The Concerned Citizens have performed an important service by drawing attention to Nigeria’s deteriorating condition. Their diagnosis identifies many real problems. But their recommendations remain trapped within the framework that produced those problems.
Our attention has been drawn to a statement titled, “State of the Nation”, issued on 8 June, 2026, by a group of prominent Northern Nigerians under the banner of “Concerned Citizens.”
The signatories are: (1) Dr Husseini Abdu; (2) Ambassador Fatima Balla (OON); (3) Dr Usman Bugaje; (4) Professor Ibrahim Gambari (CON); (5) Dr Yahaya Hashim; (6) Professor Jibrin Ibrahim; (7) Professor Attahiru Muhammadu Jega (OFR); (8) Professor Mohammed Kuna; (9) Abubakar Balarabe Mahmoud (SAN, OON);(10) Mallam Kabiru Yusuf.
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The statement presents a detailed critique of Nigeria’s current condition and concludes with a series of recommendations aimed at reversing what the authors describe as a deepening national crisis.
We welcome the intervention.
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Serious national problems require serious national conversations. However, while we agree with much of the diagnosis, we disagree fundamentally with the remedy.
The statement’s critique may be summarised under two broad themes.
First, it argues that Nigeria is at a dangerous crossroads, marked by declining democratic accountability, institutional weakness, and growing threats to the separation of powers.
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Second, it situates Nigeria’s challenges within the wider crisis engulfing the Sahel, where terrorism, military interventions, and the weakening of regional cooperation have undermined state authority and civilian protection.
These are legitimate concerns.
Yet they rest upon a flawed assumption.
The authors repeatedly suggest that Nigeria’s crisis threatens the country’s “foundational constitutional principles.”
We disagree.
Nigeria’s problem is not that its constitutional foundations are under threat.
Nigeria’s problem is that those foundations were never properly laid in the first place.
The 1999 Constitution was neither debated nor democratically adopted by the peoples of Nigeria. It was promulgated by military decree and presented as a Constitution made in the name of citizens who had no meaningful role in its creation. Its famous opening phrase: “We the People” remains its greatest contradiction.
The people did not make it.
The people did not approve it.
The people did not ratify it.
Yet, the political order continues to derive legitimacy from that claim.
That contradiction lies at the heart of Nigeria’s crisis.
It is also why the language of constitutional morality rings hollow when applied selectively.
One cannot condemn unconstitutional changes of government elsewhere, while ignoring the unresolved constitutional legitimacy questions at home.
The issue before Nigeria is therefore not merely one of governance.
It is one of political foundation.
The recommendations offered by the Concerned Citizens can be grouped into two broad categories.
The first category calls for reforms within the existing constitutional order: improved accountability, stronger civic engagement, judicial independence, electoral credibility, professional oversight, and greater responsiveness from public institutions.
The second category calls for improved management of Nigeria’s external environment: engagement with the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), renewed cooperation with ECOWAS, regional diplomacy, and stronger security coordination. Both categories assume that the present constitutional structure is fundamentally sound and merely requires better management.
That is where we part company.
The Crisis Is Not Administrative. It Is Foundational.
The recommendations treat insecurity as a governance problem. We contend that insecurity is fundamentally a political problem. The violence consuming parts of Nigeria cannot be understood solely through the lenses of poverty, climate change, weak institutions, or regional instability.
Those factors may contribute to insecurity, but they do not explain its political consequences.
The recurring outcome is displacement.
Communities are uprooted.
Territories change character.
Indigenous populations lose control over ancestral lands.
Traditional institutions come under pressure.
Political balances are altered.
These are political outcomes.
That is why insecurity cannot be separated from questions of power, identity, territory, and state structure.
Nor can Nigeria’s difficulties simply be attributed to instability in the Sahel.
Nigeria’s constitutional and political contradictions predate the current Sahel crisis by decades.
The roots of today’s tensions stretch back to the colonial state, the constitutional struggles before independence, the regional crises of the First Republic, military intervention, and the unresolved question of federalism.
