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| *Olisa Agbakoba (pix: vanguard) |
Mr.
Olisa Agbakoba has filed a Fundamental Rights Class Action against the
Federal Republic of Nigeria for himself and on behalf of the South East Zone
on grounds of discrimination pursuant to Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution.
This action was by Originating Summons supported by an affidavit of 99
paragraphs and a statement. The grounds of Mr. Agbakoba’s application are
summarized as follows;
(a) Total neglect of the Applicant’s Geopolitical Zone
by the 1st Respondent in terms of infrastructure and general federal presence
making the Applicant feel not part of the 1st Respondent.
(b) Abandonment of
the Niger Bridge to collapse and failure to build the ‘Second Niger Bridge’
making the Applicant feel isolated from other parts of 1stRespondent and
causing him apprehension about disaster on crossing the existing bridge.
(c)
Abandonment of Federal Roads, which are death traps and robbery baits and
occasioning and constraining on the Applicant grueling road journeys within
the Geopolitical Zone. Failure to develop strategic new roads especially the
Anam-Nzam Federal Road linking the South-East with the North-Central at Idah
in Kogi State to give the Applicant easy access to the northern part of
Nigeria.
(d) Failure to exploit the Oil/Gas Reserves in the Anambra Basin
and stalling the Applicant’s legitimate expectation from employment and
derivation funds for development of the Applicant’s South-East Zone.
(e)
Abandonment of the Enugu Colliery and depriving the Applicant of his
legitimate expectation from employment and derivation funds for the
development of the Applicant’s South-East Zone.
(f) Failure to develop
trade-friendly ports and customs policies and establish ‘ease-of-business’
platforms to assist the Applicant’s trading brothers and sisters to do better
and operate on a higher and modern scale in trading, which makes the
Applicant to spend money to support relatives.
(g) Failure to have an
operational international cargo airport at Owerri to aid trading, which
causes the Applicant to spend huge sums of money to support trading relatives
to haul airborne goods by road from Lagos, , with the attendant risks.
(h)
Failure to dredge the Lower Niger and establish a Port at Onitsha to aid
trading which causes the Applicant to spend huge sums of money to support trading
relatives to haul seaborne goods by road from Port Harcourt or Lagos, with
the attendant risks.
(i) Disparity in States structure which puts the
Applicant’s South-East Zone behind every other Geopolitical Zone in political
and judicial appointments and representation at the National Assembly, as
well as in revenue allocation.
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| *Buhari |
(j) Foisting low revenue allocation status on
the Applicant’s South-East Zone as a result of failure to exploit Oil/Gas and
Coal and as a result of the said structural imbalance.
(k) Over-policing and
police menacing of the South-East with alarming number of police
‘check-points’ at which massive extortion of billions of naira annually go
on, even while violent crimes continue as if there were no police operatives.
(L) Abandoning the South-East to be swallowed up by erosion; failing to
respond to calls to check widening gullies in the South-East, especially in
Agulu, Nanka and Obosi all in Anambra
State, which have
claimed expansive farmlands and homelands and leveled homes, displacing
people. The reliefs sought are:
1. A
DECLARATION that the Structural Composition of the States in the
1st Respondent in this distribution: North-West, Seven States; North-Central,
Six States; North-East, Six States; South-West, Six States; South-South, Six
States; and South-East, Five States; creates a structural imbalance against
the Applicant and the Group/Class he represents to their political and
economic disadvantage in federal legislative representation,
ministerial/political and judicial appointments, and revenue allocation
contrary to Section 14(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria 1999, which requires reflection of federal character in conduct of
public affairs, and accordingly a violation of Section 42 of the Constitution
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, which prohibits discrimination
against the Applicant and the Group/Class represented based on Ethnic
Grouping and place of origin
2.A
DECLARATION that in view of the provisions of Section 162(2) Constitution of
the Federal Republic Nigeria 1999, which prescribes not less than 13% of
federal allocation accruing directly from natural resources to be paid to the
area from where such is derived, the neglect by the 1st Respondent of the huge
Coal reserves under the rocky hills of Enugu and the environs in relation to
the Applicant and the Group/Class he represents, of its exclusive
responsibility by Item 39 in
the Exclusive Legislative List, Part I Second Schedule of the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, to extract the said coal deposits in
commercial quantity in accordance with Section 16(2)(b)of the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, while extracting solid minerals in
