By Hassan Husaini, mni
The announcement of the so-called Geo-Political Zones Bill 2026 represents nothing less than a constitutional coup against the very foundations of Nigerian democracy. But this brazen assault is not an isolated event. It is the culmination of a dangerous pattern of governance that began on May 29, 2023, when this administration embarked on a reckless journey that has systematically dismantled the livelihoods of millions, eroded institutional safeguards, and now threatens the very fabric of our federal republic.
Let us trace this tragic trajectory. The first act of this administration was the abrupt removal of fuel subsidies, which quintupled pump prices from approximately N187 per litre to over N1,000. This was accompanied by the devaluation of the naira, which plummeted from N460 to the dollar in May 2023 to over N1,700 by 2024. The combined effect was catastrophic. Inflation surged to 34.8 percent in December 2024, the highest in two decades. Transportation costs exploded, food prices became unaffordable, and even when the minimum wage was reluctantly raised from N30,000 to N70,000 in July 2024, inflation at over 30 percent swiftly erased any potential gains. Three years on, the key planks of this economic overhaul have yet to deliver faster growth. Nigerians have been sacrificed on the altar of economic experimentation, with nothing to show for their suffering but empty stomachs and shattered dreams.
Then came the assault on our security architecture. The proposal for state police forces, while dressed in the garb of decentralisation, represents another fundamental breach of our constitutional order. Section 214(1) of the Constitution is unambiguous: “There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigeria Police Force, and no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.” Yet the National Assembly, in its eagerness to please, has advanced a bill seeking to replace the existing centralised police structure with a dual system comprising Federal and State Police Services. This is not reform; it is the systematic dismantling of a constitutional safeguard deliberately established to prevent the weaponisation of police forces by state governors.
The National Assembly’s utter disregard for constitutional propriety was laid bare in May 2024 when it passed the National Anthem Bill in less than 24 hours without any public hearing. Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele, who sponsored the bill, defended the expedited passage, arguing that the old anthem “aligned with the vision of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.” The Senate Committee on Judiciary explicitly rejected the Attorney-General’s advice that the bill required zonal public hearings, declaring that “we don’t need a resolution of the FEC or to hold any public hearings.” The Association of Legislative Drafting and Advocacy Practitioners has since filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Act, arguing that “no public hearing was held before the said legislation was enacted as required under Section 60 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution.” This is not a legislature; this is a cheering section for executive overreach.
Now comes the Geo-Political Zones Bill 2026, the most audacious assault yet on our constitutional democracy. The proposal purports to establish a fourth tier of government, create six new states, abolish the federal allocation regime, and devolve powers over police and electricity to newly created regional authorities. This is not reform; this is revolution by decree. The Constitution establishes Nigeria as a federation of three tiers of government—Federal, State, and Local Government. The introduction of a fourth tier is a fundamental alteration that cannot be achieved by presidential fiat. Section 8 of the Constitution prescribes an elaborate and deliberately onerous process for state creation: a two-thirds majority of members representing the area demanding the new state in both chambers, a two-thirds majority of the House of Assembly and local government councils in the area, approval in a referendum by at least two-thirds of the people of the area, and finally the concurrence of at least twenty-four state Houses of Assembly. The proposed Bill mentions none of this. It simply declares new states into existence—West Izon, Mambilla, Anioma, Orashi, Abuja, Gurara, Odo Oya—as though state creation were a matter of administrative convenience rather than a constitutionally guarded process.
The fiscal provisions of the proposal are equally unconstitutional. Section 162 of the Constitution mandates that all revenues collected by the Federation be paid into the Federation Account and distributed among the federal, state, and local governments. The formula for distribution is not a matter for executive discretion; it is determined by the National Assembly upon the advice of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission. To unilaterally redirect fifty percent of revenue to states, twenty percent to a Federation Account, fifteen percent to zones, and fifteen percent to a National Trust Fund is to rewrite Nigeria’s fiscal constitution without following the prescribed procedure.
