The 76th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 76) will open on Tuesday, 14 September 2021 at the United Nations Headquarters, New York in the United States of America. One usual participant that will not be missing, though uninvited, at UNGA 76 is NINAS – the Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination.
Chairman of NINAS, Prof Banji Akintoye, on Monday, said all is now set for the Million-Man Freedom March scheduled to hold opposite the United Nations Headquarters in New York, from 14th to 24th September, 202I.
NINAS is the umbrella body for self-determination groups in the South and Middle Belt of Nigeria with Ilana Omo Oodua representing the Yoruba Land, Lower Niger Congress representing the South-South and South-East and Middle-Belt Renaissance Movement representing the Middle Belt Region.
Akintoye said the protest was meant to show to the world the sponsored genocide being perpetrated by murderous herdsmen in the name of grazing in the South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria, as reported in THE TRIBUNE newspaper.
He said the people of the South and Middle-Belt, through the rally, would be showing to the world the crimes against humanity, attacks on press freedom, free speech and other criminalities being aided by President Muhammadu Buhari- led administration in Nigeria.
Professor Akintoye, a renowned historian, disclosed that the indigenous people within the NINAS territories shall also be demanding for the conduct of a regional referendum to enable the people to decide on their nationhood, describing the 1999 Constitution as a fraud against the people of South and Middle-Belt.
Speaking further, Akintoye said the March would be used as an opportunity to expose to the world, how a tiny minority of people had hijacked the assets of the South and Middle-Belt of Nigeria through the 1999 Constitution which he said was enacted without the consent of the people, positing that land belongs to the people through the grace of Almighty God and, therefore, the South and Middle-Belt people totally rejected the illegitimate and imposed 1999 Nigerian Constitution that hijacked their right to Self-determination and assets.
“The land belongs to the people through the grace of Almighty God. We the Indigenous people of the South and Middle-Belt totally reject the illegitimate and imposed 1999 Nigerian Constitution that hijacks our self-determination and assets.”
“We want an end to the ethno-religious killings in Nigeria. We want the government of Nigeria to stop funding terrorism against us. What is happening today in Nigeria is state-sponsored terrorism,” Akintoye said.
“By the grace of God, we shall be demanding from the world leaders to declare Miyetti Allah as a terrorist group. It is dangerous to the safety and peace of the South and Middle-Belt people to call Miyetti Allah a trade Union, it is a terrorist group being supported by the current Fulanised government of Nigeria with a mission to overrun the indigenous people.”
Akintoye, therefore, called on the indigenous people of the South and Middle-Belt living in the United States of America and Canada to come out in their large numbers to join the Freedom March as it kick-off today in solidarity with their ancestral land.
