By Idowu Akinlotan
Their arguments about who owns the oil in the Niger Delta region may not qualify as the controversy of the year, but they typify the continuing frustrations faced by Niger Deltans and the unending nonchalance of Nigerian rulers. More than sixty years after oil was discovered in the troubled region, the country is still unable to find the right formula by which the oil could be mined without jeopardising the interests of the region. The combatants in the controversy are ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Information minister Edwin Clark, the former as irritable and imperious as they come, and the latter impatient and iconoclastic.
Responding to Clark’s dismissive characterisation of the former president as spiteful because he insists Nigeria, not Niger Delta, owns the oil in the region, the former president takes the legalistic view that until the constitution is amended or the federation dissolved, mineral resources found anywhere in Nigeria belongs to the whole country, not the location where it is found. He quotes Section 140 of the 1963 Constitution referenced by Clark as proof to justify his position. Obasanjo is right to assert that Nigerian constitutions, including the current one, appropriated mineral resources to the country, regardless of the distortionary activities of states like Zamfara in gold mining.
Obasanjo, sadly, does not stop at proving his case legally and constitutionally, nor empathising with the blighted region for the decades of despoliation that rendered the Niger Delta generally unlivable in the midst of plenty. Apart from needlessly and mendaciously burnishing his achievements and credentials as a nationalist, military head of state and later elected president, not to say his years as a military commander during the civil war, the former president also unscientifically argues that had federal forces lost the civil war, the Niger Delta would have lost all claims to the oil in their region, with Biafra taking everything. How he comes to that dismaying conclusion is hard to tell. It has taken decades, and at horrifying costs, to concede the little Nigeria allocates for the development of the Niger Delta. Nothing suggests that had Biafra won the war, similar or bigger concessions would not have been made to the oil region in the many decades after the war.
Clark on the other hand takes the ethical approach to the whole saga, a perspective misconstrued by Obasanjo probably because of some of the errors contained in the former Information minister’s open rebuke. As far as dates, figures, percentages, and other facts are concerned, Obasanjo has the upper hand, and Clark will have to sharpen his records well in order to contest the arguments of those who hide behind the exactitudes of the constitution to perpetrate injustice and unfairness. Nigeria has been unfair to the Niger Delta because the constitution partly enables such unfairness. It is, however, in the power of the country’s political authorities, as years of negotiations suggest in discussions to revise the derivation formula upward, to ensure that the Niger Delta is not disadvantaged in the mindless and greedy expropriation of the region’s mineral resources. Clark may not have articulated his points well, surrendering in some instances to sheer emotionalism, but the Niger Delta is right to fume against pollution and skewed allocation of mining licences. The region has borne, and is still bearing, a disproportionate and stifling cost of Nigeria’s oil mining.
It is remarkable that about three years as military head of state and eight years as elected president did not afford Obasanjo the opportunity to closely reassess Nigeria’s national question. In debunking Clark’s ‘parochial’ approach to oil ownership, he lionises those who fought to keep Nigeria one without any consideration of the issues over which the war was fought, except to insinuate that the Niger Delta was getting the best deal under the present arrangement. He speaks of how his presidency was fair to the oil region, almost as if he was their main champion, and as if no one could do better. Even the Odi, Bayelsa State, massacre carried out only months after he assumed office in 1999 has receded into distant, expiatory memory. He extols his own character with his customary Pharisaical doublespeak, describing himself as God-fearing and respectful, and all but insisting he has no guile, since he is not ‘hypocritical, inconsistent, and unstatesmanlike’. And forgetting how he had repeatedly excoriated President Muhammadu Buhari in letter after letter, he accuses Clark of using ‘uncouth and offensive’ language in his open letter.
The critical question is whether the Niger Delta has felt well treated by Nigeria in the mining of oil in the region. The answer is of course no. Could the situation be ameliorated? The Niger Delta answers yes, citing their campaign to raise derivation to 25 percent. Obasanjo, on the other hand, sidesteps that question and does not provide any extraordinary insight into how the oil region could have been better treated in a country wholly and foolishly dependent on oil receipts. If eleven years in office didn’t lead the former president into original thoughts on how to politically rearrange the country, his feelings occluded by inordinate sense of entitlement and self-glorification, they should have at least led him to produce original ideas on how to enthrone a fair economic arrangement for the country, assuming he has the capacity to disambiguate those two complex and intertwined issues. After he concluded that Biafra would have given the Niger Delta a much worse deal than Nigeria is giving the region, Obasanjo virtually shut the door on the oil region, in much the same way, but less hostilely, the Buhari presidency has treated the Niger Delta. There won’t be change now or in the near future, and when men of caliber like Clark leave the scene, it will be even much worse for the region which will be deprived of notable champions. Discovering oil in the Bauchi Basin will not lead to any attenuation of the hostile and predatory treatment inflicted on the Niger Delta.
Both Obasanjo and Clark raised pertinent issues about the mining of gold in Zamfara, particularly the offensive manner it was exhibited right under the nose of a quiescent and lethargic federal government. For strange reasons, little is likely to be done to correct the Zamfara anomaly. There are many other economic anomalies in the country; but as long as the oil in the Niger Delta continues to flow, and the price remains fairly stable or is worth the effort, and fossil fuel is still in demand, the Niger Delta will continue to hold the short end of the stick. They will look on wistfully as some parts of the country are turned into mimic Dubais, and they will complain in vain about the pollution and degradation they have been sentenced to. As Obasanjo cynically infers, the region must swallow its pride and reconcile itself with the dynamics of the oil industry and thank God it is not much worse for them.