The crisis in the Middle Belt, today, arose out of the determination of the ruling elite in the then Northern Region to suppress the peoples of the Middle Belt agitating for their own Region.
That was the genesis of the current insecurity manifesting in the displacement of indigenous peoples of the Middle Belt, and now moving southwards.
The splitting of Jos Local Government into two, ensuring a local government controlled by the Fulani, was not the handiwork of “insecurity in the Sahel”.
Besides, the carte blanche given to Fulanis across West Africa to enter and settle anywhere in Nigeria was not the handiwork of “insecurity in the Sahel”.
The problem is therefore deeper than terrorism.
It is a crisis of political architecture.
Federalism or Centralisation?
The recommendations repeatedly call for accountability, rule of law, credible elections, stronger institutions, and civic engagement.
These are worthy objectives.
But they do not exist in a vacuum.
They are products of a political system.
The question therefore becomes:
What kind of political system produces accountability?
What kind of political system encourages democratic participation?
What kind of political system reduces the struggle for state power?
Nigeria officially describes itself as a Federation.
Yet the centre controls security, policing, major revenues, political incentives, and much of the constitutional process itself.
As long as the centre remains the primary source of power, every election becomes a struggle for control of that centre.
Every policy debate becomes a contest over access to centralised authority.
Every institutional reform remains vulnerable to political manipulation.
This is why calls for electoral reform, judicial reform, and administrative reform inevitably return to the same question: Is Nigeria genuinely Federal?
Until that question is answered, reform efforts will remain limited.
The Missing Question
The recommendations by the “Concerned Citizens” also appeal to civil society, the private sector, traditional rulers, religious leaders, and the judiciary.
We have no objection to such appeals.
However, these institutions are themselves products of the existing constitutional order.
A judiciary derives its authority from the Constitution.
A legislature derives its authority from the Constitution.
The executive derives its authority from the Constitution.
Even the role assigned to traditional rulers is shaped by the Constitution.
When the foundation itself is contested, every institution built upon it is affected.
This does not mean such institutions should cease functioning.
It means their limitations must be acknowledged.
The real question is not how to improve every institution within the present arrangement.
The real question is whether the arrangement itself reflects the consent of the peoples who live under it.
That is the question missing from the Concerned Citizens’ recommendations.
The Necessary Remedy
We therefore submit that Nigeria’s crisis cannot be resolved through institutional adjustments alone.
It requires constitutional re-founding.
The country needs an Autochthonous Constitution; that is, a Constitution derived from the peoples themselves.
Such a constitution cannot emerge from elite negotiations alone.
It cannot emerge from another committee.
It cannot emerge from another constitutional amendment exercise.
It must derive its legitimacy directly from the peoples who constitute Nigeria.
That is why Nationality Referendums become indispensable.
The peoples of Nigeria, not merely political parties, elected officials, or government agencies must determine the constitutional basis of their association.
Only then can questions of federalism, security, representation, resource control, traditional authority, and democratic governance be resolved on a legitimate foundation.
Conclusion
The Concerned Citizens have performed an important service by drawing attention to Nigeria’s deteriorating condition. Their diagnosis identifies many real problems. But their recommendations remain trapped within the framework that produced those problems.
The crisis is not simply one of accountability.
It is not simply one of governance.
It is not simply one of insecurity.
It is a crisis of constitutional legitimacy.
Until that issue is confronted, Nigeria will continue to treat symptoms while leaving the underlying condition untouched.
The remedy is not another adjustment to the existing order.
The remedy is a new constitutional foundation, validated by the peoples of Nigeria through Nationality Referendums.
That is where the debate should begin.
And that is where it must ultimately lead.
Signatories
1. Professor GG Darah
2. Professor SWE Ibodje
3. Professor Ropo Sekoni
4. Chief Tokunbo Ajasin
5. Professor William Ehwarieme
6. Mr Taiwo Akinola
7. Professor Victor Jike
8. Barrister Luke Aghanenu
9. Chief Samuel Oluwadare Yerokun
10. Professor Lucky Akaruese
11. Engineer Caleb Osiobe
12. Dr Femi Folorunso
13. Alagba Femi Odedeyi.
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