other Geopolitical Zones, is discriminatory and a violation of Section 42 of
the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
3. A
DECLARATION that in view of the provisions of Section 162(2) Constitution of
the Federal Republic Nigeria 1999, which prescribes not less than 13% of
federal allocation accruing directly from natural resources to be paid to the
area from where same is derived, the neglect by the 1stRespondent of the huge
Oil/Gas reserves in the Anambra Basin in relation to the Applicant and the
Group/Class he represents, of its exclusive responsibility under Item 39 in the Exclusive Legislative
List, Part I Second Schedule of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria 1999, to extract the same Oil/Gas for commercial purpose in
accordance with Section 16(2)(b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria 1999, while extracting and exploring same in other Geopolitical
Zones, is discriminatory and a violation of Section 42 of the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
4. A
DECLARATION that the neglect by the 1st Respondent of the Federal Roads in
the South-East Geopolitical Zone, the neglect of the Niger Bridge which is
nearing collapse and failure to put in place a Second Niger Bridge to connect
the South-East with other parts of the 1st Respondent, in accordance with
Section 15(3)(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999,
when the 1st Respondent does so in other Geopolitical Zones, is contrary to
Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
5. A
DECLARATION that the over-policing of the South-East highways with numerous
check-points by operatives of the 1st Respondent’s Nigeria Police Force (NPF)
at every stretch of road wherein sums in excess of N9 Billion annually are
extorted from the South-East people, while kidnapping and other crimes still
go on unchecked in violation of Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999; when such extortion and high level of crime
are not obtainable in any other Geopolitical Zone, is discriminatory and a
violation of the provisions of Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria 1999.
6. A
DECLARATION that the 1st Respondent’s failure to develop friendly ports and
customs policies to assist traders from the South-East Geopolitical Zone to
do better in trading and on higher scale; failure to have an operational
international cargo airport at Owerri to aid trading and failure to dredge
the Lower Niger and establish a Port at Onitsha to aid trading, in accordance
with its constitutional obligations under Section 15(4), 16(1)(a) and (2)(a)
and 17(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, when
it responds to the people of other Geopolitical Zones in respect of their
areas of strength in the economic map of the 1st Respondent, are
discriminatory acts which violate Section 42 of the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
7. A
DECLARATION that the poor revenue allocation rate foisted on the South-East
Geopolitical Zone by the 1st Respondent as a result of failure to exploit
Oil/Gas and Coal in the Zone and as a result of the structural imbalance of
the States in the South-East vis-à-vis other Geopolitical Zones where the
1st Respondent is mandated under Section 16(2)(a) of the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 to promote “a planned and balanced economic
development”, is discriminatory and contrary to the fundamental right of the
Applicant guaranteed by Section 42(1) of the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria 1999.
8. A
DECLARATION that the worsening menace of Erosion in the South-East Zone
generally and in particular in Agulu, Nanka and Obosi in Anambra State, under
the watch and neglect of the 1st Respondent, who responds to similar or
less-threatening ecological problems in other Zones with dispatch and commitment,
is discriminatory and a violation of the fundamental right of the Applicant
and the Group/Class represented guaranteed under Section 42 of the
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
9. AN
ORDER directing the 1st Respondent to forthwith prepare and release for
immediate execution a comprehensive South-East Development Master Plan (SEDM)
for urgent turn-around of the infrastructure in the South-East Geopolitical
Zone, and the phased execution of such Master plan to be pursued with dispatch
and vigour; which Master Plan must include immediate relief in the following
identified areas of neglect:
(a) Complete overhauling of all Federal Highways
in the Zone and designing and construction of new ones, including the
Anam-Nzam Federal Roadblinking the South-East with the North-Central at Idah
in Kogi State
(b) Exploration of Oil/Gas Reserves in the Anambra Basin
(c)
Reinvigoration of modernized mining activities in Enugu (d) Re-engineering of
Niger Bridge at Onitsha and construction of a Second Niger Bridge at Onitsha
(e) Dredging of the Lower Niger and construction of a Lighter Berth at
Onitsha, and (f) Developing a modern international cargo airport in the
Eastern Heartland at Owerri
10.
