Only fiscal federalism will bring peace in Nigeria Presently, the composition of the delegates to the Confab is lopsided. I don’t think they have gone there to speak our minds. They are there just to satisfy their personal avarice. If you go to the north today, you will see classic poverty, you will see they battalion of Almajiris on the streets, yet these delegates argue that they are speaking for the north. This country should go back to true federalism, the Confab delegates should go back and do a rethink. I thank God for the opportunity that my president had, to speak to some of our delegates to tell them that they are not doing what we expect them to do. I know that in the next two, three weeks, you will start seeing what we are talking about. Eppeh Kpobiri Kingsley . I am in agreement with those who have said that we have problems of poor selection of delegates to the National Conference. To that extent, it will not make any meaningful impact on the problems of Nigeria, unless they address the critical question of fiscal federalism. For me, they have to revisit the Aburi Accord and the Henry Willinks Commission report. That is where they ought to have taken their bearings from. Most of the delegates are there just to defend the interest of the status quo. If you take people who are already satisfied or in their comfort zone, you would not achieve anything. On the other hand, we are talking about the people who in one way or the other, helped to create the problems in the first place. How can we expect meaningful changes when majority of the delegates who were selected are those who have created the troubles of Nigeria. For me, the SGF is using the National Conference to play out its own agenda. We would have expected that some youth leaders from different parts of the country should be there to express their own views . We needed people with fresh ideas but from the look of things, at end of the day, the National Conference will not achieve anything. I must also say that President Jonathan did not play his own part. He ought to have guided the setting up of the secretariat of the Confab and what should be the focus. He ought to have briefed them on his own vision, but he just left the Confab in the hands of civil servants. For me, when I saw the selection of the delegates, I knew that nothing meaningful would be achieved. The result we are going to achieve will only benefit the northern and the South West region. Moderator: As Engr. Ambaiowei pointed out earlier, when the economy relied on agriculture as its main revenue eaarner, some one like Chief Obafemi Awolowo was a strong advocate of 50 percent for derivation. Interestingly, he was the Vice Chairman of the SMC when derivation was removed in 1969. So why is the South blaming the north on this? So, what do you think will be the consequence of this if this becomes a resolution of the National Conference? Engr. Ambaiowei, specifically, to address the core of the matter, the Ijaw people, and I believe, majority of Nigerians, have agreed that from our founding fathers, at Independence in 1960, it was a faint talk that when Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo were talking about “let’s unite, let’s forget our differences etc, it was Sir. Ahmadu Bello, who said let us talk about our difference, because it will help us to know ourselves better and we will then unite better. That was why they gave the country true federalism or a federation of three legs. The principles prescribed were 50 percent derivation. In other words, whatever resources or revenue that you made from hardwork or nature’s blessing, you will keep 50 per cent in that region and use it for the sole development of that region at its own pace. You are fully in control of that. The exclusive legislative list of the federal government that we have canvassed in our position. Defence, Central Bank, Coinage, immigration and emmigration, citizenship, aviation policy, etc were just as slim. Now 20 percent of that revenue was like a tax that you pay to the central government from the revenue that you generate from your region. Although it was exclusively for development of what they called national infrastructure,the infrastructure that will integrate every region of the country – the railway system, the Federal Highway system, the national power grid system etc. I had already laid the background that things went wrong because some people pointed guns at the others and they changed everything. It is what they changed that gave an undue advantage to the north and it has become like a honey, that is so sweet that they don’t want to give it up. Again those unfair advantages that the North has gained through military coups, they don’t want to concede an inch. Now, to be very specific, the North is bandying population and landmass as criteria for revenue sharing. That is wrong. If the state of California in the USA, which is bigger than Nigeria, America also has Connecticut, which is just like the size of Bayelsa State. When have you heard about Connecticut or California, haggling over revenue sharing as we are having here? This cannot happen because the tenets there are that of true federalism, but here, it is the opposite. That is why you are witnessing the things that are happening whether its Ankio Briggs versus Junaid Mohammed or Tanko Yakassai versus Professor Kimse Okoko, the people of Southern Nigeria versus Northern Nigeria. The issue is not different from who maintain the status quo of unitary system and those who want to stand and be counted as federalists? That is the debate. Those who want unitarism to continue are those you are seeing and can count all across while those who want true federalism are lurking in the shadows. What I want to say is that when we want to cite detailed statistics, we