Niger Delta Human Development Report - UNDP Nigeria - United ...

that allows tourism to thrive and
supports a buoyant culture
As a development agency, the NDDC
quickly identified the need for a master plan
as part of its overall strategy, which has
now been completed. In the interim, the
NDDC board elaborated a plan involving
the construction of roads, shoreline
protection, rural and urban water supply
schemes, and the rehabilitation of schools
and health centres. This is in addition to
human capacity development in new centres
that help people acquire skills and build
sustainable livelihoods.
By November 2002, the board had
reported awarding contracts for more than
650 projects worth over N35 billion or US
$271.3 million in the nine states of the delta
region. The NDDC funding structure
includes contributions from the Federal
Government, the oil companies operating
in the region, the Ecological Fund and
member states in the delta. The Federal
Government accounted for 78.03 per cent
of the N44 billion or US $341.1 million
that was disbursed to the Commission
between 2001 and 2004. Annual federation
allocations to the NDDC from 2000 to
2004 are, respectively, N0.944 billion (US
$7.3 million), N10.0 billion (US $77.5
million), N13.9 billion (US $107.8 million),
N9.0 billion (US $69.8 million) and N14.0
billion (US $108.5 million). Member states
have yet to contribute directly to the
Commission, and there is continued
wrangling over the contributions from oil
companies. In spite of the provisions of
the NDDC Act on financing (see box 1.3),
the NDDC is facing some of the same
problems with funding that plagued
OMPADEC.
It is probably premature to assess the
achievements of either the NDDC or
similar state initiatives (see box 1.4). With
the production of a Regional Master Plan
for the Niger Delta, however, the NDDC
is at least poised for positive action on its
founding objectives. Earlier bodies had
never managed or bothered to produce a
plan, whether at regional or sectoral levels.
But the NDDC does not seem to have
made any positive impression on the
peoples of the Niger Delta. Comments by
participants at focus group discussions and
stakeholders’ meetings indicate that people
NIGER DELTA HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT
still see the NDDC as an imposition from
the Federal Government, and a top-down
approach to development planning and
implementation. The local people had no
say in determining its composition; it
primarily comprises appointees of the
Federal Government. As far as ordinary
people are concerned, the loyalty of the
NDDC is not to the Niger Delta but to
the Federal Government and the oil
companies that provide the bulk of its
budget.
Revenue Allocation
The politics and dynamics of revenue allocation
have also manifested in attempts to
address the peculiar development challenges
of the Niger Delta as an oil-producing
region. At the root of the amalgamation
of the Southern and Northern Protectorates
by Lord Lugard in 1914 was the
issue of cross-subsidization—the richer
South would subsidize development
endeavours in the poorer North. The level
of cross-subsidization was not clearly specified.
The first attempt to write down the
basis and levels of sharing revenues among
the component units (or regions, as they
were then called) of the Nigerian Federation
was in 1946, when the Phillipson Fiscal
Commission, set up by the Colonial
Administration, proposed the derivation
principle as a basis for fiscal federalism.
The idea was that revenue should be
shared, among other things, in proportion
to the contribution each region made to
the common purse or central government.
Derivation became the only criterion used
to allocate revenues among the regions in
the 1948-1949 and 1951-1952 fiscal years.
In the period shortly before independence
in 1960, the disparity in allocation largely
reflected the degrees of enterprise and levels
of production in the regions. This meant
that, by merely looking at the levels of allocations,
one could easily discern the regions
with high levels of economic activities
in areas such as cash crop production
(e.g., cocoa, rubber, palm oil, cotton, hides
and skins, groundnuts, etc), earnings from
export and excise duties, etc. The incentives
embedded in the revenue allocation
inevitably encouraged competition among
the regions, with each striving to contribute
more in order to get more from the
centrally allocated revenues.
The central control of
petroleum resources has
denied local people the
right to benefit from the
land on which they live.
People still see the NDDC
as an imposition from the
Federal Government,
and a top-down approach
to development planning
and implementation.
The local people had no
say in determining its
composition; it primarily
comprises appointees of
the Federal Government.
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