AN ORDER directing the 1st Respondent to forthwith prepare and send to the
National Assembly for enactment, a bill to establish the South-East
Development Commission (SEDC) and for ancillary matters, which body shall be
charged with the execution of the said Master plan and the general
development of the South-East Geopolitical Zone.
11.
AN ORDER directing the 1st Respondent to forthwith put all its machinery,
including but not limited to legal and political apparatus, in motion, with a
view to urgently creating TWO ADDITIONAL STATES in the South-East Geopolitical
Zone to balance with the Seven States in the North-West, and thereby bring to
an end the discriminatory practices against the South-East Geopolitical Zone
in terms of legislative representation, political and judicial appointments
and net federal allocation accruing to the Geopolitical Zone.
12.
AN ORDER directing the 1st Respondent to take immediate steps to check the
excessively aggressive and nefarious, yet ineffective policing of the
South-East Geopolitical Zone and putting an end to the extortion going on at
the ubiquitous police check-points on the highways in the South-East
Geopolitical Zone.
13.
PERPETUAL INJUNCTION restrainingthe 1st Respondent, whether by itself, its
agents, servants or privies, or otherwise howsoever from further acts of
discrimination against the Applicant or any member of the Group/Class
represented.
14.
GENERAL DAMAGES in the sum of N1,000,000,000,000 (One Trillion Naira) against
the 1st Respondent to be shared among the Five States of the South-East
Geopolitical Zone. The key arguments in support of the application are
contained in the written brief to the summons. Section 42 of the constitution
provide thus; (1) A citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic
group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion shall not, by
reason only that he is such a person:- (a) be subjected either expressly by,
or in the practical application of, government, to disabilities or
restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic
groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political opinions are not made
subject; or (b) be accorded either expressly by, or in the practical
application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any such executive or
administrative action, any privilege or advantage that is not accorded to
citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin,
sex, religion or political opinions. (2) No citizen of Nigeria shall
be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of the
circumstances of his birth. Mr. Agbakoba’s main point is that everyone is
entitled to equal treatment.
The
application was filed at the Federal High Court Enugu and is pending before
Mr. Justice A.R. Mohammed. You can receive further information from the
Counsel to Mr. Olisa Agbakoba SAN Mr. Olisa Agbakoba has filed a Fundamental
Rights Class Action against the Federal Republic of Nigeria for himself and
on behalf of the South East Zone on grounds of discrimination pursuant to
Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution. This action was by Originating Summons
supported by an affidavit of 99 paragraphs and a statement. The grounds of
Mr. Agbakoba’s application are summarized as follows;
(a) Total neglect of
the Applicant’s Geopolitical Zone by the 1st Respondent in terms of
infrastructure and general federal presence making the Applicant feel not
part of the 1st Respondent.
(b) Abandonment of the Niger Bridge to collapse
and failure to build the ‘Second Niger Bridge’ making the Applicant feel
isolated from other parts of 1stRespondent and causing him apprehension about
disaster on crossing the existing bridge.
(c) Abandonment of Federal Roads,
which are death traps and robbery baits and occasioning and constraining on
the Applicant grueling road journeys within the Geopolitical Zone. Failure to
develop strategic new roads especially the Anam-Nzam Federal Road linking the
South-East with the North-Central at Idah in Kogi State to give the Applicant
easy access to the northern part of Nigeria.
(d) Failure to exploit the
Oil/Gas Reserves in the Anambra
Basin and stalling the
Applicant’s legitimate expectation from employment and derivation funds for
development of the Applicant’s South-East Zone.
(e) Abandonment of the Enugu
Colliery and depriving the Applicant of his legitimate expectation from
employment and derivation funds for the development of the Applicant’s
South-East Zone.
(f) Failure to develop trade-friendly ports and customs
policies and establish ‘ease-of-business’ platforms to assist the Applicant’s
trading brothers and sisters to do better and operate on a higher and modern
scale in trading, which makes the Applicant to spend money to support
relatives.
(g) Failure to have an operational international cargo airport at
Owerri to aid trading, which causes the Applicant to spend huge sums of money
to support trading relatives to haul airborne goods by road from Lagos, , with
the attendant risks.
(h) Failure to dredge the Lower Niger and establish a
Port at Onitsha to aid trading which causes the Applicant to spend huge sums
of money to support trading relatives to haul seaborne goods by road from
Port Harcourt or Lagos, with the attendant risks.
