt, our proud cradle of Civilization used to be peopled by ‘black’ people practicing their Sun-based religion…then Christians from Roman Empire invaded the place and turned the country to nearly 100% Christians. The Arabs invaded the place, occupied it, and irreparably changed the demography and turned the country to almost 100% Muslims!

In no distant future, if Rugarites achieve their objective, and if the madmen toying with nuclear bombs have not destroyed the world, those allocated free citizenships and indigene status to will overrun original indigenous nationalities and one would begin to see Sultan of Ile-Ife, Emir of Owerri, Emir of Ijebu-Ode, Emir of Oturkpo, and maybe Obi of Sokoto and Awujale of Kano. And Alhaji Gwandu Batagarawa will be Governor of Akwa Ibom.

It is very important, urgent, and imperative to challenge the composition of the Senate and the House of Representatives if credibility were ever to be attached to any vote taken in those chambers. Sokoto state used to have 3 Senatorial seats. Kano state used to have 3 Senatorial seats while Lagos also had 3. With the carving of Sokoto and Kano to 6 states, those 2 states, as amended, now have18 seats, And Lagos with its verified 25 million human populations is starved with just 3 seats! Just imagine the incredible disproportion.

We have said it times without number that the insults, humiliation, impunity and the nauseating arrogance of the cabal which had unduly put a clog on Nigeria’ march to civilization, development and modernity could only thrive and succeed with the active connivance of collaborators and beneficiaries from across the country. The moment the 95% oppressed and repressed people of this country say ‘enough is enough’, the less than 5% would jump into the sea! History is our witness.

It is worth repeating for the umpteenth time that while the whole country, as evidenced by public pronouncements of all the state Governors, the National Assembly, State Assemblies, monarchs and even the Vice President that State Police should be instituted without delay to combat unprecedented terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, ritual killings and allied vices, a tiny, block-headed cabal simply killed the prospect! What a country!!

Gravitas Group for Good Governess calls on all those whose conscience is against this march to total domination and ruination of indigenous nationalities to rise up with courage and undo this calamitous Bill. There is no sense in postponing the doomsday.

E-signed:

High Chief Tola Adeniyi

Convener, Gravitas* *Group