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No retreat on resource control By
Five weeks ago, the Federal Government of Nigeria initiated a suit in the Supreme Court against the 36 states and the Abuja Capital Territory over the true ownership of natural resources in the offshore territory of the country. When herbs are being boiled in a household, the sick one in the family knows whom they are meant for. Although the suit purports to include all the states, the real target of the action are the Atlantic coast states of the South-South geopolitical zone of the country. The states in question have been relentless in their constitutional crusade to have a fair share of oil and gas revenue which the government in Abuja has been appropriating unjustly and voraciously. One brazen instance of this is the failure of the Federal Government to remit the full monetary value of the 13 per cent derivation revenue due to nine oil-producing states by virtue of section 162(2) of the 1999 Constitution. This breach of the supreme law of the land has been going on for 22 months, that is, since May 29, 1999 when the elected civilian administration was inaugurated. By taking this desperate action, President Olusegun Obasanjo's government has elevated what was the equivalent of a wrestling bout to a full-scale liberation struggle. What is at stake in this legal tangle is not just a squabble over some little spoils of inter-governmental relations. This is a renewed skirmish for the unfinished struggle to redefine whether Nigeria is a federation of co-equal units or an empire where an emperor whimsically determines what wealth to covet and devour and what to leave for vizers and provincial prefects. The issues at stake take us back to the military origins of the deformation and pillage of the strategic natural resources of the peoples and territories grouped into administrative units known as state and local governments. Other obnoxious federal laws are on trial besides the Petroleum Act of 1969. One such perfidious instrument stipulates that all minerals, above, on and under any lands in the country exclusively belong to the government in the centre. There is the inland and navigable waterways statute which gives these aquatic resources to the central government. The Land Use Act of 1978 which the Obasanjo-Yar'Adua military administration smuggled into the 1979 Constitution has had the legal effect of formalising the disinheritance of communities. Yet, in fact, the law says governors and local government chairmen hold the lands on behalf of the respective territories. But the minerals in these same lands are owned exclusively by the Federal Government which possesses no territory other than that of Abuja. It is these imperial laws in Nigeria which enabled the various military juntas to plunder the country and impoverish the populace. The people of the plundered South-South states had hoped that with the second coming of "born-again" Obasanjo, he would hasten to abrogate the laws and set the country on the path of democratic recovery. That is why they took the electoral risk of voting massively for him in 1999 even when his own primary constituency in the South-West was determined to reject and humiliate him. The federalist-minded people of the defrauded oil-producing states had expected that with democrat Chief Bola Ige as Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, the anti-people laws would be expunged from the statute books. Alas! the wind has blown off the costume of the masquerade revealing the wooden frame under them. Those who passed for the mentors of the oppressed Niger Delta peoples are proving to be their new tormentors. Yet the Supreme Court will not be the final arbiter in this matter. In any case, what jurisprudential guarantee is there that the court will be even-handed and fair? How many of the judges are from the oil-producing states? We are rest assured, however that this is not strictly a legal and constitutional issue. It is primarily political. Thus even if the court rules in favour of federal might against natural justice, the matter will be appealed in the court of the people because the people's court is superior to the Supreme Court of any country. Something tells me that the Federal Government is coming out too late in this encounter. This legal subterfuge is coming 10 years after the Ogoni agony has inflamed global outrage against the apartheid system in the oil-rich states. We are into the 10th year of self-determination struggles of the nationalities of the region. The Kaiama Declaration of 1998 has already made the demand of resource control an anthem of governors, legislators and even conservative traditional rulers. This provocative court case is coming after the Jesse holocaust (1998), the Ekakpamre and Okpeland pipeline fires have emblazoned a new consciousness in the popular masses of the area. They now know those who profit from the blood-stained petro-dollars in their backyards. Chief Bola Ige is taking the beleaguered people of the oil states to the legal slaughter house a year after the wails of Odi genocide reached the heavenly ears of angels of divine justice. And we are not alone. Last month, the Urhobo Historical Society in North America sent a petition to Chief Ige challenging the morality of his suit. The Suit by the Federal Government of Nigeria Against the Littoral States of Southern Nigeria on the Issue of Resource Control Is He was urged to withdraw it so that its outcome does not consume his democratic and professional credentials. On the 26th of the same month a similar protest was addressed to the world by 54 COALITION OF NIGER DELTA ORGANIZATIONS IN THE DIASPORA URGE NIGER DELTA LEGISLATORS TO STAND UP AND FIGHT FOR THE REGION based in North America and Europe. The document was instantly available to a sympathetic global community on the internet via three websites. We are no longer alone in the struggle to abolish Africa's most unjust political system after South Africa's apartheid regime that ended in 1994. Freedom, as Jesus said, comes like a thief at night. We await the verdict of the Supreme Court.
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