03 May 2025
Prelude:
His life showed that Napoleon Bonaparte had a deep hatred for African people. He was furious that enslaved Africans on the island now known as Haiti, had freed themselves from a most cruel and savage French enslavement. In a late 1801 letter with his instructions to General Leclerc, who was leading a military expedition to suppress the successful Haitian Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte wrote:
“My decision to destroy the authority of the Blacks in Saint Domingue is not so much based on considerations of commerce and money, as on the need to block forever the forward march of Blacks in the world.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon’s centuries old desire continues to also be the goal of Western powers. When Emancipation of enslaved Black people came, slavery got replaced with forms of Apartheid and Segregation, plus massive incarceration of innocent Black people so as to use them as forced unpaid labour. In Africa, Western powers carried out an unlawful land grabbing from their Berlin Conference which they enforced at gunpoint plus with the work of missionaries. Thus, after centuries of chattel slavery against Black people, there began a period of nearly one hundred years of colonisation against Africans. The various African countries carved out by Europeans began to get Independence around the 1960s, but in actual fact remained Neocolonised by the West. Colonialism and Neocolonialism are also forms of slavery: They override and hijack the Sovereignty of its victims, the indigenous African Ethnic Nations. That is why what is happening in the AES (Confederation of Sahel States of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger Republic) is of utmost interest to the global Black World. Captain Ibrahim Traoré the much loved President of Burkina Faso has faced over twenty assassination attempts, and on 30 April 2025 there where peaceful rallies in several African cities as well as in cities in Europe and the USA warning Western powers not to touch Captain Traoré and to leave Burkina Faso and Africa alone. It is all about denying Africa the right to assert Sovereignty. The West has superior weaponry and a “need to block forever the forward march of Blacks in the world”. That means suppressing Ethnic Sovereignty in Africa, so for the West, Captain Traoré’s sin is asserting Sovereignty and thus carrying out programmes that benefit Africans. Nigeria, under President Tinubu who has a controversial relationship with France, an oppressor country that has been rejected by Sovereignty-seeking Africans, did not have any pro-Captain Traoré rallies, which could also be called pro-Sovereignty rallies.
The difference between what is happening in Burkina Faso versus what is happening in Nigeria deserves consideration since Nigeria is the most populous Black country on the planet, and if Nigeria gets it wrong, it will affect the prospects and experiences of the global Black World. Dr Fred M’membe, a Zambian lawyer, journalist and Socialist Party president had something of importance to say to Africans at the historic “Conference in Solidarity with the Peoples of the Sahel” on 19 November 2024 organised by Pan Africanism Today and the West African People’s Organization. Here are parts of the Transcript of what Dr M’membe had said:
“Some of us come from countries where they believe that the periodic elections they hold are the only way for people’s participation. But we forget that in a truly free world democracy takes many forms of expression. It’s not only one form of expression. You can vote with a pencil, and in some places people have voted with their blood. The brave men and women of Niger [Republic], Mali, Burkina Faso deserve our respect, deserve our support. I’m saying brave because what they are doing requires courage it’s not for the faint-hearted, it’s not for the cowards who crawl down before Imperialism. The challenges they face are huge, the risks they have taken are immense and it requires determination, it requires resoluteness, it requires a greater love for one’s people and humanity in general. We are here to witness the transformation of this region. We are here to render solidarity to a place, an area of our Continent that deserves it, and needs it most. What is happening here is a big light being shown around the whole Continent. Niger [Republic], Mali and Burkina Faso are showing us the way. They are lighting the way for all of us to take. How we get there may differ but what they’re doing here you can’t avoid it…
A country dominated by another country can never be able to be democratic. You can’t build democracy in a country that is dominated by another country, that is a Neocolony of another country. For you to start talking about democracy you have to get rid of Neocolonialism…
[Speaker after speaker] were talking about the struggle for their Independence, they were talking about the struggle for Sovereignty. Sovereignty for what? Independence for what? Independence from who? Independence from who is Independence from those who dominate us today. It’s independence from Neocolonisers. Today it’s Independence from those who subjugate us today. Without that Independence you cannot talk of democracy. The elections we hold in all these neocolonial States have not taken us anywhere. For more than five, six decades we have been holding elections in some of these territories of Africa. Where have those elections taken us? Nowhere! Why? Because we are Neocolonies, we are dominated by others and you cannot have meaningful democracy without TOTAL Independence. As it was said this morning we need Total Independence…
What is going on here [in Africa] cannot be said to be democratic when you compare it with the sham elections that are being held across the Continent. With political parties that compete with each other without any meaningful agenda, without any meaningful purpose other than the use of millions and millions of dollars to deceive the people, to bribe the people…”
For sure, Unitary Nigeria (One-Nigeria) is a Neocolony. That is why Fulani herdsmen can trespass onto working farms and destroy them, causing food insecurity and nothing happens except to protect this criminality by government promoting the false narrative that it is “farmer-Fulani herdsman clash” because of “global warming”. That is why indigenous peoples can be killed at will by Fulani militia for land grabbing and Mr Adeola Ajayi the Director-General of the DSS (Department of State Security) tells Nigerians that they are on their own to face wild AK47/49-carrying Fulani and Islamic terrorists.
