Avarice, Greed On Wheels …That Opposition To Derivation Review

When, more than three years ago, this column averred that the economic undertone behind the Boko Haram-inspired insurgency in the North East of Nigeria was to attract Federal attention as did the Niger Delta, some pundits described the work as alarmist. Today, everything points towards that direction.
From an ill-conceived ideology that Western education is evil, to attempt to Islamise the North, and if possible Nigeria, to outlawing education for the girl-child, in preference for early marriage, the Boko Haram campaign of horror have always lacked any clearly discernable grievance befitting national discuss.
But because the North’s real grouse was against the amnesty granted Niger Delta militants and the creation of a Niger Delta Ministry, some Northern elements would rather the insurgency in the North East zone continued. To achieve that they secretly fund the activities of Boko Haram at night and condemn the senseless blood-letting and wanton destruction of property, by day.
The kidnap of the over 200 children from Chibok School accidentally provided more than enough opportunity to attract both national and international attention to their self-inflicted orgy of violence in the North East and parts of the North.
But what has indeed exposed the hitherto secret agenda is the not-too-strange clamour by Northern delegates at the National Conference for an appropriation of five per cent of National resources for the rebuilding of the three Northern zones. This is a condition if they are to support the genuine demand of the oil producing states in the Niger Delta region for either an upward review of the 13 per cent derivation allocation or endorse total resources control.
Ordinarily, a demand for such upward review by oil producing states in the on-going National Conference should not be seen as an attempt to favour the Niger Delta region. Marginalised, under-developed and grossly undermined, the area accounted for more than 80 per cent of national earnings for well over forty years.
There were, and still are environmental concerns with lands, swamps and rivers virtually dead on account of systemic pollution. The peoples’ time-tested occupations of fishing and farming are almost comatose because the yields are nothing to depend on.
In the face of all these, the youth remain largely unemployed, while the gullible girl-child is forced into early prostitution by oil company workers with means. Potable drinking water, electricity supply and motorable roads remained a mirage. But each time civil protests were made the state’s reaction was always that something was in the pipeline for the people.
So, from years of civil protests and political appeals, the Niger Delta agitation changed to resource control campaign. With the attendant disruption of oil exploration and exploitation activities, Nigeria’s earnings dropped drastically with an even greater likelihood of dropping to disturbing levels.
The amnesty package announced by the Yar’Adua Presidency therefore, was a bold attempt top address an obvious wrong, give oil bearing states a sense of integration and in some measure, turn youth hopelessness into hope.
This is quite unlike the Boko Haram misadventure which key point of protest is that Western education is evil and at some stage islamisation of secular Nigeria. And for these, the terrorist group has continued to wage a war on Nigeria, particularly targets in the North East. On the last count, the terror group is known to have claimed more than 3,000 lives, among them defenseless men, women and children. Also, public and private institutions in the flash point areas have been touched with very devastating outcome.
Surely all those will require public support to rebuild as would many victims of the insurgency, some palliatives. But these are not enough reasons for Northern delegates to insist on five per cent of the nation’s revenue as a constitutional right. Not only is it absurd, it is indefencible.
If the three Northern zones are to enjoy five per cent as a blackmail ploy to endorse an upward review of the derivation formula, what happens tomorrow if say, the South-West and South-East engineer similar insurgency?
Should it now be a national passtime to compensate for every insurgency no matter how meaningless? Where in the world are appropriations made for running or anticipated insurgency as a constitutional compulsion.
By nature of their high credentials in public service, delegates at the on-going National Conference on devolution of power, Resource Control and Derivation were depended upon to avoid these questions by doing right. They were expected to fashion a template that would guarantee peaceful co-existence, engender justice and equity and avoid inter-ethnic religious and cultural disharmony.
But it does appear that such high expectations were misplaced. For, they seem bent on pursuing a regional agenda alien to true nationhood, equity and fair-play, in preference for greed, insensitivity and covetousness. Otherwise, why should a genuine demand for a slight review of the Derivation formula attract such frivolous demand for five per cent grant to reward insurgency in the three zones of the North?
Towards the tail end of the Obasanjo Presidency, the National Conference, recommended 18 per cent to be appropriated but that was truncated by the third term agenda injected into the reforms package. Eight years after, why should 18 per cent be an issue?
In the years of the groundnut pyramids, cocoa and other cash crops, when, producers enjoyed between 50 and 100 per cent control of their resources, no special conference was convoked to decide for producers their lawful due. In those days, every federating unit struggled to bring something to the table and not depend solely on handouts from the centre.
Sadly, what today feeds Nigeria  being oil and gas, and sourced mainly from the oil producing Niger Delta are exhaustible, while the aftermath of years of oil exploration and exploitation cannot be washed away easily. So, is it too much to ask that improved steps be taken to address environmental challenges, crass under-development and remediation of the thoroughly bastardized soil, swamps, Rivers, creeks, seas and indeed the health of the inhabitants?
Rather than view the demand as a worthy request intended to guarantee improved and hitch-free oil production activities, ensure more national earnings and help develop other parts of the country that bring little or nothing to the revenue allocation table, some are playing politics with the issue.
They are rather agitating for the reward for a senseless Boko Haram-inspired insurgency, which they themselves created, as a condition for approving the slight review of the derivation formula from 13 percent to 18 per cent? Would they rather the Niger Delta demanded resource control and force its youth return to the era of militancy when Nigeria could hardly produce a million barrels of crude per day? For how long shall some Nigerians behave like dogs in a manager- ‘if we can’t get it nobody else should’?
Curiously, owing to the incessant frictions between herdsmen and farmers over frequent destruction of farmlands, it has become a national duty to provide for and fund grazing zones, even if the herdsmen are purely private business men. Also, federal government has in addition to offering to compensate victims of the insurgency, rebuild schools and other public institutions, built Almajiri schools, launched a safe-schools initiative at flash points in the North and other gestures to the Northern area.
That is why to insist that five per cent be appropriated constitutionally for the three Northern zones as reward for the protracted insurgency, is asking for too much. Instead, such a fund should be to address national disasters like unanticipated natural and man-made disasters of disturbing pedigree. It should not be to reward silence against terrorism, which eventually emboldened Boko Haram
My Agony is that some Northern elements are demanding from the oil bearing states, statements of account on how the 13 percent derivation money has been spent over the years, as a condition for any upward review. It is only in Nigeria that, an accidental passenger in a fishing boat, decides how the fishermen must appropriate their catch. “Bukulo Korobo Inji die Ke.”.

Justice Kutigi and Dr Odili