CDS Irabor and insecurity
Until Nigeria gets its definitions and concepts exactly right, they will always be confused about the scope and magnitude of their objectives in fighting insecurity. There is no doubting the commitment of men and women in the security services who have been put in charge of dealing with the country’s security challenges. The problem, however, is determining exactly what is expected of them, and how far they can go. For instance, speaking at the decoration of newly promoted military officers in Abuja last Thursday, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Lucky Irabor, gave an omnibus charge to the men of the services in their battle against insecurity. Said he: “You need to escalate your level of commitment, your level of efficiency and effectiveness because if 2021 is challenging, I like to assure you that 2022 will be more challenging and that is the reason I like to call on you to please brace up because you must at all cost take away every form of insecurity in our land.”
He is right to anticipate increasing challenges this year, following on the heels of the unquantifiable challenges of 2021, and he is also right to demand higher degree of efficiency and commitment from the promoted officers. But to expect them to ‘take away every form of insecurity in our land’, perhaps simply by the force of arms, is not only expansive, it is clearly unrealistic and unattainable. The military could not execute that order even if they had the power. The reason is the quantum of factors that constitute insecurity in the country, factors that include social, cultural, religious, political and economic. Not only is it a mistake to saddle the military with the task of combating sundry crimes like kidnapping and armed robbery, it is a bigger misdirection of effort to deploy them in tackling crimes such as kidnapping and even cultism as they have sometimes been tasked with.
Gen. Irabor can expect so much from his men, and in addition charge them to be effective and efficient, but it is inconceivable that they can stamp out insecurity in its every form. It dissipates the military, weakens them professionally, overstretches them in deployment, and dampens their morale when they are unable to successfully execute orders they are not trained and even equipped to deal with. That they carry heavier firepower than any other security and law enforcement agency wields is no reason to deploy them in tasks that clearly distract their professional training.
Speaker Gbajabiamila embraces reality
If anybody is in doubt what the National Assembly will do with the Electoral Act Amendment Bill when lawmakers resume from recess in January, they only need to read between the lines and decipher House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamilla’s interactions with the press in Lagos last Thursday. The Speaker was at his constituency last week to commission some projects when reporters asked him about the fate of the troubled bill, particularly concerning the direct primary provision that has seemed to endanger that highly publicised piece of legislation. Though he did not have the final say, he said cautiously, the legislature might expunge the direct primary provision from the amendment in order to get it represented to the president for assent.
Few Nigerians have been vociferously in favour of the needless amendment compelling all political parties to use the direct primary mode in nominating their standard-bearers. Most of Nigeria’s enlightened opinion leaders were reluctant to embrace a piece of legislation that seemed to take sides in the episodic dispute between governors and lawmakers over who controls their parties. Those who supported the amendment never bothered to ask what would happen if on a hypothetical tomorrow direct primary became the bogeyman for lawmakers and a useful tool in the hands of governors to whip the lawmakers. Would they again amend the constitution? Thankfully, civil society organisations are cautious about the amendment and, after the president withheld assent, have quickly asked the legislature to do away with it in order not to endanger the whole amendment believed to be crucial to the next set of elections.
On Friday, the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, weighed in and did not substantially differ from Hon Gbajabiamila. Considering the way the legislative leaders handled the inflamed passion that followed the president’s refusal to assent the bill, it was clear they never gave thought to overriding the presidential veto. It was not just their natural affinity to genuflect before the executive that led them to smother the debates and adjourn sittings; they had probably reconsidered their dispute with the governors as unworthy of the gravity lent to that piece of legislation, and perhaps the fact that not too many Nigerians seemed enchanted by the superfluous amendment anyway. When the country finally heard from Sen Lawan, his views on direct primary was as conciliatory as those of Hon Gbajabiamila. For both gentlemen, that piece of troublesome legislation is not worth jeopardising the cosy relationship they had built and sustained with the executive over the years.
That Nigeria’s typically censorious civil societies and so many other opinion moulders could disregard the provision of direct primary in the bill must be an indication that few wished what should normally and customarily be a party affair to be elevated into a national affair. Before NASS reconvenes this month, passions will have cooled considerably. Legislative leaders have seen reason; lawmakers will also come round eventually. There is no contrivance by which the direct primary provision could be resuscitated, nor can anything be done to stop the depletion of the ranks of its proponents in the legislature. The mode of nominating candidates is strictly a party affair, just like other modes, including indirect primary and consensus. It is pointless entering into a debate on which mode is the best. Each party knows it owes the electorate accountability; wishing to find favour in the next polls, they will deploy the best and most acceptable and rewarding mode of primary for their party. And if against all odds they nominate unpopular standard-bearers, regardless of the mode of primary deployed, they will fall on their swords.
It is reassuring that legislative leaders can read the pulse of the country. Voters want lawmakers to desist from micromanaging political parties; it is not their business. Hon Gbajabiamila has been forthright in claiming responsibility for inspiring the idea of legislating direct primary, and is sensible enough to know when to throw in the towel. Even though in his interactions with the media last week he still managed to confuse the rejection of legislatively imposing a mode of primary on all parties with his arguments about the beauty and unassailability of direct primary, he probably now understands that no one is quarreling with direct primary, or any other type of primary for that matter. What everyone is saying, disregarding populists who ascribe all kinds of motives to those who oppose the legislation, is that how political parties nominate their candidates should be left to the parties.
The Nation