(i) Disparity in States
structure which puts the Applicant’s South-East Zone behind every other
Geopolitical Zone in political and judicial appointments and representation
at the National Assembly, as well as in revenue allocation.
(j) Foisting low
revenue allocation status on the Applicant’s South-East Zone as a result of
failure to exploit Oil/Gas and Coal and as a result of the said structural
imbalance.
(k) Over-policing and police menacing of the South-East with
alarming number of police ‘check-points’ at which massive extortion of
billions of naira annually go on, even while violent crimes continue as if
there were no police operatives.
(L) Abandoning the South-East to be
swallowed up by erosion; failing to respond to calls to check widening
gullies in the South-East, especially in Agulu, Nanka and Obosi all in Anambra State, which have claimed expansive
farmlands and homelands and leveled homes, displacing people. The reliefs
sought are:
1. A
DECLARATION that the Structural Composition of the States in the
1st Respondent in this distribution: North-West, Seven States; North-Central,
Six States; North-East, Six States; South-West, Six States; South-South, Six
States; and South-East, Five States; creates a structural imbalance against
the Applicant and the Group/Class he represents to their political and
economic disadvantage in federal legislative representation,
ministerial/political and judicial appointments, and revenue allocation
contrary to Section 14(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria 1999, which requires reflection of federal character in conduct of
public affairs, and accordingly a violation of Section 42 of the Constitution
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, which prohibits discrimination against
the Applicant and the Group/Class represented based on Ethnic Grouping and
place of origin.
2. A
DECLARATION that in view of the provisions of Section 162(2) Constitution of
the Federal Republic Nigeria 1999, which prescribes not less than 13% of
federal allocation accruing directly from natural resources to be paid to the
area from where such is derived, the neglect by the 1stRespondent of the huge
Coal reserves under the rocky hills of Enugu and the environs in relation to
the Applicant and the Group/Class he represents, of its exclusive
responsibility by Item 39 in
the Exclusive Legislative List, Part I Second Schedule of the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, to extract the said coal deposits in
commercial quantity in accordance with Section 16(2)(b) of the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, while extracting solid minerals in
other Geopolitical Zones, is discriminatory and a violation of Section 42 of
the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
3. A DECLARATION that in
view of the provisions of Section 162(2) Constitution of the Federal Republic
Nigeria 1999, which prescribes not less than 13% of federal allocation
accruing directly from natural resources to be paid to the area from where
same is derived, the neglect by the 1st Respondent of the huge Oil/Gas
reserves in the Anambra Basin in relation to the Applicant and the
Group/Class he represents, of its exclusive responsibility under Item 39 in the Exclusive
Legislative List, Part I Second Schedule of the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria 1999, to extract the same Oil/Gas for commercial purpose
in accordance with Section 16(2)(b) of the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria 1999, while extracting and exploring same in other Geopolitical
Zones, is discriminatory and a violation of Section 42 of the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
4. A DECLARATION that the neglect by the 1st
Respondent of the Federal Roads in the South-East Geopolitical Zone, the
neglect of the Niger Bridge which is nearing collapse and failure to put in
place a Second Niger Bridge to connect the South-East with other parts of the
1st Respondent, in accordance with Section 15(3)(a) of the Constitution of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, when the 1stRespondent does so in other
Geopolitical Zones, is contrary to Section 42 of the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
5. A DECLARATION that the over-policing of
the South-East highways with numerous check-points by operatives of the
1st Respondent’s Nigeria Police Force (NPF) at every stretch of road wherein
sums in excess of N9 Billion annually are extorted from the South-East
people, while kidnapping and other crimes still go on unchecked in violation
of Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
1999; when such extortion and high level of crime are not obtainable in any
other Geopolitical Zone, is discriminatory and a violation of the provisions
of Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
6. A DECLARATION that the
1st Respondent’s failure to develop friendly ports and customs policies to
assist traders from the South-East Geopolitical Zone to do better in trading
and on higher scale; failure to have an operational international cargo
airport at Owerri to aid trading and failure to dredge the Lower Niger and
establish a Port at Onitsha to aid trading, in accordance with its
constitutional obligations under Section 15(4), 16(1)(a) and (2)(a) and 17(3)
of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, when it responds
to the people of other Geopolitical Zones in respect of their areas of
strength in the economic map of the 1st Respondent, are discriminatory acts
which violate Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria 1999.
