A claim has emerged from leader of INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Primate Elijah Ayodele, who said that President Bola Tinubu will relocate the nation’s capital from Abuja back to Lagos, if he is declared winner of the 2027 general elections.
Primate Ayodele made this statement in a video posted on X, according to a report in Daily Post.
President Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), is seeking a second term in the elections.
Primate Ayodele said: “Lagos architecture will change. You may not see this one very seriously, but if Tinubu wins the second time, the capital of Nigeria will be relocated to Lagos. When this happens, the capital can be in Epe or Lekki or anywhere at all in Lagos.”
But the feasibility of Primate Ayodele’s prophecy has come under scrutiny because it would require a constitutional amendment for the claim to come to pass.
People&Politics notes that following the April 22, 1990 failed military coup led by now-executed Lt. Col. Gideon Orkar, the then military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, ordered immediate movement of the nation’s capital from Lagos to Abuja –a transition finalized on 12 December, 1991.
Among the reasons cited was the apparent over-congestion of Lagos resulting in immense human suffering and unbearable gridlocks, chopping off huge production man-hours and making the nation lose daily billions in terms of possible revenue.
Before then, however, the Justice Akinola Aguda Panel set up by the Federal Military Government of General Murtala Mohammed (now late) in 1976 to examine the possibility of a new capital and pick a site for same, had recommended Abuja as new capital,but successive governments were slow in implementing the recommendation due to the heavy costs involved and sheer inconvenience it would entail, Abuja being at the time a near-virgin land space. Movement to the proposed capital was therefore, executed in bits.
However, to give legal teeth to its status, ahead the advent of the Fourth Republic in 1999, Abuja as new capital was legitimized and cemented by its insertion into the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
People&Politics notes that Chapter 8, Part 1, Section 297 of the 1999 Constitution says: “There shall be a Federal Capital Territory, Abuja the boundaries of which are as defined in Part II of the First Schedule of this Constitution.”
Furthermore, for a constitutional amendment to relocate the capital back to Lagos, it would literally take a battle in the National Assembly and many parts of the country, especially the far North, Middle Belt, and even the South-East and South-South; in effect three-quarters of the country, for such feat to be accomplished.
Going by the 1999 Constitution, People&Politics checks showed, constitutional amendment on any issue requires a two-thirds or four-fifths majority vote in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Also, there must be approval by at least 24 of the 36 State Houses of Assembly, and the assent of the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria.
These come down to the importance of sheer numbers in deciding if such amendment is possible.
This is because, of the 469 total members of the National Assembly, 207 are from the North-East, North-West and North-Central geopolitical zones, which make up the far North and Middle Belt.
Abuja is centrally located in the country,but is sited in the North-Central, thus giving sundry proximate benefits to the Middle Belt and far North, even as Lagos did for the South-Westerners when it served as the nation’s capital.
The 207 Senators and House of Representatives members from the far North and Middle Belt form close to half the total number of the nation’s lawmakers.
Prodded by their agitated peoples, the lawmakers are bound to vote against any such amendment to relocate from Abuja.
Support for their position on the matter will likely come from some, not all, lawmakers from the South-South and South-East zones –for various reasons, but not excluding the alleged forcible disenfranchisement of their peoples by thugs hired by powerful Abuja-based politicians of South-West origin from voting in post-2023 elections in Lagos State.
Political watchers say, in effect, any such attempt to relocate the capital back to Lagos will most likely trigger a national political crisis the gravity of which the country has not experienced since 1999.
