The Supreme Court is Inconsistent

By

Chief Gilbert Benjamin Akinyemi Akinyede, CON,

What I don't understand in this country is we are very hypocritical and dishonest. I have every respect for the Chief Justice and the young men on the bench - you cannot floor their qualifications, you cannot discount them on any merit whatsoever, but they are human beings. It seems to me that some of the positions taken by the Supreme Court are inconsistent.

You are referring to some cases in England. The classicus of the matter is the case of Rex Versus Kayne. It was a criminal case where somebody was alleged to have committed a crime on the high seas and they wanted to find out. I don't want to go into the details of the case. What was decided in that case was whether the king had the right to bring to book the person who committed crime on the high seas. Although, it was a criminal case they went into the law of the seas, the right of citizens, the states and so on.

Now, the case before the Supreme Court is quite different. Then you are citing the Hosbry laws of England and King. Who is king here? The law applicable in England is not necessarily applicable here. You are citing the law applicable to Dosunmu, when Dosunmu ceded Lagos colony to the crown. The littoral states you are talking about did not cede their territories to the British crown. And the British people were realistic enough. They didn't call us colonies. Lagos was a colony after Dosunmu ceded Lagos to them. Ondo, Benin, Rivers and the other states - the littoral states have never been colonies. At worst, they were protectorates. If I ask you to come and protect me or you say you want to protect me that does not make me your slave or your subject.

We could say that we are a sort of hybrid. You can't compare us to the situation in America. The position of the offshore and onshore laws of America must necessarily be different from our own. You talk of international treaties, when did we start making international treaties?

I think the matter that was referred to court ought not to have been referred to court at all. I said so exactly one year ago that the government recourse to the courts is a grave mistake. The reference of the onshore/offshore oil suit to the Supreme Court for determination does not flow from dictates of political maturity. I have no quarrel with the Supreme Court because it is just like a machine. Whatever you send into the machine to grind, it will grind it. It is you who will know whether it is a case to be sent to the court or not.

Though Legally justifiable, it is a case that can constitutionally and legally be referred to the court but it is not all that is right that is expedient. Now the position taken by the South-South people is what I warned them about. I said the issue could only be really resolved by political negotiation through dialogue. That is what they should have done but they trusted in their knowledge, in their belief that they would win. Discretion is the better part of valour. You can say, okay you are annoyed, let us sit down around the table. We have given you 13 per cent from the onshore oil royalties, the offshore you know is far away and it doesn't spoil your crop so much like the other one. We can't give you more than three per cent or something because we have to use a lot of machinery and equipment to drill the oil.

It can only be really resolved by political negotiation through dialogue. If a decision is made in favour of the littoral states, the non-littoral sates will never be satisfied. If they gave judgement in favour of the littoral states the Federal Government might feel humiliated and the non-littoral states will say this is not fair.

Now the littoral states have done more than decrying the judgement. The Union of Niger Delta (UND) said the Supreme Court in passing the judgement on resource control misdirected itself, adding that the judgement was a further demonstration of the oppression of the Niger Delta people. When somebody says that we are oppressing him you better be careful. Have they accepted the judgement? They said the judgement amounts to a bid to rob. If people feel you are robbing them, they are calling you thieves. We shouldn't invite parts of the country to be so placed that they feel we are cheating them.

When you look at it, whose land is devastated? Whose land is blighted? Whose crops are destroyed? Whose livelihood, their vocations are destroyed? We say we give them 13 per cent, the other places, we don't know whether what we will get from there in future will be more than what we are getting here. We should not think they are fools.

I am not saying that the judgement lacks merit on all grounds but referring the case to the court in the first instance was a mistake, an error. I duly warned them. I don't think it is right to say that the judgement that was given is the only one that can be given if you critically examine the basis of the judgement. After all in America, which our people love to quote, the owner of the land is the person entitled to the proceeds of the oil. In Texas, they are entitled to 100 per cent. Why don't you quote that incident? If you give them 100 per cent on the onshore and say you are not going to give them something on the offshore than may be understood. But you give them only 13 per cent and you say you are giving them nothing on the offshore where as in America that you are citing as an example they are giving them 100 percent on the onshore.

In the 1960 constitution as well as in the 1963 constitution, we said the regions were entitled to the proceeds of oil. It is only these military constitutions that said the offshore especially the 1999 one) should go to the Federal Government. The former constitutions vest them in the regions. Now you make a law that is not satisfactory to one of the parties and you say go to law. That may be abstract justice, it is not real justice.

The treaties they are referring to on offshore and continental shelf are treaties between nations or among nations. You can't say because Nigeria and Cameroon or any other country signed a treaty about how far Nigeria could claim offshore oil therefore that prevents you from making concessions to your own people. Supposing the people as they are threatening to do, say they want to leave Nigeria? Without them you couldn't get this offshore. So we have to be sensible. Discretion is the better part of valour.

I feel disturbed about the situation in Nigeria. The British came here, we thought they were oppressing us. We resisted the oppression. Some of us did our very best to see that we terminated the oppression. Now, we should be the people who should not oppress others. We should not cheat others we should not exploit others. Haven resisted people cheating us we should not cheat others.

It seems to me that the further away you are from where the resources of this country are produced, the better you profit from it. The people who are nearer, who are proximate to the source of the resource are poor. During the Oputa panel sittings I shuddered to see the depravity of the people in the oil producing areas. I don't think it is right for us to feel that as long as we can hoodwink, pull the wool on the face of our unfortunate brothers, wave our authority and powers and the amount of weapons we can use to level them, we wouldn't have a conscience.

I will want us to recognise the fact that God gave them the wealth and he knew what he was doing. How many of us will want our own heritage, in our own area to be devastated, exploited and expended for the common good with the result that we will be the people who suffer as a consequence? As a result of the exploitation of their natural resources, you blight and vandalise the place. We should show some concern to our brothers in the oil producing areas.

That is why we should say because of the devastation of their forests, blighting of their areas and destruction of their occupations and means of livelihood, we are giving them this in addition to what we have been giving them. Maybe about 33 per cent would be adequate. I would suggest 33 per cent.

But I want to enter a caution here, a caveat. Whatever we give them under 33 per cent should not go to the state government alone. It should also go to the local government and the communities. I am proposing a theory of one-third; one-third; one-third. One-third to the state government, from that one-third it is divided into three, one-third to the local government and one-third to the community. And then of course, in the community, you have to find out whose farms because you may be in a community and you are not affected. We must have a sense of equity and justice.

April 2002