125 Constitutional Breaches & Regime Atrocities Of Buhari Administration In One Year
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| 125 Constitutional Breaches & Regime Atrocities Of Buhari Administration In One Year |
(Onitsha Nigeria, 30th of May 2016)-The Government of Gen Muhammadu Buhari has clocked one year in office having
being sworn in on 29th of May 2015; and the leadership of International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety) has identified at least 125 Constitutional Breaches & Regime Atrocities committed by the hostile administration in the past 365 days or one year. The breaches and atrocities covered the process through which the administration was brought to civilian presidency to its policies and conducts in the past 365 days or one year. This simply means that in each of the past 12 months, the administration of Gen Muhammadu Buhari committed at least ten constitutional breaches and regime atrocities against Nigerians and the 1999 Constitution. The constitutional breaches and regime atrocities are numbered and summarized below:
being sworn in on 29th of May 2015; and the leadership of International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety) has identified at least 125 Constitutional Breaches & Regime Atrocities committed by the hostile administration in the past 365 days or one year. The breaches and atrocities covered the process through which the administration was brought to civilian presidency to its policies and conducts in the past 365 days or one year. This simply means that in each of the past 12 months, the administration of Gen Muhammadu Buhari committed at least ten constitutional breaches and regime atrocities against Nigerians and the 1999 Constitution. The constitutional breaches and regime atrocities are numbered and summarized below:
Electoral Roguery & Breaches That Produced Buhari’s Presidency:
1.Gross
manipulation (i.e. hoarding, defacing, diversion, destruction and
non-production) of issuance and distribution of permanent voters cards
with gross numerical disparity designed to favour north against the
south leading to highly divisive presidential poll that brought the
regime to power.
2. Deliberate and scientific exclusion from voting of
12 million registered voters dominated by southern and northern minority
populations designed to produce Buhari’s Presidency at all costs,
leading to its highly divisive emergence.
3. Creation of mobile voting
centers for Muslim IDPs and refusal to make same or similar arrangements
for IDPs of Southeast and minority nationalities’ extraction such as
through voters’ cards’ transfer provided in the Electoral Act of 2010.
4. Exclusion through stringent voter registration conditions during
voters’ registration exercises of at least 20 million
Nigerians of
voting age dominated by southerners and other minority nationalities.
5.
Introduction of mal-functional card readers contrary to the Electoral
Act of 2010 designed to further shut out and weaken southern voting
population.
6. Massive deployment and use of millions of under-age
voters in the north designed to shore up northern Muslim voting
population during the referenced controversial polls.
7. Demographic and
scientific manipulation of the 2015 presidential poll as opposed to all
inclusive polls befitting a pluralistic and multicultural democratic
society like Nigeria.
8. Resurgence through deliberate official (INEC)
policies and actions of ethnic, religious and political divisions in the
2015 presidential poll and deepening of same through policies and
actions by the Buhari’s Presidency.
9. Improper
composition of the statutory board of INEC.
10. Non conduct and
conclusion of outstanding parliamentary rerun polls across the country
particularly in the opposition strongholds of the Southeast and
South-south regions, over 12 months after the conduct of the country’s
main polls and with particular reference to Senatorial vacancies in
Anambra Central, Imo North, Kogi East and three Senatorial seats in
Rivers State; nine House of Reps seats in Rivers State, two State
Assembly seats in Imo State and a number of others elsewhere.
11.
INEC’s whimsical and capricious refusal to perform its constitutional
duties by conducting and concluding the said rerun polls, owing to its
suspected parasitic control by the APC led Federal Government.
12.
INEC’s deliberate refusal to revalidate and embark on continuous
registration and issuance of permanent voters’ cards to all eligible
Nigerian voters of all ethno-religious and gender backgrounds.
13.
Retention by the Commission of the policy of empowering all eligible
Muslim adults with voters’ cards and disempowering of their non Muslim
counterparts with acutely disproportionate number of voters’ cards.
14.
The refusal by the Commission to de-register millions of underage voters
it criminally registered in the core north during the last general
polls for the purpose of producing the Buhari’s Presidency at all costs.
