Northern Coalition Sues National Assembly Over Constitutional Review

 The Coalition of Northern Group (CNG) has dragged the National Assembly to court, asking that the ongoing constitutional review across the country be stopped with immediate effect.

The suit was filed by the leadership of the group, Nastura Ashir Shariff, Balarabe Rufa’i l, Abdul-Aziz Sulaiman and Aminu Adam joined against the defendants: Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami; Senate President, Ahmad Lawan; Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila; and the National Assembly, Daily Trust reports.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja, the coalition's spokesman, Abdul-Aziz Sulaiman, argued that instead of the ongoing constitutional review, the defendants should immediately provide a framework for the actualisation of agitators’ demand on self-determination.

The Coalition on June 11, had urged the National Assembly to suspend the constitution review to enable the Government to organise a referendum on the actualisation of a Biafra Republic.

It also urged the National Assembly to invoke the doctrine of necessity to organise a Biafra referendum as the final step towards the separation of the Igbo from the rest of Nigeria.

The group argued that the unrelenting disturbances created by certain interest groups in the South-East, in the form of the agitation for a separate State of Biafra, had turned violent.

It appealed to the government to invite the United Nations (UN), African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to initiate the process of self-determination that will mandate the Biafrans out of the Nigerian union by leveraging the several relevant international treaties and conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory.