Legal pundits and even sucklings in the legal world are trying so hard not to make a mockery of the unfortunate stance of the Government to the agitations of IPOB. The South East Governors proscribed IPOB, the Army declared them terrorist and when they realised they have goofed in no small measure, they swallowed their vomit. And when it seemed we had seen it all, the AGF filed a process in court by ex-parte and the court ruled without giving the purported adverse party who is not a legal personality the opportunity to defend their course. In view of all these, I remembered an article captioned “Is there a right to rebel” written in Honour of the then Chief Judge of Abia State, Honourable Justice A. U. Kalu by an erudite Professor of Law, U. U. Chukwumaeze (aka Zumbe).
I don’t believe in coincidence but I believe in providence. The treatment given to IPOBians does not in any way surprise me. And just as someone said “IPOB is more dangerous than Boko Haram and ISIS, I agree with him totally”! Why won’t they? After all…there is nothing more dangerous than a man who knows his rights, who cannot tolerate injustice and calls evil by its name. There is nothing more dangerous than a man who is willing to break away from undemocratic, unpatriotic and unjust leaders. There is nothing more dangerous than a man who will not sit and wallow in regrets rather than take steps to fight a just course. There is nothing more dangerous than a man who is willing to lay down his life for what he believes in! And yes, IPOBians are selling the message: BIAFRA…I may not agree with their modus operandi but in all humility I salute their courage. Just like Professor U. U. Chukwumaeze (aka Zumbe) prophetically forewarned in his article “…one thing is very clear: Nigeria is on the verge of a stupendous crisis, perhaps, the greatest in history, perhaps, the last in history”.
Professor U. U. Chukwumaeze further opined “Law is the greatest civilizing force known to man. Its proper administration is justice which is the essence of a legal system. A legal system founded on justice exists forever while no people can continue to exist as a people in an atmosphere of institutional injustice. Injustices are the midwives to revolution and revolutions or threats to or attempts at it will always reawaken the people to ask the most fundamental questions in human history – DO MEN HAVE A RIGHT TO REBEL? Our age is experiencing a critical transition in which a new social order is struggling to be born. Our value system is spontaneously melting without the benefit of conscious re-moulding. There is confusion in the atmosphere that be – tokes an advent of a resolution. A baptism of fire is imminent…Our situation is not peculiar and always in such a time, men have gone back to the foundations of law and politics and seek to re-philosophise and re-explain the nature and functions of state and government. In all, we are at the beginning of an epoch of decisive importance in our political history and if one is to predict our bearing with any confidence, it is that we are going back in civilization and at the same time advancing forward, with a meteoric velocity, into disintegration”.
The social contract theory evolved by Hooker but developed further by the likes of Hobbs, Locke and Rousseau substantially states the fact that the state is the result of an agreement entered into by men who originally had no governmental organisation…Man rather lived in a state of nature subject to natural law, which lacked human formulability and enforceability. However, after the contract, government was formed and man parted with his natural liberty and agreed to obey the laws of the government…thus, the social contract is wholly formal and analytical political construct, at the root of which lies the fact that no man will be subjected to the political power of another without his consent. This is the birth of democracy.
Today certain members of Nigeria cry foul because of the many appointments and developmental projects that do not favour them. Given the social contract theory, you do have a right to rebellion. And just as Idi Amin of Uganda often cautions…you have your fundamental right to say whatever you feel is right…but I do not guarantee what will happen to you upon exercising your right! Same as Rebellion, its by natural law legal…but not guaranteed!