7. A
DECLARATION that the poor revenue allocation rate foisted on the South-East
Geopolitical Zone by the 1st Respondent as a result of failure to exploit
Oil/Gas and Coal in the Zone and as a result of the structural imbalance of
the States in the South-East vis-à-vis other Geopolitical Zones where the
1stRespondent is mandated under Section 16(2)(a) of the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 to promote “a planned and balanced economic
development”, is discriminatory and contrary to the fundamental right of the
Applicant guaranteed by Section 42(1) of the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria 1999.
8.
A DECLARATION that the worsening menace of Erosion in
the South-East Zone generally and in particular in Agulu, Nanka and Obosi in
Anambra State, under the watch and neglect of the 1st Respondent, who
responds to similar or less-threatening ecological problems in other Zones
with dispatch and commitment, is discriminatory and a violation of the fundamental
right of the Applicant and the Group/Class represented guaranteed under
Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999.
9. AN
ORDER directing the 1st Respondent to forthwith prepare and release for
immediate execution a comprehensive South-East Development Master Plan (SEDM)
forurgent turn-around of the infrastructure in the South-East Geopolitical
Zone, and the phased execution of such Master plan to be pursued with
dispatch and vigour; which Master Plan must include immediate relief in the
following identified areas of neglect:
(a) Complete overhauling of all
Federal Highways in the Zone and designing and construction of new ones,
including the Anam-Nzam Federal Roadlinking the South-East with the
North-Central at Idah in Kogi State
(b) Exploration of Oil/Gas Reserves in
the Anambra Basin
(c) Reinvigoration of modernized mining activities in Enugu
(d) Re-engineering of Niger Bridge at Onitsha and construction of a Second
Niger Bridge at Onitsha
(e) Dredging of the Lower Niger and construction of a
Lighter Berth at Onitsha, and
(f) Developing a modern international cargo
airport in the Eastern Heartland at Owerri
10. AN ORDER directing the 1st
Respondent to forthwith prepare and send to the National Assembly for
enactment, a bill to establish the South-East Development Commission (SEDC)
and for ancillary matters, which body shall be charged with the execution of
the said Master plan and the general development of the South-East
Geopolitical Zone.
11. AN ORDER directing the 1st Respondent to forthwith put
all its machinery, including but not limited to legal and political
apparatus, in motion, with a view to urgently creating TWO ADDITIONAL STATES
in the South-East Geopolitical Zone to balance with the Seven States in the
North-West, and thereby bring to an end the discriminatory practices against
the South-East Geopolitical Zone in terms of legislative representation,
political and judicial appointments and net federal allocation accruing to
the Geopolitical Zone.
12. AN ORDER directing the 1st Respondent to take
immediate steps to check the excessively aggressive and nefarious, yet
ineffective policing of the South-East Geopolitical Zone and putting an end
to the extortion going on at the ubiquitous police check-points on the highways
in the South-East Geopolitical Zone.
13. PERPETUAL INJUNCTION restrainingthe
1st Respondent, whether by itself, its agents, servants or privies, or
otherwise howsoever from further acts of discrimination against the Applicant
or any member of the Group/Class represented.
14. GENERAL DAMAGES in the sum
ofN1,000,000,000,000 (One Trillion Naira) against the 1st Respondent to be
shared among the Five States of the South-East Geopolitical Zone. The key
arguments in support of the application are contained in the written brief to
the summons. Section 42 of the constitution provide thus;
(1) A citizen of
Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex,
religion or political opinion shall not, by reason only that he is such a
person:-
(a) be subjected either expressly by, or in the practical
application of, government, to disabilities or restrictions to which citizens
of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex,
religions or political opinions are not made subject; or
(b) be accorded
either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in
Nigeria or any such executive or administrative action, any privilege or
advantage that is not accorded to citizens of Nigeria of other communities,
ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religion or political opinions.
(2) No
citizen of Nigeria
shall be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of the
circumstances of his birth. Mr. Agbakoba’s main point is that everyone is
entitled to equal treatment.
The application was filed at the Federal High
Court Enugu and is pending before Mr. Justice A.R. Mohammed. You can receive
further information from the Counsel to Mr. Olisa Agbakoba SAN
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