Dancing on the graves of Abacha and the Yar’Aduas By G. G. DARAH POLITICAL and ideological divisions were expressed from the take-off of the National Conference on March 17. There were several manifestations of these alliances. There were broad coalitions of regional and ethno-national groups. Religious antagonisms often masqueraded as “national interests”. There were also class, gender, and generation ridges and valleys to be surmounted. To be sure, there were some cabals that sought to abuse the conference privileges to mount campaigns of calumny against President Goodluck Jonathan’s government. The violent conflicts and wanton killings that swept through some Northern States in April offered wings for some to fly their sinister plots. Of course, the bomb blasts and boko haram massacres and kidnappings presaged premature terminus for the confab deliberations. But four months after we have been able to rise above the temptations and diversions. All this was due largely to careful and dedicated skills displayed by the Confab Secretariat under the leadership of the Chairman, Justice Idris Kutugi and his astute companions. Like President Jonathan whose bravery and foresight made the confab possible, Justice Kutigi surely has his eyes on history and the judgement of posterity. When the conference ends, the distinguished delegates, with names of many festooned with honours and titles, will eventually return t their various constituencies, caucuses, states, and places of nativity. But the final outcome of the conference will bear the insignia and imprimatur of Justice Idris Kutigi, a minority man from Niger State who rose from relative obscurity to become Nigeria’s Chief Justice and now the Chairman of undoubtedly the most significant national conference in Nigeria since that of 1957-58 which prepared Nigeria for independence in 1960. Lest we forget, Frederick Lugard, the conqueror and designer of Nigeria, was also from obscure background in Scotland. The spirit of adventure and auspicious luck elevated him to become the imperial ruler of Nigeria, Africa’s most endowed British colony. Just as we now refer to his amalgamation of 1914 and dual mandate regime (1914-1922) as the Lugardological era, so shall we, in future, memorialise this experience as the Kutigian National Conference. The early storms of the confab were recycled in the 20 committees appointed to examine details of themes and major issues. The report of each committee was presented at plenary sessions for further debate and deliberation. With the magical wand of consensus, many of the recommendations and proposed amendments were approved. Aware of their controversial nature, the reports of the committees on Political Restructuring and Forms of Government as well as that of Devolution of Power were scheduled for the final weeks. With dexterous handling, divisive matters of political restructuring sailed through in favour of pro-federal delegates. But last week, as the confab approached the final bend of the river of derivation and resource distribution, ideological and regional conflicts exploded with volcanic combustion. For ease of reference, let me designate the division into pro-federal versus status quo groups. The pro-federal side insists that having agreed by consensus that Nigeria should operate a federal system, with a central government and states as the only federating units, it follows inevitably that federalist principles of equity, fairness, and justice must prevail. Resource ownership and control as well as an equitable derivation formula are sine qua non of federalism. Three decades of military dictatorship had liquidated these essential features of Nigeria’s federation. The pro-federal delegates further demand that, with 15 years into democratic rule, the conference has a duty to demilitarize the system by restoring the principles of equitable and fair contribution and allocation of public revenue. The contentious clause is in Section 162 (2) of the 1999 Constitution. It states that in the distribution of revenue in the Federation Account, a portion not less that thirteen per cent must be set aside for areas of the country from where the revenue is derived. In 1960 and 1963 Constitutions, the derivation proportion to Regions was 50%. These points were valiantly canvassed at the Devolution of Power Committee by mostly delegates from the Niger Delta, the South-west, and the South-east. But they did not constitute a significant number to match the stone-wall opposition from the pro-feudalist delegates from the North and the Middle Belt. Stone wall opposition Our experience there showed that the most vociferous and intransigent antagonists of federalism and resource democracy are the pampered elite from the least productive states of the North. They are not the only financially famished states in the Nigeria. In the south of the country, Osun, Ekiti, Edo, Cross River, Anambra, Enugu, and Ebonyi states have lean budgets. But