Former NBA chairman Olisa Agbakoba says Nigeria's continued existence should be up for negotiation too

FORMER Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) chairman Olisa Agbakoba has rejected the recent calls for Nigeria's restructuring saying it is just a ploy by the elite to grab power in 2019 arguing that any debate should include discussing the actual existence of the country.

Over recent weeks, calls for restructuring have grown deafening following the growth in the popularity of the clamour for the recreation of the defunct Republic of Biafra. Across southeast Nigeria, there has been a clamour for the resuscitation of the breakaway republic that existed between July 1967 and January 1970, with the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) leader Nnamdi Kanu championing the cause.

In response to the heated political atmosphere, there have been calls for the country to be restructured along the lines agreed by the nation's founding father's in 1958 and as recommended by the 2014 National Confab. However, Mr Agbakoba has said that everything should be on the negotiating table, including the right to self-determination as called for by Mr Kanu
 

Mr Agbakoba, who rejected the declaration by acting president Professor Yemi Osinbajo that Nigeria’s sovereignty was not negotiable, said Ipob’s quest for self-determination was lawful and found justification in Article 1 (2) of the United Nations Charter and Article 20 (1) of the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights, to which Nigeria was a signatory. He added that the federal government must immediately initiate a process to put the continued existence of Nigeria as a sovereign entity to a debate, stressing that restructuring was not the road map to federalism.

“I see every politician now says restructure but I disagree. I also think the acting president was wrong to say that Nigeria is insoluble as there is nothing sacrosanct about Nigeria and it can blow up anytime.

"It’s an artificial creation, which was made in 1914 and when it was amalgamated we were not there. It was amalgamated in the interest of the colonialists,” Mr Agbakoba added.

He said it was unfortunate that since 1914 when amalgamation was thrust on the people, there had not been any home-grown process to resolve the will of the people to co-exist. Mr Agbakoba, who had once sued the federal government for neglecting the southeast, argued that the federal government goofed by charging the Ipob leader with treasonable felony for seeking self-determination.

Mr Agbakoba added:  “For me, the best that he can be charged with is unlawful assembly and an act capable of breaching public peace. Those are the things he can be charged with but not treason because Nigeria is a signatory to the United Nations’ Charter, which recognises the right for self-determination.”
 

A delegate to the 2014 National Confab, Mr Agbakoba also said implementing the resolutions of the conference would not quell the various secessionist agitations in the country. He argued that while it was politically incorrect for the Arewa youths to give the Igbo living in the north a quit notice, there was no legal basis to call for their arrest.