After the acrimonious debate on Chief Anthony Enahoros motion for independence in 1956 which pitched the Northern and Southern Legislators sharply against each other, the Northerners issued an 8-point demand as a condition for remaining in Nigeria as follows: 1. This region shall have complete legislative and executive autonomy with respect to all matters except the following: defence, external affairs, customs and West African research institutions. 2. That there shall be no Central Legislative body and no Central Executive or policy making body for the whole of Nigeria. 3. There shall be a Central Agency for all Regions which will be responsible for the matters mentioned in paragraph one and other matters delegated to it by a Region. 4. The Central Agency shall be at a neutral place preferably Lagos. 5. The composition and responsibility of the Central Agency shall be defined by the Order-in-Council establishing the constitutional arrangement. The Agency shall be a non-political body. 6. The services of the railway, air services, posts and telegraphs, electricity and local mining shall be organised on an inter-Regional basis and shall be administered by public corporations. These corporations shall be independent bodies covered by the statute under which they are created. The Board of the Coal Corporation shall be composed of experts with a minority Representation of the Regional Government. 7. All revenue shall be levied and collected by the Regional Government except customs revenue at the port of discharge by the Central Agency and paid to its treasury. The administration of the Customs shall be so organised as to assure that goods consigned to the Region are separately cleared and charged to duty. 8. Each Region shall have a separate Public Service! Even Nigerias much praised first Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, stated in 1947 that Nigeria has existed as one Country only on paper, and that it was still far from being considered as one country, much less think of it as united. After the counter-Coup of 29 July, 1966, the original intention of the Northern mutineers was to withdraw from Lagos and the rest of the South and secede from Nigeria. As Ahmadu Kurfi recounts in this book, The Nigerian General Elections 1959 and 1979, (Macmillan 1983, pp.38-39): The original intention of the July 29 counter-coup leaders was to seize the reigns of government and then announce the secession of the Northern Region from the rest of the country. This was in line with the general mood of the people of the North whose clarion call during the May 29 disturbances in the North, which claimed many Igbo lives, was Araba or Aware (Hausa word for secede). As soon as the success of the insurgency was apparent, the leaders of the coup who were based at the Ikeja Garrison informed Northern elements resident in Lagos to leave the metropolis for the North, giving a deadline within which to comply. At the expiry of the deadline, the coup leaders planned to dynamite, if not sink, the whole of Lagos. So serious was the threat that many senior Federal Government officers in Lagos actually trooped to Ilorin, Kaduna and other Northern towns. The families of the coup leaders had earlier been airlifted in a hijacked VC 10 plane of a British airline. Only wise counsel that the North could not survive without the South, persuaded the rebels to jettison the plan. But they insisted that a relatively junior officer, Lt. Colonel Gowon, should supercede many senior Southern officers to become the new military Head of State. Even during the conferences that followed the July 29 coup, the Northern Delegation submitted a memorandum, demanding a Confederation as the basis of association of the Regions, including the right to secede. When they subsequently modified this position, their proposals still clearly revealed their half-hearted commitment to Nigerian Unity. They called for Regional Commands for the Army, made up only of people from that Region and controlled by a Regional Commander. They also called for a Rotational Presidency and Prime Ministership and each state was to contribute an equal number of members to a unicameral Federal Legislature. Why then have the same Northerners become the advocates of a powerful Central Government controlling all the countrys resources and weak client states fully dependent on the Centre for survival? The answer is simply the enormous wealth that is being generated from the Niger Deltas petroleum resources. Even in the midst of the crisis brought about by the bloody counter-coup of July 29, 1966 and the pogrom that followed, the Northern Delegation, with one foot outside Nigeria and halfway into secession, had started craving for the wealth of the Niger Deltas oil. On mines, minerals, including oilfields, oil mining, natural gas, etc., the Northern Delegation took the following clear position which they have held onto, till this day: The right to all mines and minerals was, before the handover of power in that regard, vested in the Crown. This right was derived from the Crowns prerogative of being the owner of all minerals attaching to the land. The right was accentuated by the provision in our laws laying down that entire property in and control of all minerals and mineral oils in, under or upon any lands in Nigeria and of all rivers, streams and water-courses throughout Nigeria, was and should be vested in the Crown. Upon handover of power the right was transferred to the Federal Government which has to date been exercising it. In this regard, the Federal Government continues to hold the right, among other things, to legislate on mines and minerals, including oilfields, oil mining, geological surveys and natural gas as provided in the Constitution. This right, of course, is being exercised for the benefit of the country as a whole. The Constitution of the Federation, for example, provides for a fair distribution of revenue obtained from mining royalties and rents between the Regions in so far as such revenue is in respect of minerals obtained from inland. In these circumstances the Northern Delegation does not see how this item can be removed from the Federal to the Regional Legislative List. It is noteworthy that at one time the countrys main sources of revenue from mines and minerals came from tin and columbite of the North. And throughout such time there was never an objection raised from any quarter as regards Central and later Federal control of mines and minerals. It is interesting to note that now that we have, for the meantime, the main sources of revenue coming from oil from East, Mid-West and possibly West the other delegations at the Conference should raise an objection to what has in effect been the usual practice purely and simply in order to enrich their respective regional governments at the expense of the overall national interest. On the other hand, since it agreed that Nigeria should have an effective Federal Government, it is vital that the Federal Government should have an independent source of revenue. It is obvious that as has already been noted, the Northern position is predicated on their permanent right of control over a predatory Federal Government, that expropriates the resources of a weak Niger Delta. Let us now scrutinise the mechanism used for this permanent control of government and power which are supposed to be a common patrimony of all Sectors and Nationalities of Nigeria. .GRANDSON
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 04:40:00 +0000
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