Referendum Is A Constitutional Answer To Unfinished Decolonization Of Nigeria

Britain’s failure to offer the right to self-determination to Nigeria’s indigenous peoples violated the United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples adopted on 14 December 1960. Paragraph 5 of the Declaration required that immediate steps be taken by the colonial power “to transfer all powers to the peoples of those [colonized] territories…in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire…in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom.” The 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations emphasized that, “By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right freely to determine, without external interference, their political status….”

The highbrow Harvard Law School-trained constitutional lawyer, Bruce Fein, is a well-known figure in the Washington DC corridors of power for decades. His field of expertise, which transcends international law, has previously gotten him intimately involved with unraveling of the constitutional mess that precipitated bloody clashes in the Balkans, South Africa, South Sudan etc. The underlying cause of turmoil in all troubled spots of the world, particularly in formerly colonized countries, has always been unjust wicked imposition by the perceived powerful over the weak. This imposition can be perpetrated by the colonial master over the colonized or even by a fellow opportunistic constituent over the other(s). To him, Biafra is a classic example where there is a blend of the two. The British colonial master, in the first place, regarded and treated all its colonial subjects in Nigeria as mere property over which it had absolute right to do what pleased the imperial power. Then within Nigeria, the competing ethnic constituents believe that lording it over others was the surest means of getting the upper hand in ensuing food fight for all the good things of life and societal development. The resultant existential struggle witnessed in a polity like Nigeria, when all is said and done, is predicated on a gross misapplication or total disregard of well-established international norms and constitutions by which affairs of all civilized societies are managed.

Referendum, from Mr. Fein’s perspective, is the lone self-help left for Biafrans and other indigenous peoples of Nigeria and elsewhere worldwide to redeem and restore their God-given right to self-determination which was stolen from them more than a century ago by their British colonizers. The British government walked away from Nigeria without returning the sovereign rights of Biafrans to the indigenous peoples as required by the United Nations and international best standards of practice. Perhaps, the ulterior motive for not returning the stolen sovereign rights to the real owners is to do a U turn, at a later date, in order to repossess, once more, what’s supposed to have been returned. In Nigeria’s peculiar circumstances, it would appear as if the British deliberately wished to consign the suzerain rights it had exercised over Nigeria to a particular constituent within the country, either for safekeeping or as a surrogate which can then be used as a puppeteer uses the puppet. Either way, the British chose to exercise an option to which they have no right under international law. Giving the indigenous peoples of Nigeria the chance to assert their unalienable right to determine their own fate by themselves through a referendum shall indeed provide an appropriate conclusion to the unfinished decolonization process and a clear path to attainment of Biafran nationhood.

The likes of Bruce Fein constitute the ultimate nemesis for international constitutional outlaws, be they individual tyrants or nation states. The legal expert believes that usurpers and violators of indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination rely mostly on perpetual ignorance of their victims. In order to close this loophole and thereby eliminate associated continued vulnerability, he suggests production of booklets by self-determination protagonists and groups to aggregate facts and data that shall help to better inform and enlighten victims of injustice on one hand and to expose the nefarious schemes of the exploiters for the whole world to see, on the other.

Those whose stock in trade has historically been to build their own personal and group advantage over others, through exploitative means, know too well that the law constitutes their Achilles heel. Those who ride roughshod over Biafrans and other indigenous ethnic nationalities in Southern and Middle Belt Nigeria prefer to utilize intimidation and violence to impose their will over their victims for as long as humanly possible simply because they are keenly aware of the fact that international law is never on their side. The tyrants who have played key roles in violating human rights of Biafrans through arbitrary and extrajudicial killings, for example, can be brought to justice either through the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague or simply through the United States judicial system. Mr. Fein counseled all the victims of violence and human rights abuse, at hands of Nigerian dictators, to ensure that they carefully collate, document and safeguard all relevant evidence which shall, in due course, help to seek redress and earn them deserved justice before courts of proper jurisdiction.

In the meantime, the constitutional lawyer is of the view that focus on mobilizing Biafrans for a referendum for self-determination, in the near future, shall yield the deserved freedom for those who see themselves as enslaved because of the unfinished decolonization of Nigeria by the country’s former colonial master, the UK government, in violation of international law. He emphasized repeatedly that the self-determination right for Biafrans and other enslaved indigenous peoples of today’s Nigeria is a low-hanging fruit simply because the law is on the victims’ side. He, however, warned that the burden of earning one’s own freedom shall ultimately rest on shoulders of the yoked, no matter what it takes. Working together with a unity of purpose by all self-determination protagonists shall definitely expedite the process of change which has become inevitable today.

NB: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.