15. Growing incompetence and incapacity of INEC to rise to its
constitutional responsibilities and the possibility of the Commission
scuttling electoral process and collapsing democracy in Nigeria.
Political Crime/Structural Terrorism:
16.
Emergence of perceived arch proponent of ethno-religious divisions and
animosity as Nigeria’s President.
17. Resurgence and deepening of
ethno-religious divisions and animosities in the country; following
divisive and segregated policies and conducts of the Buhari
administration since assumption of office in late May 2015.
18.
Disregard with reckless abandon and abuse of the provisions of the 1999
Constitution as well as the principles of the rule of law.
19. Massive
deployment and reckless use of State coercive establishments
particularly the DSS to haunt, hurt and harm vocal citizens and members
of the nonviolent opposition contrary to their constitutional rights to
freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, personal liberty and movement.
20. Promotion and institutionalization of government of vendetta or
vindictiveness in the past 365 days.
21. Deployment and use of deadly or
excessive State force or violence in response to the ventilated angers
of the civil populace concerning regime decadence, anomalies and
failures.
22. Spiral increase in citizens’ insecurity and other unsafe
conditions occasioned by regime incompetence, incapacity and violent
approaches to issues and challenges of public governance.
23.
Vicariously and personally responsible for the regime murder of over
1000 nonviolent and unarmed citizens in the past 365 days.
24. Proxy
killing of over 1000 nonviolent and unarmed citizens using the Fulani
Janjaweed.
25. Killing of over 3000 citizens by violent non-State
entities like Boko Haram and Fulani insurgents occasioned by regime
incompetence and incapacity. 26. Promotion and running of governance
policies of exclusion, segregation and sectional domination.
Corruption Of Anti Corruption:
27.
Promotion through nepotism and favoritism of corruption and abuse of
office contrary to Section 15 (5) of the 1999 Constitution (abolition of
State corrupt practices and abuse of office).
28. Manipulation and
bastardization of the anti corruption policy whereby only members of the
opposition are labeled corrupt or charged for corruption whereas
morally dirty and indicted members of the ruling party including those
that funded the election campaigns of the Buhari’s Presidency are
shielded or protected.
29.Masquerading anti corruption campaign and using
same to seek international attention and support.
30. Rampancy of
corruption and other corrupt practices in most, if not all federal
public institutions including the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigerian
Custom Service by way of open extortion, bribery, kick-backs, contract
inflation, over-invoicing, favouritism, nepotism, etc.
31. Using
corruption to fight corruption and mainstreaming fake anti corruption
for the purpose of confusing Nigerians and misleading the international
community.
32.
Promotion and encouragement of all dimensions of corruption: morale
corruption, political corruption, economic corruption, institutional or
bureaucratic corruption and statutory corruption.
33. Massive deployment
of State propaganda and falsehood to further deceive and mislead the
populace and the international community concerning the true state of
the regime’s so called “anti corruption campaign”.
34. Bandying of
non-existent figures or amounts in billions of dollars as looted funds
recovered so far from “the looters” when little or nothing has been
practically recovered.
35. Corrupting Nigerians and the international
community with non-existent amounts in billions of dollars as “saved
amounts” from TSA, ghost workers, etc; whereas loans amounting to
billions of dollars are still being sourced from right, left and center.
Bastardization Of Secularity Status & Federal Character Principle:
36.Gross
violation of constitutional provisions of fair and non-dominant
geopolitical distribution of public office appointments and resources.
37. Unconstitutional concentration of 99% of top security and civil
appointments in the Northwest, Northeast and the North-central zones
with the Northwest and the Northeast geopolitical zones of the country
taking 80%.
38. Near-total and vindictive exclusion of the people of the
Southeast zone in federal governance policies and actions in the past
365 days.
39. Steadily threatening of the secular and pluralistic
composition of Nigeria through segregated and exclusionist policies,
actions and utterances.
40. Gross violation of non-State religion
provision in Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution.
41. Promotion of
Northernization and Islamization agendas to the national policy and
interest and adoption of Boko Haram’s Islamization and conquest agenda
as new integrated national governance policy.