will throw more light but let me say, briefly that Alhaji Tanko Yakassai circulated a certain document at the confab,which we came here with it. Right here in this document Alhaji Yakassai bandied some figures and made certain claims which have been further amplified by the document which the Northern delegates are saying that 80% of Nigeria’s land belongs to Northern Nigeria and that only 20 per cent belong to the South. They bandied figures on the population of the country, claiming a whooping 75 million to the North and 25 million to the South. But I want to debunk all those claims by way of population. Going back to the 1911 census that Yakassai quoted, the North had a population of 8,120,000 people in Ambanowei: 1911and by 1931, twenty years after, it had increased to N11,368,000which is about 40.9%. In the South, we had a population of 7,934,000 in 1911 and by 1931 it increased to 8,566,000. This was an increase of only 7.9 per cent in the same 20 year period. In fact, in the case of the Eastern region, the population dropped by 560,000 between 1921 to 1931. That was when the East had not even fought a civil war. So, the population figures that the North want us to believe, is completely false. By that logic every other thing that they have claimed by building on this falsehood is fraudulent. They have no case to make. Let us go to the other critical item which is the land mass and the challenges swampy of the coastal areas of Niger Delta. You will notice that it costs about N600 million to build a 1km of road. The South with swamp terrain, but in the north which has arid land area, you don’t need more than N30 million to build a kilometer of road. Are you now going to say that we have the same challenges. We must also explore another area which is environmental pollution and degradation. The people who are claiming that some oil flow from up North down to the creeks and so, they have every right to the oil even in the littoral areas, tell me, the landlocked countries of Chad, Niger and others, are they laying claims to benefit from the offshore oil resource in Nigeria? What would have happened to the Northern Nigeria and their claims to the oil wealth in Southern Nigeria if the British had not amalgamated the Northern and Southern protectorates in 1914? The North should not test our patience. We have stated clearly that we want the country return to regional structure, to replace the present 36 states structure, which has proven weak, unviable and unwieldy. •We want the Country to adopt a system of Legislature which is part time under Parliamentary model, as it will reduce cost of governance and free funds for development of the Regions. •We want power sharing especially, through ceding by the Federating Regions an exclusive legislative list to the Federal Government whereas all other powers are retained by the Regions. •We believe that it is only through agreed and prescribed percentage tax on the revenues generated from the resources in the Regions that the Federal Government will be sustained or funded, •We believe also that all Regions should be fully independent in creating sub-units like States and Local Governments for the convenient administration of their areas. •We believe that the above items are the underpinnings of any true fiscal Federalism worldwide; hence need to be inculcated in our own polity too. This will undoubtedly place our country on a path of unity, peace, progress, development, prosperity and security as this is the best approach to even deliver on Vision 20­ 20-20. For true fiscal Federalism to thrive, it is our considered view that alteration, deletion, substitution and/or outright inclusion of new section(s) as the case may be, of these sections of the 1999 Constitution. We advise that National Conference should not end up like previous ones that were merely cosmetic but yield for the country critical, strategic, enduring and irreversible true fiscal Federalism and 100 percent Resource Control. Moderator: Barr. Onokpasa, what is your view on the Northern proposition that the derivation should be reduced to 5%. What would be a full back position if this goes through? I think the issues are very clear now. The issues about the Nigerian state is very very clear. What will be the fate of the country if we carry on like this? Barr. Onokpasa: Well, in the first place, let us start from our own level at Niger Delta. Let us still go back to that obnoxious Supreme Court ruling in the AGF vs Attorney General of Abia State. It was a case that centred on onshore/ offshore dichotomy. The late FRA William (SAN), gave the Supreme Court a very interesting argument. According to him, a country’s territory ends at the low water mark, which is the function of the tides. With due respect to the supreme court, it ruled that federating units in the littoral region are not entitled derivation from sources off-shore I think the president of Ijaw National Congress has said something along that line. The argument is this. If for the fact that you don’t have a litoral state, you would not be entitled to derivation from oil revenues is it equitable to deny those littoral states additional benefits of those resources which you would not get they were not littoral states? If you say that under international law, it is only the sovereign who is entitled to administer the territorial waters and the resources derivable there from, well I would say, what are the territorial waters that is being administered by the sovereign by Niger, Chad and Mali which are landlocked countries?? The entire reduction argument at the National Conference is for me, an unfortunate and intolerable insult. At the sane conference, the distinguished Lamido of Adamawa claimed that the bulk of his kingdom is in Cameroon, one may ask, what is Lamido still