By Dan Amor
To all intents and purposes, the raging war in the South South
geopolitical zone between irate militants and the security forces is needless
and avoidable. Unfortunately, Niger Delta youths have once again played their
much-abused region which, ironically, produces the wealth of the nation, into
the willing hands of the establishment under the watch of a central government
with an unstated or hidden agenda to totally exterminate the goose that lays
the golden egg from the face of the earth. Even while the region was yet
relatively peaceful, when the reawakened restiveness had not reached
fever-pitch, President Muhammadu Buhari, even in his inaugural speech alluded
to how he would combat and defeat Boko Haram and Niger Delta militants. One can
then safely assume that the current war is directly or indirectly orchestrated
by the powers that be just to create room for them to execute their plan
against the region.
(pix: amnesty) |
Yet, a fact too potent to be disputed, is that the deepening grouse
of the people of the oil rich Niger Delta has largely gravitated to the growing
consciousness that what the Nigerian state and the international monopoly oil
companies take from their soil is not commensurate with what they give in
terms of provision of social amenities, quality of life and the maintenance of
a delicate balance between the human being and the natural environment. While
not supporting the wanton destruction of major oil installations in the Niger
Delta and its concomitant degradation of the national economy, reason, no
doubt, resides in this claim of neglect, which has further been justified and
accentuated by the predatory disposition of some of the oil companies with the
collaborative instincts of successive Nigerian governments over the years.
Most of these governments were military dictatorships lacking the requisite
legitimacy, sufficient political will and constitutional mandate to protect the
people and their environment.
As at Tuesday this week (May 31, 2016), the Senate and House of
Representatives joint committee on Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC),
had issued bench warrant on seven oil companies operating in the Niger Delta
region for failing to appear before a public hearing to defend themselves over
allegation of non-remittance of statutory funds to the commission for the
development of the region. That is how the multinational oil companies have
been treating with levity issues relating to the development of the region due
to their disdain for the laws of the land. Attitudes of successive Nigerian
governments actually created a dangerous class-a totally frustrated
population- who now see the multinational oil companies and government as
conspirators in the unholy and rapacious plot to drive them permanently out of
their ancestral homes in order to have free reign out the oil. Former
president Olusegun Obasanjo was spending N200million daily to maintain the
Joint Task Force in the region whereas the people were dying from hunger and
want. The persistent Niger Delta crisis is therefore an economic process
caught in a political web.
At this critical stage of our national effort at moving away from a
repressive and provocative military hangover to a more humane and democratic
civil order, it is exceedingly disturbing that the nation is yet to be blessed
with leaders with democratic temperament and resolute political will to
appreciate the principles of cooperative federalism as a way forward. Again,
while not endorsing the use of violence and vandalization of facilities to
press for the demands of the people of the Niger Delta, it is instructive to
note that the crisis in the oil rich region is now a reality the Nigerian
leadership most resolve most decisively on the side of equity and Justice. I
say this because the present unrest in the region is a culmination of their
clamour for social justice and equitable distribution of the national wealth
coming from oil. It was this singular reason that gave rise to the Isaac Adaka
Boro saga of the mid-1960s. It cannot also be ruled out as the remote cause of
the agitation of the Oginis in the mid 1990s that led to the state murder of
Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight Ogoni compatriots.
The agitation by people of the Niger Delta for resource control and
the concomitant support of other zones in the country symbolizes a demand for
true federalism in Nigeria .
They are asking for equitable derivation principle of the national revenue
emanating from crude oil which is exploited from their land and there is no
justification for denying them this inalienable right. Not even the obnoxious
Land Use Decree of 1978 can be evoked to deny an owner of a piece of land
whatever is in or above the land. The legal maxim of: “quid quid plantatur solo solo cedet”, still holds sway as an
integral part of the common law system all over the world. To subvert that rule
is to tamper with natural justice. What is more, our legal system recognises
adequate compensation for trespass. What this boils down to is that the clamour
for resource control or for equitable derivation formula of the national
revenue is synonymous with a demand for adequate compensation which must be
heeded to.
You will recall that in the 2005 National Constitutional Conference
hosted by the government of former president Olusegun Obasanjo in which South
South delegates made a strong case for an acceptable fifty per cent derivation
formula for the oil producing states, a tiny, parasitic fraction of Northern
elders quipped that even 17 per cent derivation to the Niger Delta was
“excessive generosity”. What magnitude of insult, provocation and virulence! It
is unfortunate that rather than proceed to some penitence, those who have held
this country hostage for too long, those who are openly associated with this
orchestrated process of domination and exploitation, are still making
provocative statements even in what they term “a democratic dispensation”.
Ironically, these same pleasure-seeking leaders know that before the discovery
of oil in the Niger Delta, Kano alone produced
groundnuts that adequately bankrolled the cost of developing the entire
Northern region in the First
Republic . Yet, the
country has been overtly focused on oil without caring any hoot about what
becomes of the oil producing areas if the oil wells eventually dry up.
Nor do these Northern leaders bother about the fact that widespread
gas flaring and oil spillage have inflicted incalculable havoc on human, plant
and animal life in the Niger Delta. The position of the North is unfortunately
borne out of its long tradition of presiding over the free for all looting of
the oil wealth on account of its producing all the military rulers who have
misled Nigeria
these past miserable years. But they must note that the country is currently
under a democratic dispensation and thus must divest itself of the gun power
exuberance and arrogance that characterized military rule in the past. There
is ample need for the nation to dialogue with the aggrieved and afflicted
people of the Niger Delta for peace to reign. Nigerians must continue to insist
on justice and fairness because no one knows whose turn it might be tomorrow.
President Buhari should be advised to perish any thought of stopping the Maritime University idea and the amnesty
programme in the Niger Delta. And the country must be returned to the derivation
principle collectively arrived at in the 1960s which was based on 50 per cent
formula. In our collective interest, this issue must be resolved amicably. And
justifiably so!
*Dan Amor
is an Abuja-based public affairs analyst (danamor98@gmail.com)
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