41. Adoption of “Miyatti
Allah” livestock policy as a national policy leading to executive
nationalization of Fulani Animal Husbandry.
42. Unconstitutional and
undemocratic presidential policy and directive for filling of all top
federal establishments vacancies with northern Muslim citizens in line
with northern Islamization agenda and without recourse to
constitutionalism and pluralistic composition of Nigeria.
Gross Disrespect To Rule Of Law & Constitutional Liberties:
43. Steady suppression of socially cohesive voices or forces and promotion of divisive forces in Nigeria.
44. Promotion of triggers of constitutional dictatorship and muzzling of opposition forces.
44. Promotion of triggers of constitutional dictatorship and muzzling of opposition forces.
45.
Quieting and silencing of former mainstream, independent and credible
rights based civil society organizations in the Southwest region.
46.
Disruption of the unity of the organized labour bodies in Nigeria and
infiltration of their ranks and hijacking of their leaderships with
government moles and apologists.
47. Gross disrespect to the principles
of the rule of law particularly fair hearing and fair trial.
48. Gross
breaches of the fundamental provisions of the 1999 Constitution
including its fundamental human rights and custodial liberties.
49.
Detention of citizens over alleged corruption and political crimes far
above periods constitutionally allowed. 50. Denial of detained citizens
of their rights to legal representation and judicial bails.
51.
Threatening lawyers who offer to defend the accused citizens and cooking
up trumped up charges against them.
52. Blackmailing the judiciary as
being “uncooperative” in the so called “fight against corruption” and
stampeding and threatening its constitutional independence.
53.
Threatening judges and forcing them to make judicial pronouncements
against those the State tags “State enemies”.
54.
Using the anti graft agencies to threaten judges who go against the
State interest knowing fully that most, if not all public office holders
in Nigeria including the Presidency live far above their statutory
emoluments through bureaucratic corruption and other corrupt
practices.
55.Indiscriminate and reckless presidential utterances
considered hostile and prejudicial to fair hearing and fair trial for
those facing court trials and bails.
Gross Administrative Misconducts:
56.
Running the federal government without a Federal Executive Council or
Government or Council of Ministers for 150 days or five months (May 29
to October 29, 2015).
57. Grounding of major government activities or
businesses to a halt for 150 days owing to absence of Federal Executive
Council.
58. Making appointments into constitutionally and statutorily
created federal executive bodies and offices in manners clearly
incoherent with and unknown to the 1999 Constitution and the Civil
Service Rules of the Federation.
59.Grossly
breaching the Federal Character Principles in making such
appointments.
60. Running, some say, a “Tinubu/Miyatti Allah” oligarchic
government as opposed to presidential democracy founded on
constitutionalism and pluralistic democracy.
61. Gross bastardization and
corruption of constitutional democracy and democratic
pluralism.62.Relegation of the 1999 Constitution to the background and
governing the Federal Republic of Nigeria with “party supremacy and
personal initiatives”.
63.Promotion of parliamentary parasitism.64.Non
recourse to parliamentarianism in matters of sensitive multilateral and
bilateral importance
65.Forming a government cabinet dominated by
“the profiteers of the Nigerian woes of the recent past” and failed
public office administrators.
Economic Policy Blunders & Failures: .
66
Grounding Nigerian economy to a total halt following 150 days without
government or ministerial cabinet.
67. Grounding to a halt for 150 days
of major activities of all federal educational institutions including
all federal universities, colleges of education, polytechnics, special
schools as well as newly established federal universities, owing to none
release of statutory funds for 150 days.
68. Zero awards of public
interest projects in the areas of roads, education, health, rail,
aviation, water, agriculture, etc following the absence of government or
ministerial cabinet for 150 days.
69. Suspension or stalling till date
of public interest projects awarded by the past administration (i.e. 2nd
Niger Bridge Project).
70. Abandonment for 150 days of maintenance
policy implementation on key public infrastructures like roads, etc
leading to their gross decay resulting in untold hardships experienced
by the masses.
71. Collection from the Federation Account of at least
N900Billion ($4.5 Billion) as the Federal Government share of the
federal revenues for 150 days or five months without a Federal Executive
Council or Cabinet.