What is happening in Nigeria is actually outrageous. Just like the Slave Code (Laws) enforced at gunpoint rendered Black people powerless and enslaved, with their Sovereignty and Self-Determination hijacked, in Nigeria, the enforced imposed 1999 Constitution, a Forgery, renders indigenous peoples Neocolonised by hijacking Ethnic Sovereignty and Self-Determination. Communities throughout the Middle Belt and South shout that they do not want Fulani herdsmen on their ancestral lands because their farms are being destroyed and even at times taken over by those Fulani. The response from government in essence is: Find a way to get along with them. The 1999 Constitution allows them to be seen as Nigerians, so they can go around anywhere they fancy. Furthermore, survivors of armed Fulani nighttime raids get sent to IDP camps while Fulani take over their lands and rename them. Again, it is the 1999 Constitution that empowers this Fulani Conquest Agenda declared in October 1960 by Ahmadu Bello who made it known that Nigeria would be “ruthlessly” turned into the “estate” of the immigrant settler Fulani.
Other indigenous Ethnic Nations face harm and death in the Niger Delta and East through reckless and deliberate destruction of their lands in the name of seizing (stealing) their oil and gas to benefit the political class and foreign powers, essentially using that fraudulent 1999 Constitution as a robber’s weapon. (Compare this with how Native Americans had their lands and resources stolen by the European colonialists who used fraudulent Treaties backed by guns to dispossess those indigenous peoples.)
Just as as Napoleon Bonaparte wanted, and the Western former colonial powers want, the 1999 Constitution in Nigeria is the Instrument that makes it possible to continue “the need to block forever the forward march of Blacks in the world.”. Through its 68-item Exclusive List all key resources needed for development are denied eg security, electricity (via the raw materials to produce it), potable water, proper educational facilities, proper health facilities etc. That 1999 Constitution, a fraud itself, creates and protects corruption and looting. It promotes the transfer of wealth out of Nigeria and into Western countries. It is because of the 1999 Constitution that although Nigeria is rich in resources, its indigenous peoples remain poor and even get poorer.
Going back to Burkina Faso, it was to stop France a parasite upon the Burkinabé people (and on many other Black countries in Africa and in the Caribbean), and to properly tackle the Fulani terrorism going on there, that Captain Traoré and his government are asserting national Sovereignty, and bringing out transformative change. (Note: A significant portion of the jihadist groups operating in Burkina Faso, like Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin and the Islamic State, Sahel Province, are composed of Fulani militants – AI Overview).
The real Nigeria, a negotiated Federation ended in 1966 by the military coups, and since that time, indigenous Ethnic Nations have been held in a false Union by military decrees, and now by the fraudulent Neocolonial 1999 Constitution. Tinubu and his regime in continuing to keep Ethnic Sovereignty hijacked by upholding the 1999 Constitution, are doing the opposite of Captain Traoré.
What then can Nigerians do to get away from Neocolonialism? Some youth have decided to relocate to Captain Traoré’s Burkina Faso. The Fulani will be happy if indigenous peoples run away from their lands, making it easier for the Fulani to seize those lands for themselves. The best and sure way to push away Neocolonialism is to Terminate its Instrument, ie that 1999 Constitution. Those who admire what Captain Traoré is doing, and have a pro-Sovereignty for Africa outlook, can heed Dr M’membe who said that elections are not the only way of showing people participation. Fortunately for Nigerians, Sovereignty Restoration is close at hand because most of the work has already been done over the last twenty-five years. Listening to any of those who push Nigerians to 2027 National Elections (eg celebrity lawyers, church men, NGOs, and politicians) would be a huge and dangerous mistake as that renews the life of the neocolonial 1999 Constitution when the winner swears an Oath of office to uphold it, defend it, and govern by it. Sovereignty (and Self-Determination) Restoration which stops Neocolonialism comes by Terminating the 1999 Constitution. That means insisting that preparations for 2027 National Elections be cancelled, and that all political parties CLOSE SHOP so as to immediately begin Transitioning for Constitutional Reconstruction, now, in 2025. The NINAS Transitioning Template is on the Table.
Ndidi Uwechue is a British citizen with Igbo heritage from the Lower Niger Bloc. She is a retired Metropolitan (London) Police Officer, she is a signatory to the Constitutional Force Majeure, and she writes from Abuja.
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