06072021 - We must okay FG's security operations in our states- Southern Govs

14 — Vanguard, TUESDAY, JULY 6, 2021
Bloody PIB and restructuring: Not yet uhuru
BY SOLA EBISENI
EVENTS in Nigeria are so
intractable and occur with
such rapidity that the trouble of
each day is more than enough
even for a week and get sons of
men so confounded. Just within a
week, the Nigerian security forces
which have been so helpless and
hapless in the hands of terrorist
killer herdsmen and bandits
surprised the world in a gestapo
operation in bringing Mazi
Nnamdi Kanu back to Nigeria
from only God knows country.
President Muhammad Buhari
appears to have succeeded with
Kanu what he narrowly but
tactically missed in 1984 when his
military regime drugged and
bagged Shagari’s Minister of
Transportation, Umaru Dikko, to
be flown back to Nigeria but
foiled at Heathrow Airport in the
UK. However, whatever the
gravity of the allegations against
Kanu, which he has often denied,
beyond vulgar abuses, he enjoys
the presumption of innocence
while the State has the burden to
prove his guilt in a trial that will
no less put Nigeria itself on trial
before the international
community.
Kanu is now a child of the world
and humanity watches beyond the
fatal judgement of smiling
crocodiles and dancing pythons.
Just like the Nigerian State
tactlessly radicalised Kanu and
his followers, it has started with
Sunday Adeyemo (Igboho) whose
life the security forces narrowly
missed in that official banditry
operation in his house last
Wednesday night. Of course, only
the DSS believed its own story,
including the unilateral
advertisement of AK-47 rifles,
which Nigerians have often seen
branded by terrorists in the
presence of our security men and
political actors in league with
professional negotiators with
bags full of money in the course
of negotiations to free victims of
kidnapping and banditry.
Victims of kidnapping
and banditry
Rather, even a casual observer
of events in Nigeria believes that
the only reason for which the life
of Sunday Igboho is endangered
is his resistance to the rape of
women, kidnapping for ransom,
destruction of farms and
economic activities and wanton
killings of people in the Ibarapa
area in particular and Yorubaland
in general. The invasion of his
house, including the barbarity of
killings and the inexplicable
destruction of his property, reeks
more of some personal or ethnic
vengeance.
The Yoruba self-determination
campaign by Igboho, brought
about by government constructive
complicity and mute indifference
(apology to Frantz Fanon) to
terrorist herders ethnic militias,
is nonetheless conducted
responsibly, peacefully within the
confines of the Constitution, law
and permissible standards of
international conventions and,
therefore, legitimate. The crowd
of Yoruba nation campaigners
who boldly thronged Lagos in
spite of the mayhem in Igboho’s
home and his absence and
notwithstanding the bullying
operational armada of the
Nigerian security allied forces,
inadvertently set in motion the
untold radicalisation of Igboho
and the adherents of his message,
including the symbolism of the
presence of traditional
worshippers.
Igboho, from his state of
relative obscurity, is irreverently
thrown on the centre stage of
national discourse, now seeing
himself in the ideological image
of Ken Saro Wiwa, having
conquered fear. The pro-Nigerian
preaching of restructuring by the
pacifist elite and their
organisations, including the apex
Afenifere, is becoming unpopular,
if not odious, in the ears of the
ordinary Yoruba folks who rather
prefer Igboho's sermons.
PIB and restructuring. The
noise that would have traced the
The PIB and
all it
represents
simply
compound
the problem
of resource
allocation
and justice in
a federation
passage of
the jinxed
Petroleum
Industry
Bill, PIB,
w a s
drowned in
the blood of
the citizens
killed at
Igboho's
house and
on which the
national
parliament
stepped to
pass the bill. The cacophony of
unwarranted war against
freedom of expression and of
peaceful protest at Ojota Lagos
by the combined team of all
Nigerian security forces against
armless and harmless Yoruba
nation campaigners was so
defeaning as to pale the PIB into
insignificance.