these states do not exploit their economic handicap to haunt and provoke the ten revenue-yielding states, nine oil producing and tax-rich Lagos. In the Devolution of Power Committee, the anti-Niger Delta delegates threw education and logic to the winds. They fabricated tables of bumper budgets of oil-endowed states to intimidate us that any increase in derivation percentage would annihilate their insolvent states. They did this with such animus that it was clear they regarded the revenue-strong states as economic vassals of the political hegemons of Northern Nigeria. Unfortunately for these conquistadors the figures they paraded did not reveal that the states with comparatively heavy budgets are also the ones that contribute the bulk of the revenue that is shared by the Federal, State, and local governments on monthly basis. For the records, the ten states that contribute all the public revenue are Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River (not much now), Delta, Edo, Imo, Lagos, Ondo, and Rivers. Even with the 13% derivation formula, each of these states loses about 87% of its oil revenue that is husbanded in the Federation Account. There is no justification for any of these states to suffer the loss of 87% of money earned from its natural resources. Those who insist that the status quo in Sections 44(3) and 162(2) of the 1999 Constitution must remain are brazenly boasting to the victim states that they are economic colonies of the privileged states. It is true that the North-dominated military regimes from 1966-1999 enacted wicked laws to disinherit the Niger Delta of its oil and gas resources. Oil and gas resources But as our delegates demonstrated in the conferences of 1994-95, 2005, and the current one, the Niger Delta and Lagos are the colonies of any part of Nigeria. We shall win our freedom. What is that the other states contribute to the Federation Account that emboldens them to treat their benefactors with impunity? An aggregate of percentage contribution by geo-political zones for four years (2009-2012) reveals that the South-South recorded an average of 68% per year, the South-West 23%, the South-East 8.5%, while the North-Central, North-East, and North-West scored zero each. In plain language, the 19 states in the three zones survived for the four years under reference through the generosity of the three southern zones. In which other federation in the world do half the number of constituent units exist on the generosity of others. The time to end that injustice is now. This iniquitous situation did not operate during British colonial rule. From 1946-1960, the derivation quotient was no less than 50% for each region. Only 20% was allocated to the government at the centre. The remaining 30% was put in a distributive pool from which the region that earned 50% also shared. It was the Gowon-Awolowo diarchy that abolished the derivation principle and funnelled all the revenue to the ravenous central government under the guise of depriving the breakaway Biafra Republic of 1967-1970 of funds to prosecute the civil war. This is the infamous Petroleum Decree 51 of 1969. Rather abrogate the apartheid decree after the war, the North-dominated military juntas retained it and is now entrenched it in Section 44(3) of the 1999 Constitution. It is a slave mandate and it shall not stand in a free, democratic Nigeria. The obnoxious law stands today because the inheritors of the military usurpers of power are still glued to the honeycomb of oil wealth and would not concede through civic negotiation. The predators forget that the glutton bee that stays too long inside the palm wine jar eventually drowns in it. Nigeria had been close to this suicidal threshold several times. Resistance against exploitation The first phase was the Major Adaka Jasper Boro “12-Day Revolution” of 1966 that dovetailed in the 1967-1970 Civil War in which over one million innocent souls perished. The Ogoni agony, the death of their leaders and the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his compatriots in 1995 marked the second stanza of the resistance against exploitation by the government and the oil companies. Remarkably, Generals Musa Yar’Adua and Sani Abacha (who hanged the Ogoni Nine) worked together to douse the flames of popular uprising. The two rivals to power were instrumental to the adoption of the “not less than thirteen per cent” clause in the 1999 Constitution. The third phase of self-determination agitation was ignited with the proclamation of the Kaiama Declaration in December, 1998, by the Ijaw Youth Council. The Declaration clearly stated that all the kingdoms of Ijawland rejected the Petroleum Decree 51 and the Land Use Decree of 1978 that disinherited their people of the right of ownership and control of their territory and natural resources. To be continued
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 05:43:10 +0000
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