Nigeria: Derivation - How North Bullied South to Submission

4 June 2014
opinion

YOU have to hand it to the North. Knowing the extent of the Niger Delta's sense of injustice through the unconscionable expropriation of its nature-given oil and gas wealth, and knowing that just nine years ago the South-South delegates to General Obasanjo's constitutional conference walked out of proceedings rather than accept a derivation formula of less than 25%, the Northern delegates to President Jonathan's National Conference insisted on not only reducing the laughable 13% already entrenched in the 1999 military constitution to 5% (that's right, FIVE percent) but also on wiping out any other grudging concession. Mounted atop the high horse of power they know how to ride so well, they presented their Southern counterparts a choice: accept 5 % or accept a reinstatement of the onshore-offshore dichotomy in the calibration of oil output,give up the Niger Delta Development Commission, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, and the amnesty programme.

It was yet another brazen act of political arrogance writ large. So when I saw the headline: "Why we agreed to retain 13% derivation," attributed to Obong Victor Attah, a resource control stalwart and co-chairman of the devolution of powers committee at the conference, I read it attentively. Only to be deeply disappointed.

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