72.
Absence of clearly defined economic policy direction for Nigeria that
is tailored in international best standards as well as continued leprous
reliance on crude oil or petrol dollar economy.
73. Introduction of
deliberate and harmful fiscal policy till date aimed at crashing and
crushing trade and commerce in which the Igbos who control at least 60%
of same are the sole target.
74. Promotion and proliferation of hard
currency black markets and hard currency smuggling cartels following ban
placed on international currency exchanges by commercial banks, etc.
75.
Resurgence and proliferation of illicit or black market mobile hard
currency trade dominated by Hausa couriers as was the case in 80s and
90s during the military era.
76.
Composition of a federal governance cabinet of bread and butter in
place of a government of soil and oil.
77. Retention of reckless public
borrowing and high public governance cost policies that darkened the
administration of the Goodluck Jonathan and grossly impoverished Nigeria
and Nigerians.
78. Seventy-percent (70%) official devaluation of the
local currency from the Jonathan era rate of N155 per $US to the present
N250 per $US.
79.One hundred & twenty-percent (120%) of unofficial
devaluation of the local currency from the Jonathan era-N160.00-N170.00
per $US to the present N350.00 –N360.00 per $US.
80. Sixty-percent (60%)
fuel price increase from the Jonathan era N97.00 per litre to the
present N145.00 per litre.
81. Hyper inflation and quadruple increases in
prices of food stuffs and domestic appliances and other industrial
uses.
82.Similiar price increases in automobiles and their accessories
and all industrial materials, health products, etc.
83.Near-total
abandonment of awards, construction, maintenance and expansion of
capital projects in Nigeria since late May 2015.
84.Over
reliance till date on imported goods and services to the tune of 95% or
more.
85. Zero industrial outputs and non-industrialization of
Nigeria’s 33 solid mineral deposits.
86. Reckless borrowings from local
and international sources and their channelization into recurrent and
non productive sectors.
87. Retention of astronomical costs of
governance especially in the areas of office holders’ allowances and
overheads.
88. Drawing and drying of Nigeria’s scarce resources using
“monthly security votes”, office overheads, bloated allowances and
cabinet sizes and nepotistic projects.
89. Rampancy of bureaucratic
corruption in government institutions and businesses.90. Sorry state and
irreparable dilapidation of public infrastructures maintained by
Federal Government. 91. Horrible state of Federal roads, railway and
airports in Nigeria particularly in the Southeast.
92.Absence of
revolutionary industrial policy or policy direction for Nigeria
compounded by incurable energy sector crisis in the country.
D. Judicial Interference & Threats To Rule Of Law:
93.
Continued domination of federal judiciary by northern Muslims (I.e.
Chief Justice of Nigeria, President of the Court of Appeal, Chief Judge
of the Federal High Court, etc).
94. Gross executive interference in the
affairs of the judiciary particularly by the President’s use of DSS to
invite, quiz, intimidate, harass and threaten judges handling high
profile cases including election petition cases (i.e. case of Hon
Justice Pindigi over River State Governorship matter).
95.Gross and
reckless executive interference using DSS and Police in the judicial
proceedings and non criminal administrative conducts (i.e. recent ordeal
of some INEC officials in the hands of the DSS in Akwa Ibom and Rivers
States gubernatorial poll cases).
96. Executive interference and
influencing of electoral court proceedings and judgments using DSS (i.e.
Hon Justice Pindigi’s public account on how he was threatened,
intimidated, harassed and invited for a nocturnal meeting in Kaduna
State by the DSS with intent to be bribed).
97.Use
of judiciary by the executive as an instrument of vendetta and
intimidation against members of the opposition and dissenting
community.
98. Use of judiciary to perpetrate and perpetuate long
detention without bail of the vocal citizens (i.e. continued detention
of Citizens Nnamdi Kanu, Sambo Dasuki, Ibrahim Zaky El-Zaki, etc).
99.
Use of judiciary to effect extra judicial and pre-trial detention of
citizens merely accused of bureaucratic corruption, leading to them
detained far above periods constitutionally allowed; in bailable
misdemeanour matters.
