Rep Queries North’s 80% Oil Bloc Ownership …Charges N’Delta On Resource Control

As the controversy over call for new revenue formula rages, Vice Chairman of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Customs, Hon Kingsley Chinda says there is no basis for such review.

According to him, Northerners, who are agitating for the upward review in their favour, own between 75% and 80% of the country’s oil blocs as against Niger Deltans’ less than three per cent ownership.

Hon Chinda said rather than increasing the allocation to the North, any such review of the country’s revenue formula should be in favour of the Niger Delta region that produces the oil and viewed the position of the North as a ‘wake-up call’ for resource control.

Speaking with The Tide recently in Abuja, Chinda, who represents Obio/Akpor Federal Constituency, called for a reversal of the ownership of the oil blocs in the country, describing the North’s dominance as injustice, which, he said, is ‘unacceptable; questioning why Niger Deltans should continue to receive ‘13% derivation and 87% deprivation’ till date.

Chinda picked holes in the North’s argument that Niger Delta states benefit more from oil, saying “facts revealed that individually, non-Niger Deltans enjoy more of the resource from oil, as a list of owners of oil blocs in the country reveals about 75-80% from the North and less than three percent from the Niger Delta.

“This is completely unacceptable and must be reversed now that the issue of revenue derivation has been brought to the fore front by the North themselves.

“I will say that it (the North’s call for review of  the revenue formula) is a wake up call on the South-South, particularly the Niger Delta, that we ought to claim  our constitutional, and, infact, natural right to resource.

“It’s a call to conscientise us what we must ask at this point is: “Why accept 13% derivation and 87% deprivation?

“It must be noted too that the constitution did not state that derivation should be 13% but that it should be a minimum of 13%. Why must we accept the  minimum? It would be 100% which is the maximum. I will therefore call on all oil-producing states to see this as an opportunity to redress  the economic anomaly that exists in our polity”, he said.

said this in Abuja while inaugurating the Advisory Council of Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation and the call was supported by t he North’s socio-cultural organization, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF).

On the “current reality”, China said what is the current reality? The Geese that lays the golden egg is neglected and impoverished and is gradually dying, we need to heal it. “I call for an intellectual struggle to unshackle the Niger Delta from the Nigerian bondage, our people are living in penury, our cities are degraded. It is becoming clearer that we don’t have a Nigerian nation but a marriage of convenience between various nations”.

Justus Awaji, Abuja