In its message to mark Nigeria @ 61, the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, has called on the United Nations to support Nigeria in fast-tracking the process of conducting referendum for a constitution, calling the 1999 document a forgery.
NADECO played a major role in the fight to restore democracy to Nigeria in 1999, having battled the Sani Abacha military regime in its quest to substantiate the victory of the late Moshood Abiola in the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
NADECO has accused the Buhari-led federal administration of trivializing the genuine demands of ethnic nationalities, which it said are entrapped, humiliated and oppressed.
Since the military takeover in 1966, NADECO said, “politicians in military uniform” had halted the national progress, and development.”
“They have equally dashed the hopes and aspiration of most Nigerians at independence, that the country would be a beacon of light that would provide credible leadership to the black race and contribute significantly to human progress and civilization…It is needless but necessary to restate that the centralization and notarization of Nigeria had since created injustice, unfair play, inequity, wanton disregard and disrespect for the rule of law.
“The Nigerian State has failed to provide security for lives and property, a fundamental right which is its primary responsibility under the UNO Protocols, African Charter on People’s Rights, and its domestic legislation.”
NADECO lamented the activities of herdsmen, Boko haram and bandits across the country whom they said have killed, maimed and kidnapped for ransom several thousands of Nigerians including school children as well as ethnically cleansed several native communities in the North-central, North-west, North-east and Southern Nigeria without any manifest government successful counter action to deter these outlaws from their assault on most Nigerians.
“President Buhari’s led government had frustrated in Nigeria any legal avenue where the entrapped ethnic nationalities can seek redress for the many instances of humiliation, repression, hounding and subjugation of majority of Nigerians by the sectional dictates and wishes of his Fulani controlled security agencies and outlaws,” the statement read.
Calling for the intervention of the international community, it said: “NADECO hereby requests the UNO, its Security Council and other Global bodies to critically accept that their failure to act timeously on these legitimate demands for their intervention may tantamount to an invitation to possible national conflagration and unmanageable national crisis which may result into consequential deleterious situations on the West African Sub-Region, the African Continent and the World in general.
“Let it be remembered that Nigeria as the most populous black nation in the world has about 200 million citizens residing in a suffocating geographical and political space, the possible reaction of the entrapped ethnic nationalities who are already overwhelmed with repression, discriminations on religion, gender, ethnicities can quickly result to national upheavals, forced dispersal and migration with their attendant global consequences.”
