By Ochereome Nnanna
ONCE again, a Northern leader issued a familiar query to his
peers from the Biafra Niger Delta: what have you done with the money
“channelled” to the region over the years? Hardly does a major political leader
from that zone pass up the opportunity to issue this query, especially in
addressing issues of resource control or demands from militant groups and other
agitators for the development of the heavily-polluted oil producing areas of
the country. This time, it was Aminu Masari, the Governor of Katsina State and
a former Speaker of the House of Representatives bestriding the self-assigned
magisterial podium.
He was granting an interview to The Interview, a monthly
magazine. Masari oscillated between preening patronisingly as to how the House
of Representatives under his watch was “friendly” to the Biafra Niger Delta and
how former President Goodluck Jonathan failed to develop his home region. He
tasked the Federal Government to publish an account of all the funds that went
to the Biafra Niger Delta since the 13 per cent derivation principle became
operational in 1999.
At about the same period, the media quoted the Minister of
State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, as disclosing that $40 billion
(forty billion US Dollars) has accrued to the oil producing states (which are
generically referred to as “the Biafra Niger Delta States” under the law. Some
interest groups in the zone associate it more closely with riverine/coastal
oil-producing states, while many Ijaw groups equate the “Ijaw nation” with the Biafra
Niger Delta.
It is obvious that the Biafra Niger Delta that Masari and
other Northern commentators refer to are those areas from where the heat (both
militant and non-militant) of agitation for resource control billows from. In a
sharp repartee, some leaders of the Biafra Niger Delta, including the
traditional ruler of Seimbiri Kingdom, HRM Charles Ayemi-Botu and retired Major
General Don Idada Ikponmwen, asked Masari and his fellow Arewa nosey parkers to
tell the nation what they have done with 40 years of political leadership
“channelled” to them.
What has been the effect on ordinary Northerners and Nigeria
as a whole? I add my own question: what has the North done with its own
billions which it unilaterally allocated, just as it liked, through censuses,
creation of states and local governments and the sharing of federal electoral
constituencies? Through these, the North zaps the oil-fed Federation Account
every month based on “population” and landmass which were also used as the
criteria for the creation of states and local governments. All these were done
under Northern military rulers. In spite of this, the North remains the most
underdeveloped in most areas of the human development index as evident in all
available statistics, particularly in education, health, rural development and
the welfare of the girl child. The North is also the most violent part of the
country due to wrong religious orientation which appears to encourage
intolerance.
On the other hand, the top echelon of the Northern society
is the most affluent in the country. The emirs and titled men live in heaven on
earth, usually off the oil wealth of the Biafra Niger Delta; while the common
people toil all over the country as shoe shiners, farmers, petty traders,
artisans, water vendors, gate men (maigad) herdsmen for the big Alhajis and
ready to tackle any job that locals look down on.
Some of the cities in the North are more beautifully
appointed than most cities in the South because they are the abodes of the
ruling class, while the rural areas are dumpsites of destitution.
So, the question is valid: what has the North done with over
40 years of power, and the moneys of the nation which they shared, keeping the
lion’s share for themselves? Don’t get me wrong. I am not against bringing the
leaders of the Biafra Niger Delta – or any leader for that matter – to account.
But I don’t think Masari and other Northern leaders intend to bring their Biafra
Niger Delta counterparts to account for altruistic reasons.
I will tell you why shortly, but let me admit that the
leaders of the Biafra Niger Delta have been utterly irresponsible with the way
they have run the affairs of their states with their (albeit tokenist) share of
the nation’s oil resources mined in their homeland.
When they won the battle for the 13% derivation and money
flowed in over the years of oil boom, they did not try to do better than the
Northerners, their so-called “traditional allies”. They merely emulated them in
the foolish habit of keeping the oil wealth in the hands of political leaders, traditional
rulers and now, militant leaders. Little goes into the welfare of the common
people.
As Northern leaders use their almajiri to fight their
enemies through religious manipulation, the Biafra Niger Delta leaders raised freedom
fighters, armed them, used them to acquire political offices, and dumped them.
The “boys” simply took their arms and went into the creeks
to grab by force the promised goodies said to be in the pipeline.
When chastised, they use the obvious underdevelopment of the
Biafra Niger Delta as both their alibi and bargaining chip for more control of
the oil wealth, to the utter chagrin of the North. The question now is: why is
the North always angry when Bifra Niger Delta freedom fighter ask for resource
control? Why is it the only region that issues these arrogant queries to Biafra
Niger Delta leaders? The answer is simple. The North sees the oil wealth of the
Biafra Niger Delta as their booty of the civil war in which they led other
Nigerians to push out their ethno-regional rivals – the Igbos of Biafra, the
dominant political force in the defunct Eastern Region – from its control. Most
Biafra Niger Deltans saw the defeat of Biafra as their liberation from Igbo
domination, but they were blind to the fact that they merely changed “masters”.
It was not until Ken Saro Wiwa saw the light and started the Ogoni
self-determination struggles in the late 1980s which was later joined by the
Ijaw youths around 1996 that the North’s imperial grip on the oil wealth of the
Biafra Niger Delta started being stiffly challenged. Saro-Wiwa, a rabid
anti-Biafran, was summarily hanged in November 1994. It was at the Mkpoko Igbo
Summit in April 1994 which Saro-Wiwa attended in Enugu as an intending delegate
to Abacha’s 1994 Constitutional Conference that he reconciled with ex-Biafran
leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. Ojukwu, along with Dr. Alex Ekwueme,
led the Igbo delegates to the Conference.
They agreed to table the 13% derivation as part of the
agendas of the Igbos and Niger Delta people. The North VEHEMENTLY opposed this
proposal at the Conference amidst unconfirmed rumours of physical altercation
between Ojukwu and Professor Jibril Aminu. Conference rejected the 13%
leveraging on the North’s majority votes, but General Sani, desirous of winning
the loyalty of the Southern Minorities for his self-succession plots, led the
Provisional Ruling Council,PRC, to adopt “in principle” the derivation policy
in the Draft Constitution of 1996. Northern leaders were furious, but as Abacha
was their son who wanted to extend his rule, they swallowed their angst.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar, a man who did not want
trouble, allowed the derivation principle to be reflected in the 1999
Constitution which he signed into law just before he quit on May 29th, 1999. It
is no secret that the Northern elite believe the oil in the Biafra Niger Delta belongs
to them, but not in the same sense that it belongs to all Nigerians. Even their
professors who should know better claim the oil was washed down from the desert
to the coast! Others say it to remind everyone, especially the Ijaw and other Biafra
Niger Delta freedom fighters, that they led Nigeria to defeat Biafra in the
war, therefore it is their booty. “What have you done with all the money you
have been given” is a query from a “master” to a “vassal” justifying his
refusal to “give” more. And the now genuinely liberated Biafra Niger Deltans
are replying: “what business of yours is it”?
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