The final product of the PIB is
yet to unfold; nonetheless our
people, particularly of the Niger
Delta, to which I belong in all
ramifications, should be curious
at the ease with which the Bill was
now passed, having been jinxed
since it was first introduced in
2008 by the Obasanjo
administration. Unknown to
most restructuring agitators,
President Buhari has perfected his
restructuring plans, using several
Nigerians, including particularly
members of the National
Assembly, sometimes as innocent
agents, apologies to our leader,
Chief Ayo Adebanjo.
The President only unfolded his
restructuring agenda in his recent
interview with the Arise
Television. The top priority is land
use which the President thought
could be wrought as a security
compromise on the so called
herders/farmers clash which
would force the indigenous
people and governors of their
states to yield grounds for such
programmes as cattle colonies,
RUGA, NLTP and Water
Resources Bill, all of which have
been rejected by the peoples and
governments of particularly
southern and Middle Belt states
as surreptitious land grabbing
devices.
The hint last week by the
Secretary to the Federal
Government, Mr. Boss Mustafa,
of plans to amend the Land Use
Act, which the National Assembly
cannot do because of the
constitutional status of the Act, is
part of the unrelenting efforts of
the Buhari administration to
change the land use structure
against state control. It is a
government policy brazenly
aimed at legalising trespass on
the lands of other peoples and
nationalities across Nigeria by
local and foreign herders of a
predominant ethnic nationality.
Governments, states or federal,
have no powers to compulsorily
acquire personal or community
land except for overriding public
purposes, which cannot be
interpreted to include grazing
routes for the personal enterprise
of other citizens not to talk of
foreign nomads.
The current target is the oil and
gas and the South-South region
in general. The PIB just passed by
the National Assembly is meant
to douse the tension of
restructuring momentarily in the
Niger Delta while surreptitiously
using it as a veritable weapon to
prepare the North for the
eventuality of any form of change
affecting the federation. The first
subterfuge is the proposed
incorporation of the Nigeria
National Petroleum Corporation
as a limited liability company to
be known as NNPC Limited. For
whatever the legislators feel that
is worth, it makes no real
difference as the ownership of all
shares in the company is vested
in the government and held by the
Ministry of Finance Incorporated
on behalf of the government.
With the Minister of Petroleum
Resources being the President
himself, and of the same region
with the Minister of Finance and
the Group Managing Director of
the NNPC, who will transmute to
the CEO of the new company, it is
clear that the envisaged changes
are only in the imagination of the
legislators particularly those of
the Niger Delta and the entire
South who are thereby deceived.
The approval of “thirty per cent
of NNPC Limited’s oil and gas
profit in the production sharing,
profit sharing, and risk service
contracts to fund the exploration
of frontier basins” is the most
unwieldy provision in the new
law. In the first place, if the amount
is meant for exploration to boost
existing reserves, why limit the
search to and specifically
mention the “frontier basins” with
obvious legal definition problems
in the future. It is an important
canon of interpretation of statutes
that the expression of one thing is
the exclusion of the other because
it is reasoned that if the legislature
had meant to include a particular
thing within the ambit of its
legislation, it would have referred
to that thing expressly.
Besides, the legislated
expenditure of 30 per cent of the
profit of the company is a blank
cheque which nurtures and
nourishes sharp practices
ultimately. Moreover, in the light
of the provisions of section 162.
(1) which creates “the Federation
Account” into which shall be paid
all revenues collected by the
Government of the Federation..”,
it is left to be seen if the National
Assembly has power to make law
to deduct part of the profits of the
NNPC which is payable into the
federation account. The
legislative authority of the
National Assembly on the
exclusive legislative list is
“accounts of the Government of
the Federation, and of offices,
courts, and authorities thereof,
including audit of those
accounts”.
Host community
development fund
Whether as a commission,
corporation or government
owned company, the Federal
Government can only fund its
Agencies from its own shares of
the Federation Account. For
instance, the Niger Delta
Development Commission,
NDDC, is funded, not from the
federation account, but by the
Federal Government. Ditto for
the newly created North East
Development Commission,
NEDC.
The three or five per cent, as
against 10 per cent asked by host
communities, is levied on the
operating expenditure of oil
companies, OPEX, annually as
contribution to the host
community development fund. It
is meant as a quantifiable
corporate social responsibility.
