
I n the aftermath of my last write up on Ef- fium peace through which I corrected the wrong impression on a purported map of Effium Community and suggested that the Effium debacle could be easily resolved if ap- proached constitutionally, my phone rang at 09:42 hours on January 16, 2025.
For three minutes and forty-six seconds, Amb Frank Ogbuewu, the Chairman of Ef- fium Peace Committee, yelled threats, criminal insinuations and insults at me.
When I tried to ascertain what I did to make a man who had praised my neutral advocacy over the Effium debacle to rage, it turned out that the Effium Peace Committee chairman misunderstood the relationship between the Nigerian constitution and the Land Use Act which formed the premises of my piece of advice to the governor of Ebonyi State. Hence his perceived preference for an un- constitutional approach to his assignment.
In his tantrums, the former ambassador pointed out that under the Land Use Act which he re- ferred to as the “Land Use Decree”; the powers of a governor of a state over land are greater than that of the president. He proceeded to the bizarre and incorrect conclusion that because of the enormous powers given to a state governor ove
r land in the Act, the constitution no longer mattered in the way a governor exercised those powers! This misunderstanding of the Nigerian legal framework, more than the threats, crimi- nal insinuations and insults he heaped on me, necessitated this article.
This is more so given that, for long, many occupants of leader- ship positions in Nigeria tend to reduce the supremacy of the Nigerian constitution from the constant which it is to a mere object of expediency.
Nigerians have not forgotten that former President Olusegun Obasanjo, under whom the Effium Peace Committee chairman served as Minister of Culture and Tourism as well as Ambassador to the Hellenic Republic of Greece, once prayed Nigerian courts to declare the office of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria vacant on the ground that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the man who occupied the position then, was not loyal to him.
The court reminded former President Obasanjo that the Nigerian constitution, not the President, was the sovereign and all loyalty should be accorded the 1999 Constitution! Section 1(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN) declares, unequivocally, the supremacy of the Nigerian constitution: “This constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
To prevent circumvention of the constitution either by enactment or by misconstruction of existing law, section 1(3) of the 1999 CFRN further provides that: “If any other law is inconsistent with the provision of this constitution, this constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void”.
At this point, it is necessary to state that Section 1 of the Land Use Act vests all land within a state on the governor of the state for the governor to hold in trust for the people. Section 36 (1) of the same Act empowers the governor to revoke rights of occupancy over any land for overriding public interests. Therefore, the enormous powers of a state governor under sections 1 and 36 of the Land Use Act only exist to the extent of their consistency with the provisions of the Nigerian constitution.
The proposal to separate the people of Effium Community according to family and blood lines is not only discriminatory; it is an affront on sections 42, 43 and 44 of 1999 CFRN…
The powers of the governor of Ebonyi State in the Land Use Act and under any other law whatsoever should not be exercised to vitiate the provisions of sections 42, 43 and 44 of the 1999 CFRN as regards any section of Effium Community, be it Ezza-Effium or Ufiom.
For clarity, section 42 of the Nigerian constitution prohibits discrimination by reasons of circumstances of birth, sex, religion or political opinion. Section 43 guarantees every Nigerian, the right to acquire land or immovable property in any part of Nigeria, as well as the right to peaceful enjoyment of such property.
Finally, sections 15 (2) and 44 forbids compulsory acquisition of land or immovable property in “any part of Nigeria except in the manner and for the purposes prescribed by a law”.
No law, including the Land Use Act, prescribed the compulsory acquisition of land for the purpose of passing the same land arbi- trarily off as appeasement to other individuals. This cannot by any stretch of imagination be said to be “in the overriding public interest”.
The proposal to separate the people of Effium Community according to family and blood lines is not only discriminatory; it is an affront on sections 42, 43 and 44 of 1999 CFRN; and on the much cherished national unity. Some of these were the grounds for the fundamental human rights enforcement action of the Ufiom section of Effium Community with suit number FHC/AI/CS/FHR/221/24 filed against the proposal of Effium Peace Committee.
It is therefore the intention of this piece that the critical stakeholders of Effium peace, especially the governor of Ebonyi State, Builder Francis Nwifuru, the Effium Peace Committee as led by Ambassador Frank Ogbuewu and the respective leaders of Ezza-Effium and Ufiom or Orring sections of Effium Community should endeavour to hinge the search for Effium peace on the Nigerian constitution.
This is the only way to ensure the sustainability of the endproduct of the search for peace. Overall, this piece is equally a wake-up call on the Nigerian political elite, especially those in public offices, to prioritise constitutionalism in all they do because the Nigerian constitution is the supreme law of the land!