Group Pressures World Leaders, UN For Referendum, New Constitution In Nigeria

A group, Nigerian Indigenous Nationalities Alliance for Self-Determination (NINAS) has called on the United Nations to supervise the conduct of referendums in the Middle Belt and southern parts of Nigeria for the people to decide on what they want for their nationhood.

The Prof Banji Akintoye-led group is also demanding an end to the genocide being perpetrated by murderous herdsmen in the name of cattle grazing and to demand the rejection of the 1999 constitution of Nigeria.

In a statement issued on Monday by its spokesman, Mr. Maxwell Adeleye, said, “as the World Leaders are meeting for the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, we want to use the opportunity to demand a United Nations supervised referendum in our regions so that the indigenous people can decide on what they want for their nationhood.

“First, the fraudulent 1999 Constitution must go down. And this should happen before the 2023 General Elections. 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.”

The group also accused the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) Federal Government of engaging in terrorism, alleging that “what is happening today in Nigeria is State-sponsored terrorism”.

“The herdsmen you see in the South and Middle-Belt today are different from the nomadic herdsmen we grew up to know. The current ones are imported members of ISIS, Al -Qaeda. ISWAP and Boko Haram Terrorists being masqueraded as bandits. The agenda of these government-backed Terrorists killing and maiming our people in the South and Middle-Belt is to take over our ancestral lands for their Fulani people.

“You see that it is either Buhari is talking about cattle colony today or RUGA tomorrow or grazing reserves the day after. He appreciates the Fulani cows than human dignity. The Fulani people have even said openly on Television that all the land in Nigeria up to the Atlantic Ocean belongs to their great-great-grandfathers. They said the oil in the South belongs to them because the majority of the landmass in Nigeria are in the North.”

NINAS also demanded that the killer herdsmen, as well as their umbrella organisation, should be declared a terrorist organization, stressing that, “it is dangerous to safety and peace of the South and Middle-Belt people to call Miyetti Allah a trade union”.