The oil producing states are
already being blackmailed that
such contribution is estimated at
some $500 million annually
whereas the cost to the federation
account of the 30 per cent of the
NNPC profit to exploration which
may be illusory in several areas
is equally imaginary.
For some gerrymandering
effect, the Senate claimed to have
consulted with the Minister of
State for Petroleum Resources to
give our people a false sense of
belonging.
Those whose hopes were raised
by the President’s promise to
accede to restructuring once the
National Assembly brought the
bill to him, now know better. The
PIB and all it represents simply
compound the problem of
resource allocation and justice in
a federation. We agree with
PANDEF that “the PIB falls short
of the expectations of the Niger
Delta people”. It is not an
alternative to restructuring. It is
not yet uhuru.
•Ebiseni is the Secretary General
Afenifere
:Vanguard
News
Expedite action in
completing 2nd
Niger Bridge
project, Anglican
Communion tells
FG
By Chimaobi Nwaiwu
NNEWI—THE Church of
Nigeria, Diocese on the Niger, Anglican
Communion, has called on the
Federal Government of Nigeria to expedite
action in completing the ongoing
second Niger Bridge project, saying that
there is need to increase the tempo of
work on the project.
A statement jointly signed by the Bishop,
Diocese on the Niger, Rt. Rev. Owen
Nwokolo; Chancellor of the Diocese, Sir
Nnamdi Ibegbu, SAN, and Synod Secretary
of the Diocese, Venerable John
Nkwoemezie, expressed satisfaction
with the commitment of President Muhammadu
Buhari's administration in delivering
the bridge in 2022 as promised.
Diocese on the Niger however regretted
the alleged total neglect of southern
roads which it said has resulted in total
dilapidation of the existing roads within
the geographical zone, urging the Federal
Government to do all within their
means to commence the construction
of federal roads within the zone.
Similarly, the Diocese expressed satisfaction
with what it called 'matchless
developmental strides' of Governor Willie
Obiano in Anambra State, particularly
the building of Anambra State International
Cargo Airport.
While commending Governor Obiano
on other achievements of his administration,
the Diocese reminded him
about some of the promises he made
that are yet to be fulfilled, which included
completing the road leading from
Onitsha-Enugu express road to Progressive
School Umunya, which is now the
site for the proposed University on the
Niger and the road leading to St Christopher's
Junior Seminary, 3-3, Onitsha.
Okowa not
obstacle to rotation
of power in Delta
—Oghenesivbe
ASABA—A chieftain of the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP, and Executive
Assistant to the Governor of Delta
State on Communications, Chief Dr Fred
Latimore Oghenesivbe, JP, has dismissed
negative insinuations making the rounds
that governor Ifeanyi Okowa, is not favourably
disposed to power rotation in the state.
Oghenesivbe, who set the records
straight while speaking as a Special Guest
at the “Peoples Parliament,” a Bridge
FM Radio phone in live programme, in
Asaba on Friday July 2, 2021, disclosed
that the anger ragging over power rotation
arrangement was caused by some individual
members of the party, during the
governorship elections in 2015.
According to him, the very essence of
power rotation within PDP is to ensure
that the three senatorial districts; Delta
North, Delta Central and Delta South,
have equal opportunity to govern the state,
irrespective of population and geographical
size or economic endowment.
He noted that majority of Deltans are
very comfortable with the power shift thing,
and that it was heartwarming to hear from
royal fathers in the state, who recently
reaffirmed their unalloyed support for the
continuity and sustainability of the arrangement.
Okowa’s EAC, told listeners that in 2015,
some prominent stakeholders within Delta
PDP consciously and deliberately violated
the arrangement by contesting for
the office of Governor, when it was not the
turn of their senatorial districts to do so
under the Power Rotation Arrangement,
PRA, and therefore subjected the process
to a child’s play, and eventually made a
caricature of the entire PRA.
“The beauty of power rotation is that it
guarantees equity, peaceful coexistence
and unity in the state, which is why majority
of Deltans including royal fathers, are
in support of the process, insisting that it
must continue.‘‘