Yet here is the most reckless aspect of this entire exercise: while the National Assembly has not even commenced the constitutional amendment process required to give these zones legal existence, the Federal Government has already allocated billions of naira across these unconstitutional zones. The 2026 budget reveals staggering amounts carved along zonal lines—N160 billion for road construction in the South-West, N120 billion each to the South-South and North-West, N100 billion each to the South-East, North-East, and North-Central zones. The government is operating these zones administratively, distributing funds to them, and only now deigns to seek constitutional cover. This is the very definition of putting the cart before the horse—spending the people’s money on structures the Constitution does not recognise and which have no legal basis. This reckless overreach must be challenged as a fundamental violation of the appropriation and constitutional amendment processes.
And looming ominously on the horizon is the final, most dangerous act in this tragic drama: tenure elongation. Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele, the same senator who rushed the National Anthem Bill through the National Assembly without public hearing, has publicly announced his intention to sponsor a constitutional amendment bill seeking a single six-year term for the President and Governors after the 2027 general elections. Bamidele argues that the current two-term system compels officeholders to “waste almost one and a half years of your first term thinking and struggling and looking forward to how you’ll be re-elected.” Nigerians know this game. In 2006, the failed “third-term” agenda sought to extend President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure beyond the constitutionally guaranteed two terms. Today, nothing has changed. Across Africa, tenure elongation starts this way—with a seemingly benign proposal that gradually accumulates power in the hands of the executive. As the Punch Editorial Board has warned, “In Africa, despotism begins with little, innocuous steps like changing term limits midstream.” The pattern is unmistakable: first you dismantle the economy, then you dismantle the constitution, then you dismantle term limits. This is the playbook of authoritarianism, and we are watching it unfold in real time. Bamidele has made his intention clear, and given the National Assembly’s track record of rubber-stamping executive priorities, Nigerians must brace themselves for this looming assault to be executed with the same contempt for due process that characterised the anthem debacle, the state police proposal, and the preemptive funding of unconstitutional zones.
Where is the National Assembly in all of this? The 10th National Assembly has proven itself the most supine, the most servile, the most constitutionally inept legislature in Nigeria’s history. The moment that best captured this institutional degradation occurred on November 29, 2023, when members of the National Assembly, instead of rising in dignified silence during President Tinubu’s budget presentation, broke into chants of “On Your Mandate We Shall Stand.” A tracking exercise between June 2023 and June 2024 found that fifty-three National Assembly members made zero contributions to debates, bill sponsorships, motions, or petitions. This is the legislative body that Nigerians trusted to protect their constitution, their democracy, and their future. It has betrayed that trust utterly.
Should any of these proposals be challenged in court, the outcome is predictable. The Supreme Court has demonstrated a robust commitment to constitutionalism, as seen in its landmark ruling on local government autonomy, where it declared it unconstitutional for state governors to retain or manage funds allocated to local government councils. The Court has consistently held that an executive order circumventing constitutional text would itself be unconstitutional, regardless of its noble objectives. Any litigant would have strong grounds to challenge these proposals on multiple fronts: the President lacks constitutional authority to restructure the federation, the Bills bypass Section 8 and Section 9 requirements, and the proposals create structures and powers not recognised by the Constitution. The Supreme Court would likely strike down these unconstitutional measures in their entirety.
The Geo-Political Zones Bill 2026, as presented, is constitutionally dead on arrival. It violates multiple provisions of the 1999 Constitution, bypasses the rigorous amendment procedures prescribed by Sections 8 and 9, and arrogates to the Executive powers that the Constitution vests exclusively in the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly. Whatever the merits of restructuring Nigeria’s federal architecture, they must be pursued through the constitutional amendment process. There are no shortcuts. The Constitution is not a suggestion; it is the supreme law of the land, and its provisions bind all authorities and persons in Nigeria.
The sponsors of this Bill, and the supine National Assembly that has enabled this administration’s assault on our constitutional order, would do well to pursue reform through lawful means. Anything less is not reform; it is revolution by executive decree. And history will judge harshly those who stood by while the constitution was dismantled piece by piece, from fuel subsidy to naira devaluation to the unconstitutional anthem change to state police to the preemptive funding of unconstitutional zones to state creation to the looming tenure elongation. This is the most dangerous journey this country has undertaken since independence, and it must be stopped before it reaches its tragic destination.