doing in Nigeria. The answer is clear? He is waiting for more oil money. Nigeria is based on sharing of oil money there is no other basis for the unity of Nigeria. If the oil dries up in the Niger Delta today, it is this very people that are insulting us that would first for the dismemberment of Nigeria. So, we have a situation where an unproductive part of the country insists on dictating to the productive part of what do do with the commonwealth I once heard an infantile argument from certain quarters up North. One was absolutely pedestrian in the extreme to the effect that oil found. The argument is in the Niger Delta was from the debris washed down to the creeks and Delta region by the River Niger. In actual fact the oil deposits are from Onokpasa: decayed organic matter. In fact, most of the places where you find out today, millions of years back they were under the sea. Oil cannot flow down a river. If it does, that would be oil pollution. It is not oil resources. Then you have a situation where the person who said this happens to be a professor then, you begin to wonder what sort of intellectuals we have up North. There is another myth which say that oil fields in the Niger Delta were developed with revenue that came from government funds especially when agriculture was the main contributor to the economy. I have researched the topic and I can state categorically that there has never been a time when the Niger Delta was a liability. The Niger Delta is what is called the oil Delta province in History. It has always been a productive region. If you were to take the six geo-political zones of Nigeria today, I can say it authoritatively that the South South has always been productive far ahead of the other regions in the country. While they were producing the so-called groundnut and cotton, we were producing rubber, palm oil, Timber. In fact, Sapele was the timber capital of Africa. We have always been productive people. The oil fields of Niger Delta were never developed with the funds from and by the Nigerian state. They were developed by way of Foreign Direct Investment from major oil companies. Royal Dutch Shed, British Petroleum, Chevron, Texaco the people came to invest. The FG only began to buy shares in the IOCs by way of nationalisation. The money that was used to set up NNPC came from royalties from our oil money. Nobody has done us any favour in this country. We have paid our dues. The North which pretends that is a very productive region has been a bad investment of the British empire. I can prove it any time, any day. Having created the protectorate of Northern and Southern Nigeria. The British administration under Lord Luggard discovered that the North was an unproductive region and it was always having budget deficit. At the same time, the Southern protectorate was always having surplus. So, he advised the Home Office in London that the solution to the problem is either to give up the Northern protectorate to the French to annex it to Niger republic or they should amalgamate the Northern protectorate with the Southern protectorate and use the budget surplus of the Southern protectorate to off set the deficit in the Northern protectorate. The North has always been a liability in the history of Nigeria. It is a remarkably an unproductive region. The real tragedy is the fact that the North could have been productive but its leaders have decided to indulge in willful indolence. They have deliberately been refusing to be productive. The North is blessed with abundant Natural resources, arable land and indeed human resources but for some mysterious reasons, its leaders have refused to harness all these years. They prefer to come down South and pounce on our oil and dictate to us how our patrimony should be shared. There is a reason God apportions resources differently from place to place. Where you have the resources, you use it, where you don’t have it, you look for an alternative. How much oil does Japan or Germany produce? Does Switzerland produce oil? These are some of the richest countries in the whole world. A section of our Northern leaders suffer from what I would call parasitism complex. I heard them calling for amnesty for Boko Haram, they want the FG to reward criminals and murderers. Let me say it here when the Niger Delta militants to bid a farewell to arms and they did because they saw reasons to negotiate. They were not murdering people who did not share their belief, their demands were not motivated by their faith. The amnesty programme did not start with Jonathan, so it is not because a Niger Delta man is in power that the militants decided to lay down their arms. No, they did it while Yar’Adua was still alive and the president. There were expectation. It was a deal. We said we would lay down our arms, the production of oil would continue but these are the things we expect, the question now we want to ask is whether the reduction of the 13% on derivation the reward for our laying down our arms and key into the amnesty programme? Any attempt to reduce derivation is a recipe for disaster. It is an invitation to civil war, in fact it will guarantee the dismemberment of Nigeria more than any other thing I can imagine. Moderator: The confrontation between Northern delegates and Madam Ankio Briggs centered on resource control the Northerners are arguing that the hydrocarbon deposits in the Niger Delta was washed down all the way from Futa Jallon to the creeks so the South South people should not see it as their own. Is Nigeria all about sharing oil revenue? Does this country really have a focus of what its life could be beyond bickering about oil revenue? Agbeyegbe: Mr. Moderator. Now I want to make a statement that may surprise all of you. ...........
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