The Ambiguity of Constitutional Silence on State Secession in Nigeria: Looking Beyond Politics of Compassion and Prejudice

Before putting my thoughts together in this article, I had to distance myself from nationalistic prejudice as Nigerian from the Southwestern part of the country, but proffer legal reasoning to tackle the conundrum surrounding the secession of Biafra from Nigeria. In my pursuit of clarity, I believe Biafra can secede from Nigeria, but this is contingent on legal and moral hurdles to overcome in the context of a nascent Nigerian political system. This article is a bifurcated academic reasonings, illustrating a moral argument to justify Nigeria’s political unity rather than its disintegration, and a legal argument drawing its content, context and culture from the current Nigerian constitution, and tenets of international law to state that secession is a question not answered by Nigerian domestic laws; moreover, international law gives little definitive position on it, save—the principle of self-determination. The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), is currently spearheading resurgence of (Biafra), a defunct secessionist state that existed from 30 May 1967-January 1970 in eastern Nigeria. However, the current constitution of Nigeria is silent on state secession, just as international law does not recognize secession as an identified right. It does not specifically grant component parts of sovereign states the legal right to secede unilaterally from their parent state. Secession succeeds or fails not on what international law says, it depends on the success of an entity making the secession move. The fulcrum of this article is a synthesis of principles of constitutional interpretation to understand why the 1999 constitution of Nigeria is silent on state secession, and how the ambiguity arising from this silence can be resolved in the context of the current Biafra secession move. This article peruses some tools of constitutional interpretation by giving utmost deference to the cautionary dictum of Justice Marshal in McCulloch v. Maryland, who posits it is a constitution we are expounding, therefore great caution must be sought while interpreting its content. This article argues that non-express prohibition of state secession in the constitution does not make it permissive for entities to breakaway unilaterally. It appears framers of the constitution intend political continuity and survival of the nation as a single entity rather than its disintegration. This article concludes that in the affirmative, Nigeria has a state responsibility to provide self-determination to her people, however, self-determination is not necessarily secession; especially where internal self-determination has been availed social groups and enclaves in Nigeria. It postulates alternatives to handling political grievances from the standpoint of constitutionalism. The decision of the Canadian Supreme Court in RE: SECESSION OF QUEBEC is used in this article to amplify the core factors justifying a move for secession on the argument that an entity's right to self-determination is impeded. Some of these factors discussed in this scholarship are-political oppression, threat of genocide, and human rights violations.