100.
Use of constitutionally incoherent penal laws to judicially threaten
and intimidate dissenting citizens for the purpose of their custodial
arrest, detention, torture and dumping in awaiting trial or criminal
incarceration.
101. Re-introduction through backdoor of Decrees No. 2 and
No. 4 of 1984 by presidentially detaining citizens outside the
provisions and processes of the 1999 Constitution.
Insecurity & Other Unsafe Conditions:
102.
Death of over 4000 citizens in the hands of the Federal Government, the
Islamist Boko Haram and the Fulani insurgents in the past 365 days.
103.
Continued adoption of counter terror and insurgency measures that are
incoherent with modern intra State counter violence methods leading to
gross breaches of human rights and the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
104.
Retention of the out-fashioned and out-dated national policy on security
adopted in 1979 or 37 years ago.105. Feeling and perception of
insecurity by most, if not all Nigerians occasioned by woeful failure of
the present Buhari administration to rise to its constitutional
securitization responsibilities as contained in Section 14 (2) (b) of
the 1999 Constitution (duty of the State to ensure at all times citizens
security and welfare).106. Failure to protect, safeguard and preserve
Nigeria’s oil facilities occasioned by the government militant and
hostile policies and failed security intelligence networks.
107.Over reliance on AK-47 driven securitization and promotion of failed security intelligence.
108.
Gross failure of the Nigeria Police with its large numerical strength
and huge public costs to effectively take charge of the country’s
internal security owing to obsolete policing and rapacious
corruption.
109.Concentration of the country’s security policy planning
and enforcement on gun culture and militancy approaches and gross
failure to civilianize policing security through the all inclusive
concept of human security formulated by UNDP for municipal use in
1994.
110. Total exclusion of the Southeast zone from the membership of
Service Chiefs and steady promotion of triggers of a divided society and
laying of landmines for sectional animosities capable of snowballing
into regional tensions and violent conflicts of unquenchable magnitudes.
111.Promotion of favouritism and nepotism in the country’s security
industry and elimination of merit and integrity.
112. Promotion of
ethnic cleansing against the Igbo Ethnic Nationality in the Nigeria
Police Force and other strategic securitization bodies whereby in few
years to come, no officer of the Southeast extraction will occupy the
rank and position of Commissioner of Police, Assistant Inspector General
of Police, Deputy Inspector General of Police or Inspector General of
Police.
113.
Promotion of ethnic and religious divisions and tensions across the
country.
114. Promotion of militancy and gun culture at communal,
tribal, inter-group and inter-personal levels.
115. Promotion of
governance hostility, intolerance and confrontational approaches to
governance issues and challenges.
116. Forcing the citizens to resort to
self-help and self-arming to safeguard their lives, liberties,
interests, cultural norms and values considered threatened by the
present Federal Government and its proxy violent entities.
117.Steady
flooding of Nigeria with small arms and light weapons occasioned by
government combatant approaches and threats to ethnic existence and
identies.
118. Acute absence of Human Security, comprising
food security, health security, environmental security, community or
communal security, physical security, economic security and political
security.
119. High rates of unemployment and under-employment.
120.
Spiral increase in social deviance and code crimes occasioned by regime
and governance failures.
Fundamental Breaches Of International Obligations:
121.Gross
violation of Nigeria’s regional obligations like African Charter on
Human & Peoples Rights of 1981. 122. Breach of Nigeria’s
international obligations like International Covenants on Civil &
Political Rights, Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, Convention
Against Torture, Child Rights Convention, etc.
123. Breach of Nigeria’s
international customary obligations like the International Customary
Laws and the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.
124. Breach
of Nigeria’s international humanitarian obligations like the Geneva
Conventions of 1949 and their Protocols.
125. Failure by the Presidency
and the National Assembly to domestic outstanding strategic
international rights and humanitarian treaties in accordance with
Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution.
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Barr Obianuju Igboeli, Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
Mobile Line: +2348034186332
Barr Chinwe Umeche, Head, Democracy & Good Governance Program
Mobile Line: +2347013238673
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
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